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Angry brown monsters

The mid-winter swell is large and angry, and the sun is already low in the sky when we get to the beach. I fight the urge to shiver, and unconsciously hold my breath as I pull the still dripping wetsuit over my back. The brown water rumbles in the background, a veritable washing machine, and I walk to the edge, slipping into my fins and preparing to slide into the water. Together, my friends and I watch the crashing monsters, and time our entry perfectly.

A small window opens, and we instinctively launch ourselves over the lathering foam. 

Immediately, the ice-cold water rushes down my back, and I’m sucking air hard, paddling like a madman, and aiming for the smoother water ‘out the back’. Before I know it, the intense 5 minute paddle is over and I’m sitting on my bodyboard, out the back of the line up, looking back at my dog and several of my friends who are still on the shore.

A brown monster looms, and I turn and flick my flippers, leaning into the drop and committing to the high speed take-off. The lip of the monster wraps over the face, and the sky goes dim under the cover of a watery shadow. There is a distant roar, coming from behind me, as the ball of foam created by the breaking wave builds and intensifies. I sense it nipping at my heels, seeking to envelop me. 

As if by magic, the speed of my take-off finally transfers to my board, and I am catapulted forward, away from the foam ball, through the lip curtain and out onto the face of the wave. 

On the shore, my friend Daryl is screaming with excitement. I realise that he is screaming because of the wave that I am riding. ‘Wave of the day’ he tells me later. ‘Wave of THE DAY’.

My board leaves a shiny white streak across the face of the wave, and I bounce across the shoulder and off the back of the wave. In a moment of synchronicity, the brown monster and I observe each other and smile. My heart, now beating so fast with delayed excitement, threatens to burst out of my mouth. And my eyes dart across the heaving mass of ocean, looking for another mountain of water to ride.

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