Kookslam at Bruces

This year, I was blessed to enjoy three extended trips to Indonesia. It was my son’s first time in Indo, my first time back in 14 years - my travels stopped when he was born as many years ago. Most people can’t afford to look after kids as well as traipse around the world selfishly chasing waves and moaning about onshores.

It was quite a shock to get back home to South Africa and hit the end section of the worst winter in 40 years. Our 8-year drought had finally been somewhat alleviated, but the storms and unfavourable southerly winds continued unabated, along with the news that the JBay Open had been cancelled.

Then, the swell of the year started approaching the Eastern Cape area. While a 9-metre west swell is startling, it must bend and twist so much to get into the sweet spots around here that no one was alarmed. That was until the period forecast jumped to 20 seconds, and the swell forecast started looking like the swell would come straight from the south. Then it became an ‘oh my golly gosh’ kind of forecast.

The waves at Bruce’s Beauties were booming on the second day of the swell. There were some excellent waves at Bruce’s main break and some solid barrels at Killers. While watching the sets, I bumped into one of the original Bruce’s locals, Trevor Hansen, and we chatted. “It’s a relatively easy jump off, bru,’ said Trevor as we watched a set totally engulf the jump rock. “It’s just all about the timing.” Trevor’s right. At Bruce’s, it is all about timing, actually. Get a gap, clamber off the big rock, then hop to the left-rock, right-rock, left-rock, right-rock, and launch. What could possibly go wrong?

We watched a few guys jump. There were some close moments, but no one really came a cropper. It looked relatively harmless.

(Did you know that the saying ‘come a cropper’ is derived from the Old Norse word kropp, the name of a hump or swelling on the body. The Oxford English Dictionary graphically describes a crop as a ‘swollen protuberance or excrescence. This will become important later.)

When the swell comes from the south, the waves pour through. Still, a friend spotted a gap and sent me scurrying. It was quite a dramatic day, so throngs of spectators watched me clamber down, jump onto the left rock, hop onto the right rock, and slip and fall on my butt.

As I grovelled back to my feet, a 2-foot surge with 20 seconds of power behind it came, took my legs from under me, and sent me into a little hole in front of the main rock. As I climbed out of the pool, a bigger wave bore down on me. I just relaxed, knowing there was no way of fighting and winning with that amount of power behind the swell.

The wave engulfed me and moved me horizontally underwater in a sitting position at speed before I hit a flat rock with my butt with sickening force.

‘That did not feel good.’ As the wave receded and the throngs of spectators started shouting at me, I clambered to my feet, somewhat shakily.

My board was unscathed. My butt felt unusually sore but was still in one piece, so to speak. A quick thumbs up to the onlookers, and it was round two.

I proceeded back toward the big rock to get some shelter from the oncoming dangerouslooking sets. As I attempted to climb a tiny shelf to get to safety, something in my groin broke. I collapsed, screaming for help as I started to disappear under another set.

Some more people came to help, but each time they tried to lift me, I screamed so loudly that they stopped, and some spectators started filming.

“Can you please ask them to stop filming me?” I asked some kind gentleman who was definitely a non-surfer but was very concerned about my well-being.

“Ignore them, don’t worry about them,” he said. “You were very brave and did tremendously by even trying to surf these giant breakers.” By using words like ‘brave,’ ‘tremendously’, and ‘breakers’, he was making things worse.

As I was carried out by three able-bodied friends, I saw a friend and asked her to phone my wife.

“Can I help you get out of your wetsuit? I’ll just rip it off you quickly?” offered another friend. I was in so much pain that the idea of ripping my suit off was too painful to contemplate.

“Please get me some clothes, and I’ll just do it slowly,” I asked my friend. She passed me some undies and a pair of tracksuit pants from my car. There was quite a crowd by now, concerned about my well-being,

Getting out of my wetsuit was punishing. Getting into my undies and trackie pants was unbearably painful. Still, I managed it alone without falling around the car park naked. My wife arrived and was terribly worried. More so at my attire. “Are you ok?” She asked .” “Not really” I replied. “I think I have already got some swelling because these pants have become so tight.” I looked down. I was obviously delirious and in shock, but the trackies were unbelievably restrictive.

“I think you’ve got your boy’s pants on,” she said. I looked down, and she was right. I had squeezed into some stove-piped pants, size 14 Boys, and not my comfortable 34s or even my loose but very comfortable 36s. “Not a very good look,” I acknowledged before I started whimpering again. I got the tracksuit pants off, and we headed to the ER.

After about a 3-hour wait, the X-rays revealed no broken bones. By this stage, I was awash with some Schedule 6 painkillers. The nurse suddenly strode up to me, whipped out some surgical scissors and said, “I’m really not happy about those tiny undies,” and suddenly cut my son’s underpants off my swollen loins with immediate, palpable relief. Then they took me to the car in a wheelchair.

When I got home that night, my son looked at me and asked, “Are you alright?”

“I’m cool,” I said, pouring several fingers of whiskey into a short glass to mix with the schedule sixes. I’m just really sore, and I lost your underpants.”

“Those were brand new,” he said. “I’m going to play Fortnite.”

The next day, the scan revealed a minor hernia, apparently from an old injury, and a kroppthat swollen protuberance or excrescence - of torn ligaments, damaged tissue, internal bleeding, and excessive bruising in my groin, my butt and my thighs. My feet were a bit shredded from the barnacles, and a small haemorrhoid had appeared due to the impact. It was unpleasant, and my body was damaged, but there was nothing to be done except rest. The waves continued to fire for the next few days, and as my son surfed with all my friends, everyone was concerned about me. “What happened to your dad,” they all asked.

“He fell off the rocks at Bruce’s and went to the ER with haemorrhoids,” he told them.

“HERNIA, son! It’s a hernia.” I blurted when he told me that evening, and everyone started laughing.

“This is not helping the situation,” I said to the room, but three out of four people found it funny, so it was.

So, the surf year is over for me, but it has been a good year. Three surf trips that no one can take away from me: epic adventures with my son, travelling with my family, surfing with my daughter.

But what lingers is the ignominy of my son paddling out the Bruce’s slipway on that fateful day, getting out to the backline with his head dry and getting an awesome opening wave, while I slipped on the rocks, and spent Sunday arvo in hospital in his underpants.

Jarvi