Big

We surfed and surfed and surfed, last year in Brasil. Every day. We had the tide charts and revolved our existence around when it was low or when it was high, or whenever it would give us the best waves. We crammed ourselves and our 7'2" board into the mini-bus to take us to the Praia de Madeiro, and descended the huge stair case down the sand cliff every morning, peering through the foliage to catch a first glimpse of the swell, and listening all the time to try discern the size of the waves from the impact of the lip upon breaking over the sand bottom. When we moved from Pipa to Morro de Sao Paulo, off the coast of Salvador, it was the same. This break was the rocky reef kind, with heads of coral that poked through the face of the small sets, daring you to take off deeper inside, to run the gauntlet. And it wrapped beautifully in towards you on the right-hander, so that if you positioned yourself just so, you could sit in the pocket of the wave, with the spinning whitewater at your right heel, and the green face peaking and open in front of your face.

I can't explain why, but upon returning to Australia, there was so much stuff to do. There were gigs to play, birthdays, engagements and weddings to attend, those pesky five days a week at the office, rebuilding after the fire and who knows what else. Only twice in a year did we make it to a beach with board in hand, and with the fitness required to paddle, duckdive and push your body into the standing position mostly gone, the surfing was difficult and a little unsatisfying. Because to know what you are capable of, and to have lost it for reasons and activities that you can't remember as being that important, and in remembering the joy and thrill of surfing, well it hangs a gloom over the motivations for this life in 2008.

So we made a pact: To make the effort to get down to the beach and paddle, and duckdive and push ourselves into that riding position and have more of the joy and thrill that surfing provides in its unique way. To feel the wiry spring of the salt in your hair, and the crust of it on your skin. The fear as a big one looms overhead, breaking. And the yes! of making it through the bottom turn while your body is pulled and stretched as gravity takes your feet downwards and you keep your arms upwards.

I s'pose the guys who tow in to cliffs of water at 60km/h know that feeling well, and are as addicted as any person could possibly be. Why else would a guy like Mike Parsons do what he does?