Pride before a fall So how did I break my arm you ask? Do you want the short version or the long version? The long version you say? It was a glorious late winters' day and there was a moderate breeze out on the harbour. Yes, I was finally doing it. I had mastered the art of windsurf foiling. I was fully up on the plane, souring above the water and the feeling was pure magic. Flying on water, the slop of the waves on the board had disappeared and I was in the zone. Look at me guys, I'm doing it. So in the moment was I, and so sure of my newfound confidence, that I failed to detect the telltale signs of a monster gust rippling towards me. My soul was in the clouds, I was blissfully, stupidly, unaware of the catastrophe about to unfold. Now fast forward from my dreamful state to the moment the rouge wind hit my sail. Still in a perfect foiling stance the blast hit the sail. There was no reaction time. No fine tuned immediate adjustment to the change in velocity that should've taken place. That fury wind just picked my sorry arse, the board and the sail. Up, up and up towards the stratosphere. Now let me tell you it wasn't the going up that hurt. That didn't hurt a bit. My mouth and eyes were open in wide surprise at this sudden turn of events. I remember that part. There was, however, as I recollect, absolutely no pain at this point in my story. It was the coming down that did the damage. A jumble of boom, mast, foil and sail in a furious fight with uplift, downlift, gravity, complicated physics that I'll near understand, body parts and water. The sharp pain in my right arm, the jarring of my left. The relentless pain in the right arm that didn't subside and signaled that this time I had not maybe, but actually broken a bodypart. Floundering in the cold, winter water, reaching for a board broken in half by the impact and the inward mental voice screaming, I'm in trouble, in my head. However, the only sounds that managed to emit from my mouth were soft, puppylike whimpers of anguish. Somehow I manage to haul myself onto my half a board as I struggle to untangle my feet from the mess of a sail. With heavily compromised buoyancy miraculously my head mainly stays above the waterline but I find myself ingesting unideal amounts of seawater. Alone on the stormy sea with no signs of my windsurf companions anywhere I fear my fate is sealed as my delusonal mind sees a fin circling in ever increasing smaller circles around me. Is it a shark, or is it a shark? Well it ain't superman let me tell you that. I'm seeing this fin in the water as I feel myself loosing my grip on the board and I'm figuring it's a bit late to choose one of the more plausible religions I've gotten a bit of a gist about that might help see me into the afterlife. As the merits of the various religions pass through my mind I think I hear the distant hum of a rescue helicopter sent to save me from my plight. Wait. Nah, I think its one of those noisey, pesky drones intruding into my last dying moments, but I fear too late to be of any assistance in my dire need. Then I hear an actual voice, the voice of derision, appear beside me. "You weren't bloody watching were you. You weren't bloody watching you stupid woman. Now you've gone and cut my session short. I'm sick of having to babysit idiots." Another harbour rescue that wasn't Rob and he's chuckling, ha, it wasn't me this time. So mournfully on my couch I type, one handed as we speak. What's that you say? The short version? You want the short version?
Yeah, yeah okay, okay, okay.
I fell off my bike.
MirandaH
> 9 months ago, 31 Aug 2019
hope you have a speedy recovery and back on the water for summer
