For the last few years I’ve lived a sedentary life, mostly exercising my mouse clicking finger and little more, so I packed a full supply of Advil in anticipation of the inevitable aches and pains of throwing my flaccid body into the tumbling waves. Well, my first dousing was a simulated one, but no less painful for it. My luggage was delayed in London, so with no swim trunks or sandals, on my first day I headed to the amazing Gateway Mall to pick up some cheap clothes. Turns out that Gateway has a simulated surfing and bodyboarding machine that was too fun to pass up. This amazing machine creates a perpetual wave, with an awesome barreling break. I started off on a boogey board to get a feel for the force of the wave, and after getting spat out the other end several times, got the feel for it. But when I tried to upgrade to the surfboard, my luck was far worse. I just couldn’t get the feel for it during the twenty or so minutes left in my session, despite the kind attention of some of the experts on hand. During my session on the wave, there were three hotshots and myself. So, while they were pulling verticals and 360s, I was just trying to stay on my feet for a few seconds before being pulled into the vortex. It was humbling, but I assure you, I was all smiles on the other end. This thing is a riot, and I’ll probably get back there later in the week to give it another try.

Later yesterday afternoon, I headed to Umhlanga Rocks to get some salt water in my lungs. It was almost the end of the day and the boogey board rentals were closed. So, I headed in for some body surfing instead. There was a wicked side current and it was almost a full time job just fighting to stay within view of the lifeguard tower. It was also a killer break, the ground dropping off quite quickly and the choppy waves breaking just 150 feet or so from shore. Again I was tossed and tumbled something fierce. After day one in the water, my feet are filled with abrasions, my elbows with bruises, and the rest of my body with a mild sunburn. But for all that, I’m having a blast.

Today I’ll be visiting my Dad and I’ll let you know how that goes. I’ll also be posting about the people and places as soon as I can. Cheers.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 1:41 pm and is filed under south africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.