‘Good morning my love. I’m going for a surf. The waves are good.’ I kissed my wife as I whispered into her ear. It was like any perfect winter morning, the early crisp land breeze drifting down the hills to the edge of the ocean. The swell was groomed and breaking along the point in sets of about four waves each. Would you go surfing with conditions like this?
Our house on the hill is about 400 metres from the boardwalk. A perfect little viewing point. Fitted with benches and a large green umbrella to take the heat of the sun off you when you just want to sit for hours and stare out to sea. Or do some work. The lush vegetation that borders the rock-laid path, is thick with greenery from silver-leaf trees, palms and dune vines, all knitted together from decades of crowded growth and scarce water supply. When the sun gets a chance to break through the coastal forest and hit the sandy floor, rays of light fill the undergrowth like pillars of luminescent glory. Sentinels, reminding you that we aren’t alone and that our eyes only see in part for now. Maybe angels in disguise?
There was a lone fisherman on the point as I paddled out. July is usually Shad season. And when the schools of fish do come past, the bay can be crowded with everyone and their aunty all trying to get their quota for the day. Sometimes lines get tangled and tempers flare as each jockey for a better position along the rocks. The braver fishermen wade out along the submerged rocks, sometimes waist-deep, just to get a better cast and clear the shallow waters.
On this day, I was soaking it all in. The brilliance of the rising sun on the water. The warmth on my face as I closed my eyes and sat in wonder, basking in the winter warmth. I sat with hands raised in adoration. My posture of both surrender and receiving. Sometimes dolphins would swim past and ride some waves with me. On some days the pods that would follow the fish would number well into the hundreds. You enter another world when you slip below the surface of the ocean and join these majestic mammals as they glide past you. To our ears, their communication sounds like clicks of a variety of tones, but to God, it must be beautiful worship. Have you ever gone swimming and dolphins glide past you?
Philippe Petit, the wire walker, is quoted as saying; ’Many people use the words ‘death-defying’ or ‘death-wishing’ when they talk about wire-walking. Many people have asked me; ‘So, do you have a death wish?’ After doing a beautiful walk, I feel like punching them on the nose. It’s indecent. I have a life wish.’
Suddenly, the serenity was broken, as if being woken to a flashlight in my face. In an instant, a large dark dorsal fin broke through the water about 30 metres bayside of me. This is every surfer’s worst nightmare and I just knew it was a great white shark. There have been close encounters in the past with surfers at this very spot. Paragliders and pilots have seen large sharks patrolling the waters between Yellow Sands Point and Chintsa. I’ve been in the ocean long enough to spot the difference in a few shark species. This wasn’t swimming like dolphins do, either. Its dorsal fin ran steady like it was on a railway track. An ominous iron-clad war train. The water parted as the shark cut through it towards me.
My hands froze, as they gripped the rails of my board. Terror overcame all my rehearsed situations and I began screaming louder than a teenage girl at a One Direction concert. You know THAT kind of scream right?
Its dorsal and large back caudal fin dipped just below the thin line between ocean and air. Feeling alone and panicked, I spun the board around to watch the shark do a large circular U-turn back towards the bay. In horror, I watched it turn back towards me as if following a pre-planned route. It covered the 30-odd metres quicker than before and just before reaching me, the white shark dipped below the surface again.
There was no Bear Grylls moment for me. No adventure scene here. No calm David Attenborough whispers to set the hunt in perspective as something natural and even beautiful. Instead, out of the corner of my eye, I could see our house on top of the hill. Jo and the children were waking up to tea and biscuits, completely unaware of the terror that was circling.
This feeling of powerlessness wasn’t the first. There was my emotional breakdown some years earlier while in Hout Bay. Our armed robbery – which lasted over an hour. The trauma of almost losing my son. My late wife’s 10-month cancer journey and death – these had all left hair-line cracks in the walls of my soul. Cracks because I wasn’t in control or able to do anything. These were all like pieces in the Jenga game of my life which held me up very carefully. One more shaking wooden piece and the tower was coming down. Have there been times in your life that you have felt this way?
Most of life can seem like fight or flight. Some seem to get through unscathed. Unfortunately, most don’t. And yet, just like wire-walker Philippe Petit, we want to live, don’t we? We have a life wish, not a death wish. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life at the mercy of your emotions. We all want autonomy from the past, don’t we? But how do we recover?
