Moments of Magic or Orca Sighting at Chesterman Beach.
(Please note - unlike traditional Japanese scientific whale studying expeditions -no actual whales were turned into sashimi hurt or even sighted during this episode of our adventures.) We took a surf lesson at Tofino. Yes, we travelled all the way from Oz to cold water surf on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Yes, our instructor was Australian. Yes, we have relatives that live by the beach and who can surf. No, they have never manage to teach us anything about surfing. Why? Because every time a good wave comes along they catch it and bugger off. Was the lesson worth it? Absolutely! Our instructor, from Nelson Bay was witty, patient and informative. He also left his surf board on the beach. Before taking a plunge, he guided us in the basics, such as paddling, how to master the 'pop- up', carrying our board, putting on our wetsuits, reading the surf, surfing etiquette and what to do when face to face with a surf nazi or killer whales. There is a lot of them in the water. They are highly evolved intelligent creatures, hunt in packs and are absolutely ruthless. He told us about how he watched a pair wash seals off the rocks into each other's jaws. I think he was talking about orcas. Canadian surfers only eat seals when marooned on an iceberg. The wetsuits almost made us immune to the cold water. There is a whole movement called Cold Water Surfing and the greatest fanatics are from Ireland (although I think there is a couple who live at Mereweather beach, Newcastle). Enough said. The wetsuits kept the cold at bay but they made movement almost impossible. While the girls looked cute, I looked more like a local. All the seals disappeared and the other surfers drifted away. I heard someone yell, it was probably the cynical hippy in dreadlocks, 'For God's sake, somebody call Greenpeace!' It's alright to make jokes about yourself, but when someone else does I find it quite insulting, especially when they're not funny. Bloody hippy - just because he has dreadlocks he thinks he's cool. Well let me tell you, if he was any more unhip his bloody pants would fall off! Shannon, our friendly instructor from West Side Surf School finally let us leave the beach and hit the waves. Which was just in time because I'm pretty sure I saw a Japanese guy running down the beach with a harpoon and filleting knife. Mary wandered off to take photos of the barnacles and sea stars (Canadian for star fish). The girls took to it effortlessly. I had a bit more trouble. I discovered boogie boards are really quite polite. Like star fish, they don't have a mind of their own. That's why I like them. I wish I had a few more students like that. Surf boards on the other hand seem to have the same mentality as a mad Arab bronco with a bogon flea infested flank strap. Another thing I discovered was that belly flopping off a surf board hurts. Even when protected by my wetsuit's thirty layers of synthetic blubber. To make it worse, since arriving in Canada I have added a couple more layers of blubber that are all my own and that meant there was a lot more of me to feel the pain. But worse than that, I don't know if it's the shape of my perogy inflated beer gut or whether it happens to all men but when I belly flop my nether regions take the full force of the initial impact. Lucky it was cold! Even so, my underwater cries of anguish have probably already entered the lexicon of unrequited love songs sung by lost sperm whales in the South Pacific. After a couple of hours Shannon went home. I think it was because the lesson was over. We surfed on for another hour. Exhausted we made our way back to camp and had a rest. Undaunted we went back in the afternoon, the girls played on the beach and I hit the surf. I looked up to see where the girls had got to and noticed this young surfer chick heading down to the beach with this huge surf board under one arm. I stopped to watch and as she got closer (the optometrist did warn me) I saw that it was Til. Some guy said to her, 'Catch a ripper dude!' She caught the first wave like a pro'. We spent another couple of hours out there. We even caught some real waves. Moments of magic. Greenpeace did not arrive and and the Japanese harpoonist was still trying to hire a long boat when we left the water. I managed to get out of my orca skin almost by myself. It's a few days later and I have stopped aching. Life is good and when I go home I think I want to live near a surf beach. A beautiful surf beach with gentle rolling waves, far away from cynical hippies and, just in case I need to put on another cold water wetsuit, it had also better be a long way from Japan. I'm thinking, South Coast, Mallacoota. That should be just about right. |