The Chunderbox
Not long ago an old mate of mine came to see us and stay for a bit, and since he had at one point used to surf, a fair while ago, we took him out with us in the morning. By a stroke of good fortune, or, alternatively and depending on how you look at it, by catastrophic bad luck, his visit coincided with the full moon. So we dragged him out of his bed at 3.30 in the morning, and, yawning, scratching and farting, shoved him in the back of the car and hauled him off to the beach where we gave him a board and pushed him out into the boiling surf by the light of the moon. He afterwards confessed that he thought his number was up and that he was sure he was going to die out there. Miraculously he didn’t, and he survived to tell the tale and to meet a good few of our regular crew, us mob who meet in the darkest hours of the day and claw our way through impenetrable darkness to sneak waves in solitude and peace and quiet. During a rare spell of lucidity and relative sanity afterwards, in betwe...