The sound of the underwater Christmas Carol - Part 1
by Emilie Marx
(Part 1/3)
A wave at The Bowl during our epic Christmas week.
What a wicked Christmas that was!
We asked for it and we got it: solid twenty knots and four meters swell, that lasted for days
-they call it here 'the Christmas ghost'.
To add to the delight, I got to experience the first effects of my blog: my parents kindly offered me a waterproof I-pod for Christmas!
I am totally addicted.
I recommend riding in music to everyone, it is plainly awesome!
That I sing along when I kite is no longer a secret, neither is the fact that I do it very badly -I am grateful I can not hear myself with the I-pod on (very selfish of me I suppose!)...
Windy days were following one another and I can't recall exactly when my first unforgettable musical moment took place (it was all part of this 'freaking windy Christmas time').
It was a morning I had woken up early to have a sunrise session with a friend.
The swell was absolutely pumping (some of the biggest sets I ever rode kiting!) and the wind howling (I nearly got blown away during my self launch, it was scarily strong).
The conditions were exceptional and we had the Gallion's bay to ourselves.
In one word: 'wow'!
'Merry Christmas to me!' I thought.
-some presents don't need to be wrapped!-
The Gallion, Christmas morning 2008
I had just picked a beautiful big wave when my I-pod started playing the song of Blue October 'Into the ocean'. Very appropriate indeed.
"I'm just a normal boy
That sank when I fell overboard"
It obviously inspired me: just as I was gaining speed down the wave, my board started skipping around.
I thought 'Oh dear, not a good place to screw up'!...
Well, I did any way.
And got sucked right into the spin of the giant washing machine.
I was under-water and I could hear while spinning:
"Now floating up and down
I spin, colliding into sound"
I often keep my eyes open in the water when being wiped out: some pictures of all this water moving, flushing around and circling are amazing.
There was some kind of magic in having some sound added to the picture...
It was my first time ever to be under a wave with some music on, and as every first time of anything is the most memorable one, I won't ever forget what I felt at that moment: the usual dread always felt when being smashed, suddenly mixed with absolute bliss.
Special moments always seem to last longer than they do (we all do ten seconds jumps all the time, don't we? ;) ) and it seemed to me that I stayed for ever in this rolling, breaking, splashing water, with 'into the ocean' playing in my ears...
I was enjoying the surprise and the delight of my first musical wipe out, lost in gravity...
My head popped out of the water, I breathed in; that's when I thought 'But where is my bloody kite' ?
Oh. There is was.
Precisely crashing in front of the wall of water that had hit me few seconds earlier...
No time to relaunch it, too much water for too small of a kite, I didn't over think it: I opened my safety.
I know too well what can happen in that kind of swell size...
Two years ago, I managed - shortly after having claimed that I had 'never trashed a kite...- to literally shred not one but two, within two hours....
That was at the 'Bummy' in Long Reef in Sydney (one of these surprise waves that only appear on big days) with my two weeks old nine square meters Rhino...
Me and my then lover, in happier days...
I wanted to play smart arse I guess.
Now that I think about it, it makes me smile: I'm really just starting to understand what to do with a wave and a kite together, back then I belonged to the kook category when it came to my surf skills and the Bummy wasn't a forgiving break...
I went for the wave that day, but when came the time of the expected take off, all I could see under my board was... emptiness!
There was nothing under me, but a two meter step with a wall of sucked in water below: I was at the worst possible spot, on top of the lip.
I fell right down .
I really thought I was gonna die that day (yeah, I know, again! (now that I think about it, it does happen quite often!)).
I didn't know where I was, where my kite was, I was spinning under water, pulled in all directions and I was running out of air...
This surely is up to now the most terrifying wipe out I've ever had kiting in waves
Long reef on a big day early September 2006
I popped up only to see the back of the wave that had just hit me going towards my kite that was leading edge down in front of it.
I opened my safety, but it didn't help much..
I felt the kite tearing on the other end of the leash, as I was being pulled right back down.
I could feel the water shredding the canopy, breaking the leading edge, filling the kite and dragging it underwater...
I suddenly got pulled not only forward, but towards the bottom as well...
That was one of my worse kitemares ever!
I eventually managed to release my kite leash and let go of everything.
I got washed back to the shore, shaking and freaked out, to recover a kite that looked like it had just gone between the hands of a psycho.
A bomb of water had just exploded inside my kite...
I knew there was no hope for recovery: this was an official 'bye bye little friend'...
Click here to read the following of "The sound of the underwater Christmas Carol"
