The hold down

Every surfer has experienced at least one frightening yet memorable wipeout where they were held down for let’s say longer than they would have preferred. I know I’ve had plenty but this particular one in Bali scared the ### out of me and is easily up with my top ones.

We had hired a local Indo guy and his fishing boat to take us out for the day surfing a few different surf breaks along the West coast of Bali from Kuta area up towards Uluwatu. The local was a very nice young guy but spoke little English and I don’t think had ever taken any surfers to breaks before. Another local friend of ours organised it for us. As we approached our first stop ‘Airport Rights’ you could see it had size and we couldn’t wait to get out there. We surfed 4-6ft nice waves for a while before getting a little over the crowd. We paddled back to the boat to refresh a little when we noticed some bombs coming in further out the back of Kuta Reefs. There didn’t appear to be many surfers out there either. So off we motored over the rising swells toward the unknown.

I had surfed Inside Kuta reef & heard of Outsides as well. Both great waves with a nice defined channel or ‘safe zone’ as it sometimes becomes. ‘Middles’ is obviously between the two but with no defined channel and very hard to line up your position. Well we pulled up and no one was out at ‘middles’ we didn’t give it a second thought. At one point while getting ready to jump into the water we started drifting too far in and the captain quickly turned and motored further out over the huge swells coming in. It was close! From the back it looked like solid 8ft waves so great a opportunity for great waves but also a great opportunity for getting cleaned up by freak sets. As I was about to find out big time. 

We had caught a few gems and I was already tiring a little from our first surf when a bigger set loomed on the horizon. It looked huge! I was scurrying for the horizon when I realised I was in a pretty good position to catch the first wave of the set. So I paddled as hard as a could with the offshore wind fighting against me pushing me back. I finally rose to my feet only to get held up in the lip by the stiff offshore wind before getting absolutely smashed and thrown down the face of this bomb of a wave. After getting pounded suddenly the white wash allowing me up, seemingly easily, but that was start. My real problems were the next two 8-10, maybe 12 foot waves behind my one bearing down on me. Only a surfer knows this frightening feeling!

I tried to calm myself and slowed my breathing. I was lucky enough to have just enough time to be able to do this when SLAM! A wall of whitewater hit me and dragged me inward while tossing me in every direction tearing at my limbs. This was way worse than the actual wipeout i had. Under for a while I began to panic. A big no no in this situation. I fought for the surface as I felt I was running out of time, running out of air. What made me panic even more was wondering what the third wave was doing. I searched for the light. Eventually I popped up to the surface spitting out water and gasped for air. Thankfully it had washed me in so far that once the next wave hit me it wasn’t nearly as bad. I was exhausted with absolutely zero energy left but I was ok.

After sucking in air for a couple of minutes my attention turned the the fact that I was quite a way in and the fishing boat was just a spec as was so far out. I guess the swell that nearly caught him scared him good. I barely had the energy to paddle past the break out the back let alone way out to where he was anchored. I paddled way wide into a ‘safe zone’ and began waiving my board out of the water trying to attract the boat. My mate Brett was back at the take off area and was wondering what had happened to me. After around ten minutes I thankfully noticed the boat moving toward the break. My wife later told me she was laying in the boat chatting at the time when something made her get up and look around to see my waiving my board to be picked up. I paddled out as far as I could before giving up and waiting for them to swoop in and collect me then swoop back out to safety. If not picked up I would have probably drifted down reef to the next impact zone and got smashed again. I could barely climb back on the boat but had I made it. Laughing yes, but also a little in shock I think but thankfully I had survived.

“Only a surfer knows this feeling”