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A Tale of the Surfboard — Part II
A Tale of the Surfboard — Part I
Swell upon swell traversed the immense Pacific. The daily ebb and flow of water waxed and waned on the sandy beaches of the coast. The sun walked across the day to rest at night in the horizon, and the interwoven swell and tide would occasionally reach a moment of synthesis and release rolling breakers for the pleasure of surfers.
The yellowed 5’8” swallow tail, although abandoned, did not remain unridden. Before leaving, the surfer cast off the board to his friend. Not as a gesture of generosity, but the friend saw it as such, and happily added the board to his quiver.
The friend surfed.
He found the board responsive in the small swells of summer. The wider nose lent itself to nearly every wave and made playful lines in the summer ocean. Even days in the winter, the friend brought the fish to 26th Ave to take off late on the hollow beach break. But, the friend wasn’t dependent on the board as the man once was. Many days the yellowed fish was left to hang from the ceiling in the friend’s room.
On a windy winter day, the clouds hung heavy in the sky and painted a grey film across the sky and ocean. There seemed to be clouds in the water as well–some kind of darkness in wait underneath the surface. It smelt like rain. A dreary scene that keeps most people inside, yet for surfers, it is just another day to get in the water.
The friend took the yellowed fish with him to Rockview. The tide was low exposing the reef and rocks, but there was swell in the water, and so he suited up and jumped from the rocks into the cold salty sea. The lineup wasn’t too crowded, most everyone choosing Pleasure Point or 26th Ave instead.
The first wave of every session reminds the surfer how to surf. This isn’t like riding a bike. The wave has changed with the swell, wind and tide, and the surfer needs to learn how to surf once more. The muscles won’t remember on their own. A surfer’s legs need to be reminded what it means to stand on a board on a moving wave. A recent memory of paddling, explains why the arms slightly ache. The surfer’s timing may be a little late or early. When the first wave comes lifting the surfer and his board, it pushes him into that moment. Where do the feet go? Where is my center of gravity? All these questions are answered in less than a moment as the board begins the drop and the surfer pushes to his feet to ride down the cresting wave.
Hopefully.
On this day, the friend was late to his feet. Instead of the glide of the board on the face of the wave, he became weightless as the lip folded over on the wave. The friend and yellowed fish hit the water and the lip followed shortly to push and pull on the friend’s joints and the board’s leash. If it weren’t for where the friend took off, this would have been a normal fall. The wave would’ve rumbled past, leaving the surfer to quickly pop up and get on the board, paddle out and try again.
But that day the tide was low. The surfer took off in front of the rock at Rockview.
The crack on the board was not beyond repair. It just needed a couple hours of care and attention. Cut out the jagged edges of the ding, and fill it with some Q-cell filler. Sand down the Q-cell so that it is flush with the rest of the board. A little resin and glass over the top, wait again for it to dry, and then gently and carefully sand it again until it is flush. But the ding in the friend’s head was not so easily fixed.
The force of the fall and the push of the wave drove the surfer’s head into the shallow reef, hitting a sharp exposed piece of rock. The impact cracked the friend’s skull. The angle of impact compressed the vertebrae in his neck and spinal cord snapping them with a muted crack underwater. He couldn’t move his body any more. The brain no longer had control.
And so, he floated face down. Blood flowed from his head. He sucked in the cold salt water with shallow breaths, and drowned before anyone else in the lineup noticed.
The surfboard returned to its place in the friend’s room to hang unused, broken and cracked.
To Be Continued…
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