For you to get the full effect, I must paint the full picture.
It's Newquay Bay, towan beach in cornwall, the sun is shining, the ladies are scantily clad. I've just put my suit on outside the Red Lion (for those of you who know)
I'm striding confidently down to the harbour wall with 2 friends who are beginners and a particular lady I had my eye on and was very keen to impress!
The waves are about 2-3 feet and clean, tide is fairly high so the harbour wall is behind the lineup (the left is working off the wall beautifully like in the attached pic - we were paddling out from the far end of the wall which you can see).
My 2 friends are looking a little nervous about paddling out from behind the surf, so I act all confident and reassure them. We start down the steps to the water's edge taking care not to hit the boards against the wall. I look back up to the top of the wall where the special lady is watching and give her my most confident and cool smile.
A wave rounds the corner and the water around my feet swells to be around my knees, but I wait for the next one. As the next wave comes I ready myself to launch into a confident paddle out of the harbour and into the lineup.
So I have my 2 friends behind me waiting to follow my super confident lead and a lovely lady watching adoringly from above.
The water swells around my knees again and I launch myself hard onto the water. At precisely this point, my leash catches on a nail behind me and as it pulls tight, my board flies backwards from my hands and I go sailing over it into the water. My board smashes against the corner of one of the steps and a 3 inch chunk gets taken out of the tail. Meanwhile as I land face first in the water I catch my groin on the nose of my board, cry out in pain and get a lungful of seawater.
My 2 friends are now p*ss*ng themselves laughing as I come to the surface couging and spluttering. I can't even bear to look up at my 'admirer', so I pull my board over to me and paddle towards the break feeling like I have performed with the style and grace of a seasoned idiot.
I'm able to laugh about it now, but I don't know which was more damaged, my board, my groin or my ego!!
Sinista