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Published: July 24th 2009
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Surfing Chat: How to Play Your Mates Up
Obviously with all
nang sports comes the nang sports lingo. American Pie (the movie, in fact the greatest movie trilogy of all time - yep, Star Wars quite literally wasn't on the same planet!) had a formula for calculating how many boy/girlfriends you actually hooked up with at College. For guys you have to divide their claims by 3, and for girls you multiply by 3. You have to apply similar principles when listening to your surf buddies tell you how good the waves were when you weren't there. So, if I were to describe the waves we encountered on day 2 in Spain, I’d say they were double overhead (about chest high) - winds were light offshore, it was a glass-off (it was howling onshore about 20 mph), I got tubed/barrelled (I pulled into a close-out that landed on my head and I gashed my knees on the reef).
But the real fun happens in the water. If you're not stealing you're mates waves by dropping-in on them (ie taking off in front of them when they're already riding on the face of the wave) the best fun is
the chat in the water. Mark and I discovered a wonderful way of embarrassing our 'England Fitness Coach' mate, was to scream across the water to him (obviously when there's a large number of locals nearby, and in a high pitched voice, kinda like Allan Carr on helium) something along the lines of "Hiya Calvy, did you stand up on that one petal?" For maximum effect this should be accompanied by a Mr Bean like wave, and a longing smile from ear to ear. 9 times out of 10 this brings about an embarrassing laugh and some Franglaised attempts at asking the locals if they know who the two short fella's are screaming across the water. Job done.
The Road Trip North
We touched down in a small town about midway up the French coast that was a little Oasis. The lovely lady at the hotel gave us a restaurant and bar recommendation. Her advice, it transpired was cock-on! We had a cracking meal in what appeared to be the only restaurant in town and then having traipsed right across town looking for a bar (Calv wasn't convinced by the lovely hotelier's directions) we ended up in the
place we'd been advised to check out.
When we arrived, around 10pm, there were about 20 people in there - about 15 of whom were girls. The other five individuals, the barman, the DJ, and us three goons, were the the only blokes in the place. Bob on! To crank the dial up another notch it became apparent that the group of young girls in the corner were playing drinking games - probably some sort of sports team it looked like. We quietly sat down and supped our ales, well right up until the moment
Kool and the Gang and
Celebration started blasting out on the dance floor. At which point I decided to become a complete and utter lunatic. I took to the dance floor like a volunteer for the 2009 World Cheerleading Games.
Within seconds the dance floor was rammed. Unfortunately only one other person had joined me, but she was, as Calvin put it "a rather large unit," which I think at best was a minor understatement. I think Mark was a little less conservative. He described her as "the Fijian Blind-side prop." Unbeknownst to me, apparently she'd been bopping in her seat waiting for
the right moment to hit the floor, and upon seeing this maniac dancing like an acid pumped teenager she leapt up like a coiled slinky. Suddenly feeling like I was back at my high school prom (of course I never had a high school prom, because I'm English, and for that matter, technically, I never went to high school, I went to Secondary School, however, just play along with me on this...) only this time I was the one trying to be the
dumpee, not the
dumper - wow how different things look on this side of the fence. Still, I played along until Kool and his Gang had finally lost their interest in celebrating good times tonight, and were all out of good times, and laughter too, and frankly had had enough of celebrating my party with me, yahoo....
The only other point of note for the remainder of the evening were the salsa dancing hip swinging godesses that appeared on the dance floor - in fact, yeah this was definitely a point of note. Unfortunately the photos do the dancing about as much justice as OJ's criminal trial. Still, the moving picture version is indelibly etched into
my visual cortex, ready for instant retrieval as necessary. Happy days.
The return trip on the fezza was earmarked by me recounting stories of my youth to the boys, oh yeah and a Coastguard training exercise where, thundering along at sea cat speeds around 35 knots, in high winds, and appearing to be motionless above our ship the pilot hovered his chopper so effortlessly he was able to guide his winchman down onto the cat's deck, allowing him to step aboard as softly as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. That reminds me, I must make another donation to the Coastguard's chazzer. They got mad skills those fellas.
So, another surf trip came & went, and once again I have no tails of entering "the green room" or cranking a "360 rail grab," but if that's what you're holding out for, you're probably on the wrong website.
Until next time... (a 2009 season Brant Lake Blog)...
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Father Pete
non-member comment
Remember the family name
Better to be held up by a blindside prop than a frontline hooker.