Almost Certain Death

It's been a long time since we've been surfing and we miss it. So you can imagine our excitement when we went down south knowing that we would be passing by some of the beach surf beaches in Australia. On our way home to Perth we stopped at Yallingup Beach, near Margaret River. We decided to take a walk down the beach and quickly realized that we were out our league. Gone were the pure sand beaches and the soft beginners' surf that roll right into land; instead we found massive waves that were a ways of the coast and would require top notch paddling... Then IF we finally got out there (there have been times that we've paddled for an hour or two and got nowhere... haha) we would still have had to navigate around massive amounts of coral. Basically the only way I would be on a surf board in that surf would be if I had a death wish.... Luckily for our families and friends back home, none of us did.

Once our surfing dreams were dashed, and it was too cold to sunbathe, we settled for a stroll down the beach. Lucky we did because soon we came to a separate beach that had the biggest, fastest and just plain craziest waves I've seen yet. It looked like madness but we couldn't resist. We stripped off our clothes and jumped into the waves to body surf... It was a riot!!! Only after we had played in the waves did we think to try and take evidence of the experience but sadly the biggest of the waves had passed so our videos and photos just did not do it justice. I guess you readers back home with just have to settle for our description... If I were have to guess how big the waves are I'd want to say 12 ft but I have been known to exaggerate. Case in point, when asked how big they thought the waves were, both Dan and Britt guessed 6-8 ft... haha... Almost half!!! I'd make a wicked fisherman eh? But to be fair to those who have not surfed, I'll explain a lil about how waves are measured, the are measured a certain way, so while the official height may be 6-8 ft it can actually be 8-10 ft tall... But anyway, we got tossed, turned, flipped and dragged around like rag dolls in the waves. It was unreal. We were careful to stay within the flags (the lifeguards mark out the safe areas to swim) but there were moments that I was surprised that we were still allowed in the water, it was so rough. We were like little kids in the water, we just couldn't get enough of being flipped like clothes in a washing machine. By the time we stumbled out of the waves, we had a couple close calls. Brittany got dumped hard on the sand and came out of the water so dizzy she needed help out, Dan came away with a nasty bruise on her knee (the same knee that she previously injured.. it's like a magnetic for trouble), and all of us had at least one wave that enveloped us so deeply that we weren't sure when our next breath would be. To sum up the experience. It was a rush: a fantastically fun, sometimes intimidating rush but it was nice to be on dry ground again.