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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.
 Hotshot's surf ski post dumping
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.
 Ouch! Hotshot's ex-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.
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