As always on these things punch the volume right up…
Jumping off rocks into the drink ain’t hard in the same way as backside tuberiding ain’t rocket science.
Pick a line, steel your nerve, don’t panic. Easy to say, hard to do.
I learned my lesson real young when I tried to follow shaping great Darren Handley off Kirra’s big groyne during a cyclone-fuelled swell.
Where Darren danced, quickly, over a well-trodden route, done it a million times etc, and didn’t blink as he threw himself into the ocean, I tip-toed, turned around, went back, stood there, jumped into a set, panicked, untied my leash, tried to climb back up the rocks, and finished my rock-jump campaign clinging to bolts on a rock like a limpet, my little Rusty wedged somewhere below.
A good lesson.
And apart from a one-foot day at Whale Beach when I slipped down a hole, and after a dozen years habitually surfing Burleigh, it’s never happened again.
In this lovely film captured by Still Stoked during this week’s monster swell in Sydney, we see a timid but tenacious VAL refuse to accept defeat as he breaks every rule in the rock-jump playbook.
I see half-a-dozen mistakes.
Tell me what you see, yes?
As always in those things, the commentary complements the actin wonderfully.