Saturday morning dawned in Currarong, and I wasn’t nearly as sore as I expected after yesterday’s paddle. After a leisurely breakfast I pulled out of the creek and around the headland, heading for Jervis Bay. The wind and swell had swung more easterly, which males for a different sort of paddling. In a wind-swell, the waves form peaks which gradually build energy until they peak in a whitecap. As they so they send a secondary ripple out at about 30 degree to the direction of the main wave. Yesterday, with the wind directly behind me I could surfing the main swell. Today I was surfing the secondary ripple. It runs nicely across the face of the main swell direction, wave, and you can usually aim for the back of oncoming waves to stay with it. every now and then though, you run straight into a peaking wave. One option is to turn towards that swell, staying dry but losing momentum. The other option, the one I’m working on, is to throw yourself forward and to the high side as you approach the wave. This sinks the nose of the kayak into the oncoming swell and, at least in theory, catches the edge and turns you down the face of the oncoming wave. If it all goes to plan you surf this wave for a while before carving off into the next subsidiary ripple. In practice, what usually happens is that the whole wave lands on your head as you brace heavily to stay upright. I’m working on it.
Playing with the surf all day really brings you into contact with your emotions. One minute you can be perched on the lip of a wave and feel nothing but exhilaration. The next, you feel nothing but fear. Its not the wave that changes, it’s the state of mind, and that got me thinking about some of reasons for doing this trip. When I tell people about the trip, some people immediately focus on the dangers, the horror stories, the Bass Strait, sharks, hypothermia. Then there are others whose first reaction is of delight - how much fun, how spectacular, how incredible an adventure it will be. Its as if every person is perched on the edge of a wave, taking the trip with me as they see it in their mind, choosing fear or exhilaration. For me, one of the reasons for the trip is to overcome fear. Not to say that I won’t ever be scared. There are times when I expect to be afraid, very afraid, in circumstances where there is real physical danger. That type of fear is healthy and justified, it can keep you alive.
The fear that needs to be overcome is of the pointless type, the fear of he unknown, the fear that stops us trying something new, the nameless, shapeless fear that holds court in the back of our minds and squashes our impulses, prevents us from following our dreams, fulfilling our potential, running in the rain.