Who said kite-surfing was more dangerous?
Last week, on a night out in the middle of a kite-surfing trip, the topic of whether kite-surfing or surfing was more dangerous came up.
My view was that, while kite-surfing was considered a more extreme sport it was certainly no more dangerous than surfing. Naturally this didn’t go down too well in a group of passionate kite-surfers.
I was quickly reminded of an incident just hours earlier where I was dragged half way across a stretch of the beach, almost crashed the kite into a couple and then tried to take out some kids in a play area; all as a result of trying to launch a kite. One could quite rightly say that I can’t even get the kite off the ground let alone into the sea. And nor is it the first time something like this has happened.
I certainly can’t lay claim to any skill at the sport and admittedly who knows where I might be if people didn’t run after me and save me? I would happily put my hands up and cry mercy.
Today, while out surfing, something happened that sent shivers down my spine the way that being dragged six feet off the ground unexpectedly by a kite never did.
I was totally exhausted from a day surfing and was carrying my board up the shore smiling like an idiot at all the neat poses I would be able to pull if I was a pro. A slightly rabid looking dog bounced past me into the water and behind me I heard a woman shout something in Portuguese. I had assumed that she was calling the dog until she started screaming.
The way she screamed though. Jeez. Imagine in some horror film when some girl has a severed head land in her lap and then maybe turns around to find more dead bodies. It was like that, it was THAT bad.
I think she broke some fingers, no blood anyway. Needless to say her surfing trip was over and she was hurried off the beach pretty quickly.
In a way I’m feeling pretty lucky right now. I mostly wiped out during the trip so far and have been ok even though the number of bruises on my body has increased exponentially since I began surfing three days ago.
The other day when I fell off my board I landed pretty heavily into the water and did the whole safety thing. When it was over I peeked over the water to fetch my board and even though my hand was already on the board, another wave just brought it smack down on my face.
Today when I wiped out, I started doing tumbles somewhere on the bottom of the ocean and it was impossible to even do any protective moves because the sea was so rough. The whole time I just thought: “Shit where the fuck is the board?” The worry is always that the board will come from nowhere and smash down on your head. Or worse still, the fins will slice through something solid quite like knife through butter.
Anyway, that makes the number of notable kiting incidents in three years two, and the number of notable surfing incidents in three days two as well.
I know I’m the sort of person who trips over themselves constantly but still, the statistics speak for themselves.
