Two years ago now, I embarked on a journey to the wild coast of West Africa with two fellow explorers, Joe Curren and the legendary Sam George. We spent three weeks looking for waves, journeying upriver to admire regal elephants, monkeys, crocodiles and surprisingly dangerous hippos, before taking a flight to Sao Tome (the second smallest nation in Africa) to search for a particular African surfer. It was an incredible trip. I wrote about it in a previous blog post that can be viewed by clicking the "May 2007" archive link on the right side of this page.
The result of the trip was a movie that won a few awards on the independent film circuit and has shown on Rush HD TV. To make the story more dramatic, the first half of our trip in which we missed a flight, spent a couple days in Belgium, then surfed the wild coast of Gabon was eliminated from the film. I hadn't seen any of that footage until I came across the following video on youtube. Instantly, that feeling of adventure and excitement that comes from the exploration of a new place came pouring over me. At a time when I feel ecstatic to have woken up in my own bed this morning and equally pleased with the knowledge that I will be sleeping there for another two weeks having just returned from a nearly non-stop 3 month travel tour to Australia, Nicaragua, and Tahiti, it is amazing that a simple 6 minute video can still bring back that urge to get on a plane. I hope it will inspire you to step out of your comfort zone and go explore the world.
And just in case you are interested in the other part of the trip, the section that made the film, here is the trailer:
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Galloping Time
There’s an onomatopoetic whisper
Of the breeze
Rustling leaves
At the tops of trees
So I stand here draped in shadow
To listen quietly
And breathe
Noticing the forest entities of most beauty
Are not the young ones; tall, perfect, symmetrical
But those standing leafless in barren contorted dignity
And those especially with a base of glaring holes,
Or burn marks long since quenched
Reaching higher to spite trauma -
The in-organic fertilizer of wisdom.
The secrets here settle in, grow a thick moss and give life to ferns.
Large smooth stones give voice to rivers.
Birds echo shrilly from somewhere out of sight.
A slither of black scales startles
Then escapes into the thick underbrush
With a fleeting look back, then gone.
But never really gone.
As surely as fallen leaves cushion footsteps
These are not places to forget.
Another pause,
to listen quietly.
And breathe.
Stepping up onto painted rock
Sandstone boulders strewn with ribbons marking time
Yellow gold white and pink
A curved history recording the passage of moments spent
In lines of brilliant color
If you cut open my heart
Or my brain,
Would it look the same?
There’s the scent of horse manure mixing with the taste of these cashews,
In a not totally un-desire-able way.
Reminding me of being thirteen
and stomping down steps to bridle my white pony
Then hopping up bareback to escape in a furious gallop
On a trail to somewhere seemingly far away
I didn’t like cashews back then
Funny,
How tastes change.
Then running fast over dusty trails
Mind tuned to body tuned to moving as one, with a stubbornly powerful animal
Cutoff jeans stretching to knobby knees
Calves gripping tightly with hands on leather-braided reins, held low.
In control.
Then reins in a knot and arms out like wings to the side
Galloping still, hair blowing, sunshine showing
Adrenalin grin growing,
And recognized for maybe the first time.
Wind brushing cheeks and shins scraping branches
The rhythmic pounding of hooves and occasional “crack” of rock
Broken for a moment by flight over that fallen tree
“You can’t stop me!”
Interesting.
I still had yet to even discover the pleasures of the sea.
It’s not much different now of course,
Other than my reaction
To the taste of cashews.
Now bouncing van swiped by branches and mud-splattered windshield
Music blaring beat and melodies on the other side of the road in another world.
Still, escapement smile the same.
And though I’m racing towards the sea,
That green grass field is calling for galloping.
Open sunny field where all is known and shown
Past thoughts exposed to light of day
Then left in the sun to dry out as I swiftly gallop away.
Leaving the effects of their admission for the wind to blow astray.
New opportunities multiplying like blades of grass to gently guide the way.
But time has this life changed.
If I could go back in time
To see my young self galloping away from behind
I’d ride along ‘til she slowed down
Then cautiously step to the ground
Looking up into eyes
Wild and familiarly blue
And remind her that,
“Each day begins anew.
Everything will turn out just fine
And life will exceed every expectation you could ever form in mind.
As bleak as coming moments surely will seem
You have the power to achieve all of your dreams.
So keep pushing through and nevermind.
Believe me, I’ve seen it. The future will be kind.”
We think of time as a river and we’re all on rafts, hopelessly floating downstream. All our best efforts to paddle against the current might show temporary progress but are eventually futile. On we float to old age maybe, death as a certainty. The reunion of our physical selves with the Earth, a cyclical inevitability that the most thoughtful of us accept. We choose a story with which to reason away the fear. Paradise, but only for those who have chosen correctly. (Which, of course we have. Pity the others).
But, we are already One. If only we’d get off the raft and realize the river is shallow. There are signs on the riverbanks warning, “One Way”, “Keep arms and legs inside the raft at all times”, “There are Terrorists lurking in the water”. The signs are everywhere. TVs have been so un-protectedly promiscuous that they aren’t just in your living room anymore. They’re in your car, your phone, the grocery store, the gas station and every message is “work, earn, spend, repeat”. “Quick! Time is running out!”
Silly humans, time isn’t going anywhere. Time has been around since, well, since the beginning of time. It’s me that’s changing (and you too), and time is just the “tick tock” subconscious realization of the transition of one thought into the next. Thoughts give meaning to time, as you must be conscious to notice the feel of its passage - consciousness being the ability to have and consider “thoughts”. Thus time seems to move more quickly as thoughts multiply.
Thoughts are flowing, and even though I know time isn’t going anywhere, I still feel that these 12 days have galloped away too quickly.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
More Campervan Cruising
Things got a little weird yesterday. Other than a two-hour long mission back to Forster town to find internet access so I could maybe get my assignment completed on time, I didn’t do much driving. School has always come easy, a love of learning and a perfectionist personality combine to make studying fun. Still, you’ve gotta put the time in. The day before on deadline to complete a silly assignment, one step closer to earning an MBA in Marketing, I had searched for an internet café, but being Sunday, the only one I could find was closed. No luck. Oh well, I don’t have to get 100% on every assignment, right? Right.
Back to the weirdness, I was staying at a killer campground called Bulls Paddock (special thanks to Rebecca Woods for the excellent recommendation). The campground was essentially an open grass field lined and dotted with big soothing shade trees, no power hookups which deterred the big caravan campers, and no numbered camping spaces. Just show up, drop $20 in the box, and pick your piece of grass. There were only about five other campers and all spread out. I have been continually surprised by the quality of the amenities at these campgrounds. Free hot showers (no $.25 per ten minute silliness like at Jalama or San Mateo) and perfectly clean bathrooms. I’m definitely used to roughing it with no shower and a bush toilet, but I am certainly not going to complain about feeling clean. It even had a killer 6 km hike that started from the campground, looped up along a cliff, around a headland and back via the lake (see photos in previous blog post). The beach out front was long with squeaky white sand and turquoise clear water, completely empty except for a few fishermen.
A very friendly Kookaburra
The first day there were a few little waves to ride if you were desperate, which I wasn’t, so after a quick swim I went hiking instead. Yesterday by the time I returned from my internet mission the forecasted swell had started to show just a little bit. With the sand only a few meters from my camping spot, it was a quick sprint into the warm water. There were 3 guys out already which I was happy about since I hadn’t been speaking to many people and considering all the shark stories taking place in Australia, I was glad to not be out there alone. Unfortunately, before I had even worked out what the wave was doing, they all went in! Sorry for me but even sorrier for them as it seemed to be getting better. There were super tight powerful wedge peaks that produced a steep sudden drop and then mushed out, but as the tide seemed to be dropping, two nearby peaks started connecting. You could take the drop, do a turn and then pump into the next section and backdoor that peak for a quick little tube. There was no one within earshot, so I self-hooted every wave! I kept looking back to the beach to see if there was anyone there. “Did anyone see that?” Just the seagulls, and they didn’t seem very interested.
The water was boardshort warm and so clear you could see every scattered rock and random piece of seaweed on the white sandy bottom. At least I figured the sharks would not be able to confuse me for their usual prey, and I could see them coming, and have a last split second to pray to whatever god seemed like the right one when the pressure was on, before being eaten. I had enough time alone in the lineup between waves to consider the dream I had a few nights before in which I was slowly being swallowed by a shark and not even fighting it, after reading The Wild Within by Paul Rezendes where he talks about every living creature being one. He happens upon a snake with a bullfrog half in his mouth and decides not to intervene to save the bullfrog as it is in the process of “becoming the snake”. I didn’t fight because I was quite content to become the shark.
Still, it was strange that there was no one else along the whole beach as far as I could see. In California or so many other places in the world there would be someone if not a horde of someones all fighting like animals for the exact same thing. And here I am all alone finally, and almost wishing there were someone else with me. It didn’t take long for my wish to be granted. I looked back to see about a dozen surf school students walking down with 8’ long boogie boards over their heads or dragged in the sand behind them. The instructor arranged them in a circle on the sand and started going through the drill of miming the routine of lay down, paddle, pop-up. The wind had come up as well, so I called it a session and returned to the sanctity of my campsite.
This morning the wind was howling and immediately upon opening the sliding door of my campervan, I could feel a different energy in the air. The swell had finally arrived. I made coffee quickly, packed up and started driving further South to another destination recommended by Rebecca, Seal Rocks.
Seal Rocks
My surf guidebook describes it as a mellow right point break with an inside tube on big swells. It was onshore with three guys out and looking very mushy. I kept going around the headland to check Treachery. The name sounded interesting, but I found a big-water mushy left breaking far out. It was offshore and clean but absolutely no one around.
Treachery
What do you do? Surf an offshore paddle-mission left by yourself or go back to the friendly looking onshore right? I’ll tell you what you do. You go back to the right, realize the 3 guys out there do not know how to surf and you can actually take off a lot closer to the rocks allowing at least a couple turns before it turns into mushburger city. Then you feel bad about back-paddling the kooks and taking every good set wave, so after only 20 minutes you decide to go in and keep driving. On the way in, you spot the closed-out shorebreak down the beach that is almost a little bit of a left and definitely hollow and decide to give that a try. After getting chucked over the falls on your first three attempts, the beating wakes you up and you decide to stay out until you get a good one, which happens on your next wave, an unbelievably clear tube that affords you a quick view before throwing you on your back in the sand and creasing the underside of your board right above the fins. Damn! Might as well try to break it at this point, but the tide is coming up and it’s getting more make-able and you actually come out of one and the next one lets you do turns and now there are a couple of guys joining you, friendly Spaniards from San Sebastian, young chiropractors studying in Sydney but taking a few weeks off to travel up the coast in a Wicked van. After surfing, they insist you stay for a breakfast of bacon and cheese, then bust out their massage table and give you an impromptu adjustment.
You might even stay for another session and an evening glass of wine with them but you’re traveling in opposite directions. So you say goodbye and head on to Newcastle.
Ah, Newcastle, the first familiar place since leaving Byron Bay. One month last year I spent a year here, or so it felt. I checked my email in the exact same backpackers in which Skippy, Laurina, and I spent a very awkward nearly two weeks sharing a bunkbed for three. The experience ended one friendship but cemented another. Driving through town, stopping at the same café to have the same mango, passionfruit smoothie with pesto chicken sandwich, all the memories of the triangular girl drama in which I played too much of a starring role came right back.
Slideshow from that trip last year
I remember it as the trip where I decided I really didn’t want to do the tour anymore. Now checking the flat surf at Merewether beach, the location of last year’s Midori Pro, those memories come back as well. It was big, stormy, and incredibly messy. I had advanced already to the second or maybe third round and was in a heat against friends. The waves were so bad that with five minutes to go, I was in third place needing a 3. My friend the silly little South African, Tammy Lee Smith was in 4th, but only needed a 1 point something and our other friend, Jessi, was in second, playing defense. I was closer in placing, but Tammy needed a lower score since she only had one wave, so Jessi went and paddled circles around her to keep her from getting a second score. I took off on a few closeouts that I couldn’t even get a turn in and as the minutes ticked away, the situation was the same. I sat there, thinking how silly it all was. The next heat was paddling out, more friends. I don’t remember exactly who it was, maybe Nicola Atherton and Kim Mayer, and for sure Rebecca. I just remember thinking how fun it was that we were all out there together and how cute they looked in their jerseys, and how annoying it was that we were putting our friendships aside to try to beat eachother in the most disgusting waves ever. I said something to that effect to Rebecca and with a minute to go in my heat, she looked at me like I was crazy, asked me what I needed and then said, “shut up and get a freakin three!” But I was over it. The hooter sounded and I rode in and announced that I would do a few more contests, but for the most part, I was done.
I’ve second-guessed that decision. I almost entered the contests on this trip, but didn’t and sitting here, I’m glad. Still, the girls are my friends and they are right now preparing to compete in the second event of the year, a 4 star at Soldiers Beach, just about an hour south of here. It’s rare that I am only an hour’s drive away from hanging out with the silliest girls in the world, and even though I’m really enjoying the solitude, I can’t resist the opportunity to laugh with them for a night.
Off I go…
The same international crew as before: Sarah, Marina, Amandine, Me, plus the cutest little South African, Tammy Lee Smith
Back to the weirdness, I was staying at a killer campground called Bulls Paddock (special thanks to Rebecca Woods for the excellent recommendation). The campground was essentially an open grass field lined and dotted with big soothing shade trees, no power hookups which deterred the big caravan campers, and no numbered camping spaces. Just show up, drop $20 in the box, and pick your piece of grass. There were only about five other campers and all spread out. I have been continually surprised by the quality of the amenities at these campgrounds. Free hot showers (no $.25 per ten minute silliness like at Jalama or San Mateo) and perfectly clean bathrooms. I’m definitely used to roughing it with no shower and a bush toilet, but I am certainly not going to complain about feeling clean. It even had a killer 6 km hike that started from the campground, looped up along a cliff, around a headland and back via the lake (see photos in previous blog post). The beach out front was long with squeaky white sand and turquoise clear water, completely empty except for a few fishermen.
A very friendly Kookaburra
The first day there were a few little waves to ride if you were desperate, which I wasn’t, so after a quick swim I went hiking instead. Yesterday by the time I returned from my internet mission the forecasted swell had started to show just a little bit. With the sand only a few meters from my camping spot, it was a quick sprint into the warm water. There were 3 guys out already which I was happy about since I hadn’t been speaking to many people and considering all the shark stories taking place in Australia, I was glad to not be out there alone. Unfortunately, before I had even worked out what the wave was doing, they all went in! Sorry for me but even sorrier for them as it seemed to be getting better. There were super tight powerful wedge peaks that produced a steep sudden drop and then mushed out, but as the tide seemed to be dropping, two nearby peaks started connecting. You could take the drop, do a turn and then pump into the next section and backdoor that peak for a quick little tube. There was no one within earshot, so I self-hooted every wave! I kept looking back to the beach to see if there was anyone there. “Did anyone see that?” Just the seagulls, and they didn’t seem very interested.
The water was boardshort warm and so clear you could see every scattered rock and random piece of seaweed on the white sandy bottom. At least I figured the sharks would not be able to confuse me for their usual prey, and I could see them coming, and have a last split second to pray to whatever god seemed like the right one when the pressure was on, before being eaten. I had enough time alone in the lineup between waves to consider the dream I had a few nights before in which I was slowly being swallowed by a shark and not even fighting it, after reading The Wild Within by Paul Rezendes where he talks about every living creature being one. He happens upon a snake with a bullfrog half in his mouth and decides not to intervene to save the bullfrog as it is in the process of “becoming the snake”. I didn’t fight because I was quite content to become the shark.
Still, it was strange that there was no one else along the whole beach as far as I could see. In California or so many other places in the world there would be someone if not a horde of someones all fighting like animals for the exact same thing. And here I am all alone finally, and almost wishing there were someone else with me. It didn’t take long for my wish to be granted. I looked back to see about a dozen surf school students walking down with 8’ long boogie boards over their heads or dragged in the sand behind them. The instructor arranged them in a circle on the sand and started going through the drill of miming the routine of lay down, paddle, pop-up. The wind had come up as well, so I called it a session and returned to the sanctity of my campsite.
This morning the wind was howling and immediately upon opening the sliding door of my campervan, I could feel a different energy in the air. The swell had finally arrived. I made coffee quickly, packed up and started driving further South to another destination recommended by Rebecca, Seal Rocks.
Seal Rocks
My surf guidebook describes it as a mellow right point break with an inside tube on big swells. It was onshore with three guys out and looking very mushy. I kept going around the headland to check Treachery. The name sounded interesting, but I found a big-water mushy left breaking far out. It was offshore and clean but absolutely no one around.
Treachery
What do you do? Surf an offshore paddle-mission left by yourself or go back to the friendly looking onshore right? I’ll tell you what you do. You go back to the right, realize the 3 guys out there do not know how to surf and you can actually take off a lot closer to the rocks allowing at least a couple turns before it turns into mushburger city. Then you feel bad about back-paddling the kooks and taking every good set wave, so after only 20 minutes you decide to go in and keep driving. On the way in, you spot the closed-out shorebreak down the beach that is almost a little bit of a left and definitely hollow and decide to give that a try. After getting chucked over the falls on your first three attempts, the beating wakes you up and you decide to stay out until you get a good one, which happens on your next wave, an unbelievably clear tube that affords you a quick view before throwing you on your back in the sand and creasing the underside of your board right above the fins. Damn! Might as well try to break it at this point, but the tide is coming up and it’s getting more make-able and you actually come out of one and the next one lets you do turns and now there are a couple of guys joining you, friendly Spaniards from San Sebastian, young chiropractors studying in Sydney but taking a few weeks off to travel up the coast in a Wicked van. After surfing, they insist you stay for a breakfast of bacon and cheese, then bust out their massage table and give you an impromptu adjustment.
You might even stay for another session and an evening glass of wine with them but you’re traveling in opposite directions. So you say goodbye and head on to Newcastle.
Ah, Newcastle, the first familiar place since leaving Byron Bay. One month last year I spent a year here, or so it felt. I checked my email in the exact same backpackers in which Skippy, Laurina, and I spent a very awkward nearly two weeks sharing a bunkbed for three. The experience ended one friendship but cemented another. Driving through town, stopping at the same café to have the same mango, passionfruit smoothie with pesto chicken sandwich, all the memories of the triangular girl drama in which I played too much of a starring role came right back.
Slideshow from that trip last year
I remember it as the trip where I decided I really didn’t want to do the tour anymore. Now checking the flat surf at Merewether beach, the location of last year’s Midori Pro, those memories come back as well. It was big, stormy, and incredibly messy. I had advanced already to the second or maybe third round and was in a heat against friends. The waves were so bad that with five minutes to go, I was in third place needing a 3. My friend the silly little South African, Tammy Lee Smith was in 4th, but only needed a 1 point something and our other friend, Jessi, was in second, playing defense. I was closer in placing, but Tammy needed a lower score since she only had one wave, so Jessi went and paddled circles around her to keep her from getting a second score. I took off on a few closeouts that I couldn’t even get a turn in and as the minutes ticked away, the situation was the same. I sat there, thinking how silly it all was. The next heat was paddling out, more friends. I don’t remember exactly who it was, maybe Nicola Atherton and Kim Mayer, and for sure Rebecca. I just remember thinking how fun it was that we were all out there together and how cute they looked in their jerseys, and how annoying it was that we were putting our friendships aside to try to beat eachother in the most disgusting waves ever. I said something to that effect to Rebecca and with a minute to go in my heat, she looked at me like I was crazy, asked me what I needed and then said, “shut up and get a freakin three!” But I was over it. The hooter sounded and I rode in and announced that I would do a few more contests, but for the most part, I was done.
I’ve second-guessed that decision. I almost entered the contests on this trip, but didn’t and sitting here, I’m glad. Still, the girls are my friends and they are right now preparing to compete in the second event of the year, a 4 star at Soldiers Beach, just about an hour south of here. It’s rare that I am only an hour’s drive away from hanging out with the silliest girls in the world, and even though I’m really enjoying the solitude, I can’t resist the opportunity to laugh with them for a night.
Off I go…
The same international crew as before: Sarah, Marina, Amandine, Me, plus the cutest little South African, Tammy Lee Smith
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