Survival of the fittest

I am lucky to be writing this.

Seriously, this time yesterday there was a really good chance that at least one of my wrists would be broken, and that’s a best case scenario. Worst case, I would have been stretchered off the beach and had to catch the first flight home from Honolulu.

It all happened so quickly, I can barely explain how it went down. One minute I was surfing wobbly backdoor with Jamie O’Brien, Dustin Barca, TJ Barron and a couple of other locals, just minding my own business while they were getting their pick of the waves, and then it all went down.

A soft 3 footer came through, I saw Dustin Barca go left, and I took off, pumped twice and set up the cut back. As I followed through on my turn I saw the error of my ways, and he wasn’t pleased. Turned out that Dustin Barca didn’t actually go left, he just faded left, while Haole number one (that would be me), casually burned him, and then tried to cut back into him (what was I thinking?!?).

The situation was serious. The Oakley website describes Barca like this:

“Kauai’s Dustin Barca doesn’t crack under pressure. During the 2005 Pipe Masters Trials Barca broke his board in the semi-final and was forced to swim in for his backup board, but Barca wouldn’t be denied into the main event. The regular-foot bolted back out to the lineup and got the score he needed. Barca went on to the main event, where he went down in the second round. In 2006 Barca made a statement with a quarter Final finish. Growing up with guys like Bruce and Andy Irons, Barca’s surfing has progressed quickly from an aspiring junior to a fifth year pro rider with Oakley. Barca’s assault on the World Qualifying Tour in 2008 will only bring him that much closer in showing his true ability on the World Championship Tour.”

I am not featured on any websites, and I pretty much do crack under pressure. On the beach, according to AVG, Damien Fahrenfort was rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a “Beat Down,” and the beachfront was waiting for the whistle to sound from the Volcom crew, to incite the Wolf Pack.

I had to act quickly. It was too late to pretend that I was mentally deranged or that I was actually severely retarded, and my Hawaiian accent is so bad that there was no chance of me convincing him that I grew up at Velzyland. So I used my next best weapon, I paddled as fast as I could towards him, straight into the impact zone, sat up on my board… and said sorry.

Then I quickly turned around, made it through the next set and went and sat next to The Mad Scientist, who wasn’t very encouraging, “Don’t sit next to me,” he said, “Do you know what you just did?” I told him that yes, I did, and that’s exactly why I was sitting there. As Dustin Barca made his way back towards us, I tried to hide behind The Mad Scientist, but he is smaller than me, and it was a case of an elephant using a tutu for camouflage.

“I don’t drop in, so you don’t drop in. You hear me?” Said Dustin Barca as he stroked past us. “Ya, I’m so sorry bru,” was all I could utter. Then I went straight in, the words of someone wise ringing in my head: He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day,” or something like that.