Tossed Salad of Surfers and Surfboards For One Please

This is not a new tattoo job gone horribly wrong. Instead, it is the newest of my surf- related injuries. The kind of ironic thing was I wasnt even trying to get a wave. I was sitting at the shoulder with Paolo's board strapped to my arm. He was filming in the line-up and decided it would be easier if he just swam.

Then a sneaky monster three wave set comes up on the shoulder. The first one I was able to paddle over, the second one, wala na. I couldnt get Pao's board off my arm and got off my board too in time. By the time I was able to eskimo roll the wave was swallowing me whole.
The last thing I saw was Cory turning his head around to look at me with FEAR in his eyes. Not fear for himself cos he can duck-dive his board but fear for me.

I got tossed over and around. Underwater, my board slammed into my sternum. Or rather, I slammed into my board. I had my eyes open and saw the deck of my board. I got rolled around some more and somewhere there the next wave came in, turned me around some more... I tried to keep my eyes open the whole time and also protect my head and stay under waiting for the set to move past me. All in all I got hit on my hip, half of my crotch and somewhere on my back. Bjorn, Mark and I got tangled up too so boards were flying around underwater.

Paolo's board ended up somewhere on the reef I think. All I know is that it fared better than I did with nary a scratch. Hahaha.

I wasn't spooked while it was happening. I surprised myself by remaining fairly calm. In fact, I remember coming up for air (finally) and hearing Paolo shouting asking if I was okay. And I told him "Yeah, I'm good. Where's your board? Is it okay?"

It wasn't until after, when I was back on my board and sitting once again at the shoulder catching my breath that I realized what had just happened. And the spook came crawling into my head. Then the adrenaline was wearing off... and the pain started to make itself felt.

An hour later we were back on land and Nicola was handing me painkillers. The boys sponsored a couple of beers (thanks Jun/Pao/Bjorn). The combination of the meds and the "medicinal barley" made for a slightly lutang me. So it wasn't until I was home in Manila and getting ready for bed that I saw the bruise that had manifested itself in all its purple and bloody glory right on my hip. Not since Carla Suiza's ass bruise has such a lovely abstract been painted by broken capillaries.

Click on this to get to the Digital Diary of my bruise.