Write your 'strongest' memory from the sea

[Roxyyyyy]

so this is the place to write your most stronger's memory you've got from the sea.
it's can be bad experience, good experience. fear experience. beatifal experience,
whatever you want....

SHOT

p.s- sorry about my english... i hope you understeand this topic at all :S

[essex sucks]

my best umm first time i droped in on phil

wosed geting tosed onto the rocks at woola

[Real Pol]

Worst was when I was a kid going on the ferry to Shetland and we got hit by a freak wave and had to turn round. There was water everywhere and also a national help line on the BBC to call if you were worried about friends and family.....actually I was only a kid and thought it was all exciting, my mum was praying though.

It didn't have to be surf related did it?

[kitesurfer]

OK you asked its not a good one though.

About this time last year i had to pull a close friend, work collegue and kitesurfing buddy out of the sea after he'd drowned whilst trying to reach the beach after losing his kite in the surf.
This is my strongest memory of the sea as there isn't a day goes by where i don't think about it.

KS

[Phil]

my best umm first time i droped in on phil

wosed geting tosed onto the rocks at woola

hahaha have a feeling that will be matts fave memory as well

[Sillysausage]

i like the 'location' part of your name kitey!

[isaluteyou]

Getting totally thrashed by the sets of the year - must have been tossed around by 12+ waves stuck on the inside with both the inside sets, the outside sets and the sneaker sets all going off at once. The was the downside but caught rides to remember that day

[Beachbumhippie]

Monday on a beachbreak, and a shore dump. Some waves a bit further back but choppy, i drifted and went for a wave that looked good then found myself being picked up and flipped over the top into 3" of water. My lower back is still sore.
A victim of the shore dump, i must remember to keep a watch on my position

[Phil]

mine has to be a nice right off of saunton that i just pumped down the line which just seemed to go on and on and on, other than that going over the falls at tolcarn. paddled for a wave poped up looked down the wave knew there was no way i was going to make it, my mates were on the inside laughing there asses off at me, so i just jumped down the face only to get sucked back up over the falls and washing machined for like 20 yards

[serfbord]

paddling out this morning at the mid and the water was crystal clear and a very big sting ray paddled right under me, heading shorewards. thats the best for today !

[Katza8uk]

mines from sailing but am gonna tell 'cos i love thinking about it! 2006 summer sailed from croatia to malta. my uncle and i were on the midnight-4 watch in the middle of the med, withnothing to see but the clearest night sky ever and the occasional boat lights on the horizon. all of a sudden we heard like an odd splashing, didnt quite fit in with the rest of the noise, realised we had a pod of dolphins with us. so i went up front and sat right on the bow with just the dolphins jumping under the bow for company, was under sail so most amazing thing ever. remember seeing the dolphins under the stars and thinking o yeah!

other favourite one is when first got my own board and my sister and i went down to caswell(on the gower) and the flattest day in the whole entire world and we just sat on our boards. then caught the smallest wave (Again in all of history)and knew i loved my board!

[parrysurf]

mine.....kissing the sand.

The 20 minutes prior, fighting to save my life, is the part I would like to forget!!!

[Dec]

Surfing: When i bailed off and my leg got stuck in a whole in the reef (hawaiians have a name for them, i just don't know it). I pretty much spent a minute trying to get out, and when i finally did, I took one breath of air and got worked over by a nice north shore set.

Water: being on a friends speedboat out at sea when the plywood and fiberglass hull exploded whilst doing about 40knots. We both went flying forward into the water and watched the boat sink! Luckily enough the water was warm and it was a fairly busy waterway so we got picked up within 20 minutes. Still pretty scary!

[flex]

It was 3 days ago. I got my first proper wave...proper as in not going straight to the shore with white water. I took of and did my first ever bottom turn then fell off. I felt like a pro surfer how they lean off their board and dont fall off. When I try to remember it feels unreal but i'm sure it happened.

[libby]

Surfing: popping up properly and consistently for the first time In Taupo Bay NZ

Non Surfing:
1)Either seeing wild Orca's for the first time in NZ or

2)sitting on the bow spit of a yacht watching the most spectacular sunset as it slowly pulled into a bay near the Island of Canna in the inner hebrides to moor for the night, having been collecting data on wild basking sharks all day or possibly

3) one of the trips this summer collecting data on bottlenose dolphins pulling around the headland and literallly in every direction we looked was a little group of dolphins feeding or playing, probably about 30 or so in a mile radius, just chilling out doing there thing.

[northswell]

Dunno really, couple of stand outs are the sketchy ones.

Missed timed duck dive going back over and down gripping board onto a mega shallow sucky reef.

Driving down the line hearing strange thuds then realising i'd been a bit too close the rocks and lost fins.

Or even yesterday small shite with a mate surfing fin forwards for a laugh.

Every surf has its moments.

[Hang11]

Doing some magic mushrooms with my mates and paddling out at Watergate Bay. It was a very funny and surreal experience. Didn't catch any waves, but they looked real pretty.

[serfbord]

(heaps would have seen this !!) I got trashed at cactus on south oz west coast - big time and struggled to the surface - and that funny second of life when u break the water and grab a quick breath and look up as a mountain of a wave teeters and starts to fall 2 feet from your head. And u don't even have time to think u just figure youre gonna die on this beautfiul day. but who hasn't experienced that. cheers gaz.

[Thibb]

Strongest memory: having my leggie break for the first time. Up to that moment I assumed my board and I would always be inseparable, no matter how big the waves or how vicious the wipe-outs. Of course the leggie broke on a foggy and rainy day, with reasonably big surf, hardly anyone at the beach and me a decent distance out. I have rarely been happier to find sand between my toes after ten minutes of slightly panicked swimming...

Funniest recent memory: this weekend I watched a father teach his son how to surf in pretty small waves. They used one board and the father put his 8 or 9 year old son on the board and pushed him into a small wave. The kid climbed to his feet instantly, only to be catapulted off the board with a nasty snap. When he appeared above water again he threw a condemning look at his father, who sheepishly apologized for not having taken the leggie off his own ankle...

[The Fafanator]

Strongest memory: My first time paddleing out at Innerpool, (it also was just the secound time I surfed, I was a total idiot, since it was a modarately big day, atleast that is how I remembered it) I jumped in, and got caught in a sideways rip, I paddled like hell to get out of it, only to be pulled into outerpool and being washed on the rocks by what was the most powerfull waves I ever been in, I walked out with my overly dinged 7'2" (way to big for outerpool) and with barely a bit of dignity left, since my wetsuit was tore at the butt. This was in the middle of august with a nice winterswell, after that I quit surfing, untill December, when I finally got my dignity back and got fit.

But my best memory was 2 saturdays ago, it was my first morning session, and it was one hell of a good day to get it, it was wounderfull backlit waves, really hollow and about shoulder-head high, it was completely uncrowded and I caught more waves that day than in my whole life (it was the first ofshore day since I could actually catch something more often than every 2 hours, so that wasn't a big achivement) I surfed for 7 hours before getting out, to stoked to feel the pain (but I sure felt it te next 4 days, infact, my shoulder is still sore), I had such a big smile on my face and such red eyes that several people thought I was high on some really good marijuana.