Surf Nation

The Broken Ribs Blues

Many thanks to my mate and Gwenver lifeguard Stef Harkon, who changed a wheel on my car earlier this evening. I had a slow puncture on my nearside left rear and it went flat given that I haven't been able to drive since breaking my ribs on Tuesday. Stef was kind enough to oblige given that broken ribs are not commensurate with hefty work with jacks, wrenches and bolts.

Talking of said ribs, I managed a reasonable walk this afternoon but have been paying for it ever since. As I have had occasion to mention before, broken ribs are a lousy injury - they affect everything you do, from sneezing, laughing and coughing to going up and down stairs and wandering the lanes of West Penwith down to wonderful places like Nanjizal. You can get to said wonderful place, albeit at a very slow pace, but once there the effort takes it toll. On the way home, you are knackered. Once at home, the pain kicks in and you wish you'd stayed put.

However, at no stage in today's walk to Nanjizal and back did I sustain an injury. For this small mercy I am very grateful; if it could be the blueprint for the next five years, I'd be gratitude incarnate.

What not to do with broken ribs (the first of an irregular series)

1. Play Poker

Yes, even if you are a former poker columnist, as is true of yours truly, playing poker is not the answer to downtime occasioned by broken ribs.

Poker is a brutal game.

Of late, playing the game in a reasoned fashion (ie, when I'm in the mood, rather than out of boredom), I have won quite a few games.

Tonight, after a sleepy, groggy, pain-filled day, I played six games. I came second in one and crashed out of all the others.

I now have no money in my online poker account left.

This is not the way forward.

A blindingly obvious observation about broken ribs

The good thing about broken ribs is that when propped up in bed (the sufferer's required mode of existence) there is virtually no pain. This leads to thoughts of getting back into the sea within a week, or maybe 10 days at most.

Such thoughts are instantly dispelled by the act of moving. Traversing a distance of a yard is enough for pain and dismay to set in, and the memory of the last time I broke the ribs then arrives (it was over two months before I was able to surf).

The answer, in such circumstances, is to stay as still as possible. At this rate, I may even get into Facebook and Twitter.

I think I'll have to give boxing tonight a miss.

(Having little else to do I may as well point people in the direction of my new book, due out on 21 September. By all accounts it is an injury-free book.)

El Ribo: He's Back!

This is a short post written in pain and with a bit of a morphine fog to say many thanks to Burt, Lewis and Dom (Sennen lifeguards), Naomi Gorvin and other good folk whose names I didn't get (Coastguards), Greg the paramedic, two lads and a lass who were on holiday and who kindly fetched the lifeguards and gave me some water, the blokes in the ambulance and one or two other people whose names again elude me.

The above all did a great job when a freak accident this afternoon saw me end up in West Cornwall hospital (again). I'd been having a good surf with my two sons, Harry and Elliot, when I took off on a left-hander only for it to close out, leaving me with nowhere to go and a battering to enjoy. Thing is, the rail of my board smashed very hard into my left side. Result? Broken ribs, again (this is now the fourth time I've broken the ribs on my left side; those who tune in to this blog regularly may recall that I broke two of them this time last year).

The pain was a solid 9 out of 10 when I moved and despite trying to walk off the beach with my arm slung over Lewis's shoulder this wasn't going to happen. The good folk above stretchered me up Vellandreath (no mean feat) where there was an ambulance waiting. Throughout, they were all professional and kind to the max. Top people.

I am now looking at making yet another comeback. Am slightly gutted but I've been pushing myself too hard lately and a bit of enforced rest will do me some good. Just wish it wasn't such a painful spell of rest ...

Thanks again to everyone who helped me out.

The image is courtesy of www.sennen-cove.com. At the time it was taken, I think the beach may have just turned blue when I realised that walking wasn't a very good idea. Oh and as Aerial Attack correctly advised me to make clear, I was surfing further down the beach than the waves shown here, opposite Black Hut - it was gnarly there, at least 20ft ...

Hello Broadband, Hello Blog

So, some six weeks after moving to a new place in the wilds of Polgigga I now have broadband.

Life offline has not been easy.

But now I am online.

Online, and going for a surf.

Martians say NO to American colonialists

Just like everyone the world over, I had high hopes of pictures of five-mile, reeling, 8ft long right hand point breaks being beamed back to Earth by the clever device that the Americans are presently piloting around Mars in search of surf. Instead, though, this is what comes our way.

Image courtesy of Facebook (it's doing the rounds) and has something to do with the Stanton Warriors (I think).