Beautiful hot day, windows down, cruising along the coast with the sounds of Down to Nothing, Go It Alone, The Descendants and The Casualties hitting my eardrums, I feel invincible.
The ocean always knocks me back to my senses.
First wave I tried to catch totally smashed the hell out of me.
The Mossy brothers both start packing it and once again, the story had to be retold once again.
It was near the end of last year, Carpathian were touring Perth and it was the beginning of summer. They played an 18+ set at Amplifier on the Friday night and were due for an All Ages set, in Australind (2 hours South of Perth) at 1pm the next day.
So as soon as we had finished packing up the gig on Friday, and grabbed all of our stuff for the next day it was about 1:30am and we were set for South. The plan was Mr Annihilate Music himself, the notorious Vagina Mouth, Stubbsy and myself piled into a car with a change of clothes, and our surfing gear into a car which I would start driving straight away down to Margaret River – where the waves are good.
With three sleeping people in the car, and a Set Your Goals album on repeat, I drove all through the night trying not to nod off, arriving at a neat surf spot with the crew just as the sun was rising.
VM, Mossy and I paddled out whilst Stubbsy slept for a few hours on the beach.
Waves were about 4 feet high and typically me, every now and then I daydream and forget to pay attention to the waves. There was a particularly large wave that I didn’t see coming, until the boys yelled at me. I was sitting on the lip in a very dangerous position and immediately a look of fear swamped my face – and provided many laughs for the boys.
I should have bailed on the wave, but I decided to go for it, and proceeded to freefall the entire wave, landing it somehow at the bottom and riding it for a bit before getting totally smashed.
It seems every single time I go out these days, the boys always have to relive that wave.
What an epic wave it was.
We surfed till about 11:30 before driving north to Australind, having a quick shower at the venue and pretty much getting out, in time for Carpathian to arrive to start doing sound check while we set up the merch and the door.
Today was fun. I caught a good few decent waves, and proved I am more than just a bag of laughs on my board. I discovered I have lost a lot of weight and my bathers and boardies are too big, so pretty much during every wave I was in danger of losing all of my clothing. Must go shopping.
Mossy’s towel got stolen, thankfully the idiot who took it, left his car keys. I couldn’t find my stuff for ages – it turned out some guys decided to camp around it – seeing it belonged to a girl and were hoping to try their luck. FAIL.
Went for a really long twilight bike ride to buy some cellotape to wrap a birthday present, and wow – here I am. Not quite ready to have to go back to work tomorrow.
Currently Reading : Thrasher – 25 Year Anniversary
Death to Traitors 