¨Shark attack¨

If my sister can do it, I can. Or at least, that´s what I thought. It turns out I´m wrong. I desperately wanted to be a surf chick. In fact, it was for this reason only that we jumped on a bus from Sao Paulo and travelled 10 hours overnight to a place called Florianopolis. OK. It wasn´t just to surf. It was mainly because a lovely girl that I worked with had told me how great it was. But we´d chosen our hostel on the island purely on the basis that they gave out free surfboards and kayaks. I was determined that by the end of the week, I´d be hanging out in my boardies and flippers and riding the waves, or whatever it is they do.

But I just couldn´t do it. I´d had no problem standing up on a sandboard on the first day, flying down the dunes and running back up again. Even in a kayak, I´d managed to hold my own in the waves while Andy went flying overboard the minute he stepped in it. But surfing was a different story altogether. In fact, I was so crap, I managed to break one of the surfboards. I was paddling out to sea for the one millionth time, getting throroughly churned up by the waves yet again, before I´d even got out to the bit where I presumed you were supposed to catch one, when the end snapped off my board. I tried to claim it was a shark attack, but no one believed me. After three days, I finally gave up and tried bodyboarding instead, but I was even rubbish at that. At one point I ended up stuck under a huge wave with the cord wrapped around my neck, thinking I was about to die, much to the amusement of everyone. The worst thing about it all was that the place was teeming with Aussies, who may as well have been born in Billabong shorts on boards for all the trouble they had mastering the waves.
So, that´s the end of my surfing career. At least until I return to England when I´m hoping Mel might be kind enough to teach me how to do it.