An old surf tale

In the absence of getting any surf lately here is an old surf story from a couple of years back

Me and my bro Phil finally managed to get down to the Yorke peninsular on the weekend after nearly 2 years of being too busy. The trip got off to a pretty crappy start and we nearly didn’t get in the water. We were both itching to take off on Friday but Phil had a gig so we didn’t leave Adelaide till about midnight. The 300km 3 and a bit hour trip through kangaroo country was nice and un-eventful and we rocked up at the national park around 3am. We needed to pay entry fees and camping fees so we hopped out the car and filled the little envelopes with some coin and stuck the sticker on the windscreen. Get back in the car and turn the key………………..nothing ... but a strange clicking noise and 15 kms still to go before we reach our destination. “S#$T! what’s going on”.

My car, a bright red VX commodore aptly named RED, had just been serviced and has shown no sign of anything being wrong ever. Couldn’t believe it, played around under the bonnet for a while to no avail so started to walk to the nearest tavern to find a phone (no mobile reception). After getting a little disorientated in the dark we finally made it to a pay phone and called the RAA. “I'm sorry” they tell me, “cause you’re out in the country no one will be available till 7 in the morning you will have to sleep in your car and call back at 7am”. Pretty peeved we walk back to the car and grabbed our pillows, pushed the seats back as far as we could with the back seat full of eskies and fishing gear and tried to get some sleep.

It was about 415am by now. I slept on and off till about 540am then gave up. The car is no place to sleep for people 6ft. 7am came and I made the walk back to the phone and called the RAA who said someone will be out to us in one and a half hours. So much for our planned dawn patrol. RAA came and tells us that although the battery is not old it is stuffed (something that happens sometimes on long journeys when the battery gets hot or something like that apparently). I’m glad that it’s just the battery and the Raa dude gets it started but tells us to go and buy a new battery because this one is fried and probably wont start again. So we drive 5 ks to the nearest town and I leave the car on while I go into the shop to get a battery. As it turns out, they had batteries just not one that was suitable for my car so we have to drive another 50kms to the next town to see if they have a battery. Some luck finally and we change it over and begin our journey again by the time we get to the shack we were staying at the morning is all but over so we unpack and get some lunch. I get my little gas cooker out only to find that its not working properly and the clip to hold the butane can in place wont fasten (worked fine the day before) so I had to cook holding the clip in place hoping it didn’t blow up in my face. What else could go wrong?

Finally we get to Pondalowie bay and it’s windy, but offshore and the swell is fairly small but looks ok and there’s not too many people out. We head out and catch a couple. About 10 mins in after making a nice barrel I am paddling back out and for no apparent reason my calf cramps up. Now ive had some bad cramps before (usually after a long surf not 10mins) but this tops them all. I just can’t shake it out and its grabbing and grabbing and wont let up. I struggle with it for about 5mins before I called my bro to come over and try to stretch it out. Phil does his best but it won’t shift so he paddles me into shore so I can try and stand up. In total I reckon my calf was cramped for about 8mins before it let up. I sat on the beach thinking, I’ve waited nearly two years to surf here, my car breaks down, had to drive an extra 100ks to get a new battery, my cooker is naffed and now I wont be able to surf because I’ve just had the mother of all cramps for no reason.
Phil gets some nice little kegs while sit on the beach and take a couple of photos. Everyone else has gone in and it’s just him in the water, lucky bugger.
After an hour I started stretching again and jumped back in the water in an attempt to get a surf, and everything was fine after that. Got some cool little waves and didn’t cramp. I think it was a combination of only having 1 hr sleep, sleeping in the car and my dodgy nerves in my calf from a previous injury that gave me such a nasty cramp.
Had a break for a couple of hours then surfed till dusk. We got plenty of little barrels and overall had a good time.

Next day the wind was light and variable before an immanent change that would stuff up the surf so we made our way to west cape and although it wasn’t offshore the waves were heaving and very hollow anywhere up to 4ft with the occasional bigger one. We got a few good ones that morning and then the wind started to pick up so that was to be our last surf for the trip.

We were reasonable content with what we got although it wasn’t epic. Before we left we drove around to a protected bay for some rock fishing and were pleasantly surprised to come back with a rather heavy bag full of salmon trout. A nice finish to a fun but frustrating weekend.