Around The World In 80 Waves

The swell at Ehukai has dropped considerably from the previous day’s competition but there are still a few rogue sets so I decide to head for Chun’s Reef, which is supposd to be a hotdogging wave and very much my style of surfing. This place is simply magical, there is a rainbow coming down on the peak with a pot of surfing gold underneath. However the rustiness I had feared on the previous session works its way out of me through this session instead. I paddle out the few hundred metres to the break with a handful of others just after the sun comes up but might just as well have introduced myself to them as Sir Dufus Kook. I have an absolute nightmare and am stacking every take off, and may have even perfected my ‘pearling’ technique where the front of my board jams into the wave on the way down the face so that I am proplled magnificiently through the air and then down on to the reef where the rest of the wave swiftly follows. My embarrassment is compounded by being in the water next to an absolutely stunning local girl who seems to be coping with the overhead surf rather better than I am.

The situation gets worse steadily as masive crowds arrive in the water. It is the weekend after all and everybody takes their boards to the beach just like at home. It is like surfer soup and super competitive and I am about to give up and paddle in without a surf, but then on my last wave of session I bag a beauty and snake along the face of the wave all the way in to the beach. Having been on so many naff trips in North Wales where it was onshore and howling a gale I have learned to be thrilled with just one wave (3 being a great session and anything more than that just being gravy on top) so am more than satisfied not to have blanked and leave the water on a high.

A bit of retail therapy and I check back into the Backpackers where I am sharing a chalet with surfers from Chile, Colombia, Romania, California, and the US midwest. It looks like a party crowd and I am here for three nights so there may be trouble ahead…