Surfing has revealed my Achilles heel* - or more accurately, my Achilles toe!
After a long winter of having to wear boots as a necessity, it is always a welcome turning point in the year when Easter arrives and the temperatures rise enough to ditch the kook boots**! I absolutely love those first few surfs back in the summer suit at the start of Spring when I can feel the wax beneath my toes again.
Here in Cornwall, the tail end of May saw an unbelievably good run of swell paired with balmy weather and a high pressure system that puffed offshore breezes across the peninsula non-stop for over a week. It was nuts!
Okay, it also meant the crowds were off the hook. But, by some magical meteorological coincidence those perfect conditions just stayed the same all day long everyday.
It was great, meant I could check the cams a couple of times during the day whilst at work to get a sense of where it was looking good, wait until almost dusk for the crowds to thin out and then go enjoy some sunset glass to satisfy my soul.
I did it again the following evening, and the next and the next... A total of 7 surfs in 7 days! Bliss.
Until I looked at my feet. Bliss had turned into blister and what I can only describe as a small pot-hole had been ground into the side of my big toe. Caused it seems by what my son laughingly refers to as 'foot dragger style'. Every night there was blood on the sand, then during the following day it would form a thin scab only to get knocked off again by the end of that night after yet another surf. Making that hole a little deeper, a little more gnarly every time. Can there be too much of a good thing?
Needless to say, it's now gone pear-shaped. Couple of nights ago, my whole foot was on fire and I could barely walk the next day. The evening spent in A&E confirmed an infection and the result is the next 7 days on antibiotics and probably spent out of the water too.
Maybe I should have kept those kook boots on after all...
- - -
* If you don't know the origin of the term Achilles' Heel, click the link, it's a cool Greek myth.
** I wear Solite boots in the Winter, they are the best boots I've ever owned - truly game-changers!
