Summer Bruises - Surfing

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by Quinn Bradlee
Wednesday, September 08, 2010

My last day on Long Island I went body boarding and it was pretty rough; it was just after hurricane Earl. After I had paddled out a few times, I started to get tied so I thought I would try and walk to the end of the jetty (rocks) and jump off at the end like a lot of surfers do. Well I got to the end and I was trying to figure out the best way to jump off them. I saw this one rock that I could step down to and jump off of, but then I saw a little wave come and the rock disappeared, so I started to debate about it... I decided to step down to the rock and as I was stepping down a little wave came and pushed me off and I fell and got pushed into the rocks. Just to let everybody know, I was wearing flippers at the time as all body boarders do when the go body boarding. If I was just walking on the rocks carrying my surfboard, this would not have happened. Any ways, after I got pushed into the rocks I noticed my leg started stinging a little and looked at it after I paddled back out, and there was a lot of blood coming down. It looked as if I had been whipped on one side of my leg.

I decided to stay out a little while longer since it was my last day, and ended up catching a few more waves. However, the last few times I tried to paddle out, I felt as if the other surfers were latterly trying to run me over when I would paddle back out from riding a wave. Also, the last few times I did try to catch a wave, a surfer would come and cut me off. The last time I tried to catch a wave, that it was exactly what happened, and I just stopped myself from getting run over by him, but I pulled a calf, when I had pulled my other calf on the last wave from trying not to get run over. After I had pulled both of my calves, I was said to myself, ‘I'm done.'

It was tough, but I'm glad I had one last day of riding the waves.