There was a windsurfer at my break this arvo who insisted on surfing through the populated areas, he largely stayed away from the flags, but kept going through the areas at the edge of the flags, where there were a lot of SBs, learners, kids inshore playing with parents in the low tide hollows and a useless old fart on a long board sitting out back nursing his fat gut and keeping his piles warm (me).
The full-time lifeguard is a really nice bloke, he's a nodding acquaintance of mine and I know he's no Nazi, he'll do anything to make sure everyone has a good time, no matter what they're on, but this windsurfer was just going way too far so he had to take his quad down to the waters edge and use the PA to tell him to move down the beach to where all the other kite surfers were. I could hear it perfectly and we all know I'm a deaf old coont.
I can't keep writing the word windsurfer so I'll abbreviate it to (AT) that's short for "arrogant turd".
It was not like AT was just young and dumb, he was probably in his 40s, but he just kept ignoring the advice, in the end, the lifeguard got off his quad and waded into the shallow to speak directly to him. You would think that would be the end of it, but no, not our AT, he just kept doing it and cutting through the same crowd on his way to the beach. No less that 3 more times did the lifeguard have to wade out to him and warn him.
From way out back I could see the farce unfolding. You could see dads inshore standing in front of him flaying their arms around and you could tell they weren't applauding, the entire beach was looking at AT in disgust and each time he went out, you could see every SB he passed was giving him a gob full. But he would just turn and say something back to them, and it probably wasn't "merry Xmas".
I guess on the last warning the lifeguard threatened to call in the Police, so he did move down the beach, but not too far.
I could not work the guy out, he literately had hundreds of people hating his guts, but he just kept doing it, it was like he had reached a tipping point where his overwhelming belief in the correctness of what he was doing outweighed the danger he was placing others in.
He did not look to me to be the most expert windsurfer I have ever seen, and although I'm far from being and authority on the sport, I'm pretty sure turns can be done in a single fluid motion rather than just letting to mast drop into the water, falling in turning the board in the opposite direction and then getting back on to go out again, but hey, perhaps that's the newest trendy move in windsurfing.
I think this guy has form, a couple of years ago I seem to recall him doing the same thing and almost wiping out a few surfboards, but that was winter when the beach was un-patrolled.
obct
> 9 months ago, 28 Dec 2016
