Bashed Around By Bali Waves

It's been a hot and humid few weeks in Bali. The average temperature is around 30 degrees centigrade and the average sweated out by yours truly is probably around 30 buckets too. Mmmm, nice! Jaaaaazz! I'm still sick, which is great! I've got a lingering cough that just won't go away and even though I've cut down drastically on the cigarette intake, for some reason, I just can't seem to shake it off, breaking into spasmodic coughing splurts at least a few times a day... especially when out surfing. But all said and done, that's why I'm here. I've had a couple of killer days out there with some mammoth waves ridden. Yesterday was probably the biggest. I got caught out with an enormous set though. I was just hanging back a little too much and one of these waves just caught me out. I met two cool guys out here. An Australian called Jamie and Nate who's from Santa Cruz in California. As the set approached, and I knew I wasn't gonna make it, I just started shouting out that this was me pretty much done. Nate started laughing his head off at the prospect as he was just able to make it out to the left of it. I bit the bullet and took it on the head. The wave was so powerful it just took me for a bit of a tumble-dryer maneuver. After about 10 seconds, I was back up to the surface of the water, only to see the second wave of the set coming at me. It was almost like as if it was an avalanche, plowing towards me in slow motion or like one of those clips from a movie, when the bad guy is about to get engulfed by a massive swirl of fire in a big tunnel or something. The wave was miles away but I could just see this great mass of tumbling, chaotic water rushing towards me. With a shake of the head, I just turned towards the shore, grabbed my rails and closed my eyes, letting it just rumble up behind me and slam me around like a little rag doll. I don't think I've had this much fun in ages! When I got to shore, I waited for Jamie and Nate to come back in. By the time they did, I'd seen enough to persuade me to get back out there. I grabbed my board and my flippers and rushed back in. It took me about 10 minutes to get in through the channel and out past the break. Once I did, I paddled over to a right break that peaked up with a couple of little waves, probably measuring up to about two and a half metres in height. I hung round for a little while, just waiting for my ride. I caught one and the drop was nuts. I struggled to cut into it to do the bottom turn but just about managed to ride it out. The good thing was that the right led you straight into the channel, so all I had to do was turn and get back out there again. I waited for a little while longer and finally got the wave I'd been waiting for. Once again, the drop was insane. Traveling faster than a speeding bullet, I remembered that unfortunately, I'd left my superman cape back home. I couldn't cut into this one in time. I turned a little bit but lost a flipper with the shear speed of the thing. By time I'd noticed, I looked over my shoulder to the right, only to see a massive two metre barrel about to collapse on me. Thinking about it, maybe I could have tried to cut and duck into it, but I reckon I must have made a split decision which was somewhere along the lines of a) choose life and b) a rather painful death. I'm pretty sure I made the right decision as I'm writing this blog right now so... yeah :-)