===== Robin Mousley's Favorite Paddle (posted on Quora) =====

[[https://www.quora.com/profile/Rob-Mousley|Rob Mousley]], 16 years experience with ocean kayaking on surfskis.

[[https://www.quora.com/What-would-be-your-best-worst-kayaking-experiences/answer/Rob-Mousley|Answered Jan 4, 2018]]

My best paddle was the **2007 Surfski World Cup** in Durban, South Africa.

Coming from Cape Town, where we seldom have to go through big surf, Durban had always been a challenging place for me to race. I’d broken a boat the year before, and had injured myself quite badly in surf a year before that.

As we lined up for the start of the race at Amanzimtoti Beach - one of the biggest surfski races ever at the time, with athletes present from all over the world - the conditions looked extreme.

A 30kt SW buster was sweeping up the coast, kicking up a good sized wind-swell. At the same time a 2–3m ocean swell was running at a slightly different angle. The wind swell was slightly offshore; the ocean swell slightly onshore.

The start siren sounded and we were off… I negotiated the surf without a problem, some unlikely paddlers being smacked off their skis to my left. Reaching the turn buoy, I headed left towards Durban city.

I’d been told about how to ride the Durban swells in such conditions - the ocean swells are too big and too fast to catch, so you have to take off on the smaller, slower wind-swells, get speed up and then turn onto the ocean swells…

For the first 30min of the race, I was nervous as hell and played it very conservatively. And then… disaster. I had missed a wind-swell, which meant that I wallowed back off the crest - and was moving slowly, when I realised that an ocean swell to my right, a huge wave, was breaking and I wasn’t moving fast enough either to maneuver out of the way, or to catch it. Instead, it was going to catch me!

So I turned towards it and attempted to paddle up the face. I nearly made it - but before cresting the wave, my ski stopped and started going backwards. I prepared to meet my doom… but the wave gently scooped me off the ski without any violence and I simply found myself in the water next to the ski and… revelation… the water was warm!

Part of what makes paddling dangerous in Cape Town where I live, is that the water is cold and hypothermia is a constant risk. But now, I suddenly realised that I was in tropical waters - there was no possibility that I’d die in this lovely warm, friendly water - at least from hypothermia!

I remounted with renewed confidence, turned the the ski downwind and paddled with a completely differently attitude. Gone was the tentative dabbling, instead I was taking vigorous strokes, accelerating onto the wind-swell, turning aggressively onto the massive ocean swells, swooping down the faces in clouds of spray, whooping with exhilaration… And I found I was overtaking people - even paddlers who would normally be well ahead of me in a race.

A slightly sobering moment came when I found myself a little too close to a reef just before Durban Harbor, but most of the rest of the race was a smashing, spray filled surf-fest…