LAID BARE

I loved that howling south-wester, roaring and snarling up from the Antarctic. I liked it best when it blew so hard the house shuddered with each violent gust, a harbinger of the challenging waves it would bring.

I’d lie there in the night, thinking about the next morning, about the endless lines bending into the bay – riding that wind in my mind, racing the wall that stretched across my consciousness.

I’d flown down from Durban. I was the only pro surfer in South Africa at the time, and flying was a luxury – a reward I gave myself for the gruelling battles I was having on the world tour against Mark Richards, Simon Anderson, Dane Kealoah and my greatest rival, Rabbit Bartholomew.

I arrived early in the evening and looked out across the point, gazing into a freshening south-westerly wind and the huge swells creasing the horizon. There wasn’t a house on the point, just a rough parking lot, tall dunes and fragrant fynbos. Another reward was a skinny bed at the Beach Hotel, on a little rise overlooking Magnatubes; where I was served dinner by the elegant table waiter, Gabriel, and the drunken, red-jacketed wine waiter, Joseph.

I woke up before light, pulled on my wetsuit, and paddled out in the gloom towards a brightening sky, as the sun ignited the dunes that curved out across the bay.

Back then there was no thought or fear of sharks – hell, this was the Eastern Cape, as safe as houses. I’d never seen a shark at J-Bay and had never spoken to anyone who had seen one.

I sat way out the back at Boneyards, just me and anticipation, as the first set of the morning stood up on the reef. I paddled over the first wave and then the second, spray whipping my eyes as I looked for that long, perfect wall that would take me to where I needed to be.

Suddenly I saw a fin. An electric shock of fear ran