Believe-it-or-else/not/whatever, but people used to surf without having their boards surgically attached. Far-fetched I know, but trust me, it was normal. Until one day, in a galaxy far,far away....
Ronnie-the-Snake may once have had a wave to himself. It seems unlikely and I certainly have never seen it, but I will concede the possibility. If you asked the Burleigh Boardriders, I doubt any of them have seen it either. But he was also well-known on his home breaks for something other than always dropping in on everyone. He was, in fact, the very first guy on his local breaks to sport a 'shock-cord' as they were called then. Rumours of their use in various ex-colonies around the globe had filtered back...and a photo had even been spotted in SURFER(tm), no less!! Now you may think it funny, looking back from your 90s sophistication, but these pioneers had them attached to...guess what? (No! not that grandma!)..their wrists!!! Yeah, go on, all fall about on the floor.....we did :-)
The Point was working. The crew were out. It was head-high + with an occasional ++ set. D.J., Dave-the-Rave, Russ Williams and others were sitting outside when the Snake came squeaking over a last-of-set wave, with a slap of the board onto the water.
"What-the-hell are you wearing Ron-boy!???" asked D.J. with a grin.
So we were given the lowdown on this state-of-the-art invention and how you wouldn't lose your board if you wiped on a biggie and so you'd have so many more waves. Yeah, right. The concensus was...well skeptical.
D.J. took off, late, on the first of a set-of-the-day. Woohooooo!! He realises early enough he's on a ticket to a severe pounding if he continues and comes flying, literally, over the back. He surfs into a landing like a seabird and immediately he's down and stroking to get safely over the next, very threatening wall. He makes it; Snake takes off. I forget who it was in front of, but never mind, they were going to eat it anyway. Perhaps not as early tho.
D.J. sits up and we're all looking beachwards, when Snake's head and the nose of his board appear, very temporarily, above the lip. A whole streetlength of section piles over...and young Ron's off over-the-falls with it. Well, we're all watching...and watching...and watching as this big wall of whitewater heads for the shore, cleaning up anyone who'd been paddling out in front of it.
"Where the hell is he?" asked Russ
"No-one can stay under that long...and live" someone says.
{Note: they were proved wrong in Files #13 too ;-) } If we'd had the equipment we could have brewed up some coffee and drank half of it before we finally saw a very perspective-reduced Snake pop up on the inside.
Some considerable time later, he made it back outside. He gasped a few times, waved his cord and said "See?"... and everyone cracked up!! :-)
Within days The Feet was sporting one. Then Krakatoa. Krakatoa went
to Oz shortly after...and learnt to wear it on his ankle. Bloody colonials,
it's hard to keep up with them and all their new-fangled ideas, eh? :-)
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