Gabriele Steindl: Professional Kitesurfer & Freelance Writer - Action, Lifestyle & Travels
12
Mar 10
Memories of a kitemare….
Today, precisely one year ago, I was as close to ‘not seeing next day’s daylight…’ as I’ve never been in my life before. Yep, I experienced THE most serious wipe-out of my career in a rather serious swell that rolled in at Australias amazing west coast on 12th of March 2009.
You can read up on that day in my blog from a year ago, if you want. Basically what happened, is simply what can happen anytime, any day, in any condition…: All of a sudden it all went horribly wrong and although I’ve been having the greates ball out there for almost 2 hours, suddenly sh$t happened… a monster munched me, I got tangled in my lines and got the second wave of a monster-set on my head, whilst still having a line wrapped around my arm…
Thus, the kite’s been washed and I was pulled deeper and deeper under water by the kite in the ‘washing machine’ of a monster-set and the line that wrapped itself tighter and tighter into my flesh around my arm. One torn muscle and a nightmare of a swim back to shore of approx. one hour followed but I made it. And I can tell u one thing: Waking up the next day was almost like being re-born 🙂 !
That incident certainly did leave me shocked and also a bit scared of ‘bigger’ waves for quite some time, though, a few months later I was over it. What I’ve learned is to even be more careful and conscious and that we’re totally subject to Mother Natures Goodwill when we’re out there playing.
To me ‘Big Waves’ still are and always will be my lifeforce and the greatest fun as well as challenge and thrill to be had in our awesome sport and I’m stoked to having been mastering even more challenging conditions in even heavier waves in the year that has passed since.
That’s what one calls progression and also experience. Kitemares and things going wrong certainly have a great influence in our development, pushing the limits as well!
In this spirit: Go out & enjoy yourself, try to push the limits but please be careful and most of all ‘Enjoy & have FUN’, because we’re all privileged being able to play with the elements like we love doing!
Yours Gabi P.S. … by the way, the shot of this blog header was not taken on ‘that’ very day. Nope it’s a rather recent one from this year, when some sweet new swell rolled onto the amazing coast of W.A. 🙂