Neptune 1: Hotshot 0
Saturday and Sunday mornings at Marine Surf Lifesaving Club sees an interesting bunch of paddlers hitting the beach at around 6 am. The group is clearly divided into the "Hotshots", comprising a handful of paddlers whose names regularly feature at the top end of the race results and "Dad's army", a larger group who have no aspirations or misconceptions when it comes to their paddling abilities.
Typical Morning
A typical morning will see the whole group assembling on the beach before the Hotshots head off for the horizon, heads down and ears back, paddling as if they were chasing Bryan Habana, while Dad's army adopts a far more leisurely approach and slowly meanders down the beachfront, just beyond the backline, with conversation clearly being of far higher priority than any frantic paddling.
This last Sunday saw stunning
conditions in Durban. The South Westerly wind from the day before had flattened
the surf and with no wind blowing that morning, the sea was glassy. Dad's army
arrived in force and the entire company had fallen in on the beach by 6 am,
ready for action. For some reason however, the Hotshot's numbers were depleted
and only one hotshot reported for duty. Without his fellow hotshots to provide
the incentive and the challenge for the Bryan Habana thing, the lone hotshot
graciously accepted his fate of paddling with Dad's army.
Hotshot leads the way
Hotshot insisted on a paddle across the harbour mouth and down along the Bluff. Conditions were perfect, so Dad's army decided to follow and before long, a procession of skis, led by Hotshot, had crossed the harbour mouth and was headed south towards Garvey's. Along the way, Hotshot was as talkative as ever. Paddling at Dad's army's pace, he had plenty of breath in reserve to hold court. Hotshot is heading down to Knysna to do the Knysa/Sedgfield race this weekend. His initial plan had been to paddle a borrowed boat in the race, however he recently made arrangements to send his trusty Mako 6 down to Knysna with two members of Dad's Army who are travelling down for the weekend. As we paddled, Hotshot mentioned how pleased he was that he would be paddling his own, familiar boat in Knysna, rather than a borrowed boat. Little did he realise at the time how he was tempting fate with this comment. At Garvey's we turned around and, on Hotshot's suggestion, started paddling back home "as close to shore as possible". All went well and we paddled back leisurely as a group with Hotshot in high spirits and seemingly enjoying the company of the lesser mortals of Dad's army.
Reefs
Those who paddled the World Cup this year will know that about a kilometre before the South Pier of the harbour there is a point where one has to bear left to head towards the end of South Pier. There are a number of reefs extending out from here, which cause the swell to pick up significantly and break far out to sea. Wiser paddlers give this point a wide berth but not Hotshot. He has a morbid fascination with this area and has made it his mission in life to cut the corner as close inshore as possible. Having previously come unstuck here by pushing his luck too far, one would have thought that by now he would have been more circumspect, but like the proverbial moth drawn to the flame, Hotshot once again headed in as close as possible and was soon seen flirting with the impact zone. At this point, Neptune must have decided that he had had enough of this taunting and sent in the heavyweights in the form of a mountainous set of swells to sort out Hotshot.
Now you see him, now you don't...
Those of us paddling further out didn't see anything spectacular, but rather just became aware that Hotshot had disappeared. Eventually a head popped up out of the foam close to the beach. After a few minutes, Hotshot washed up onto the beach together with paddle, two pieces of Mako 6 and about two hundred and eighty pieces of polystyrene stringer. Fortunately Hotshot was unhurt, but the same could not be said for his ego or his Mako 6. On assessing the condition of his ski, Hotshot decided that the only part worth salvaging was the bung which he duly removed before starting off on his walk of shame back to South Pier, carrying only his paddle and his bung. Once at the harbour, he then had to face the further indignity of being ferried across the harbour mouth and back to Marine, hanging onto the back of another ski.
Uncharacteristically subdued
At the customary cup of coffee and chat after the paddle, Hotshot was uncharacteristically subdued. Perhaps it was the ski rack across the courtyard from where we sat that was conspicuous in the fact that it empty that was distracting him. What was apparent was that his misfortune had left a warm feeling with many members of Dad's army who were smugly commenting on how much better they felt to see that "hotshots also get trashed by the surf". This did little to draw Hotshot out of his sombre mood.
To protect the innocent, hotshot will remain nameless, however, if anyone has a spare Mako 6 in Knysna this coming weekend, it would be appreciated if they could contact Mike Davies.