The god of the seas was raging on that day, his fury visible in the mountainous ocean, every atom of his anger made real and expressed in towering liquid walls that came crashing down like fists upon the beleaguered shore, I’d never seen waves like them, they must have been two, maybe three feet tall and as I gazed out upon that terrifying sight and contemplated my coming ordeal, I felt a polar wind blow through my soul. Could any man survive such colossal waves? Could any creature of mere flesh and blood dare to challenge such awesome elemental power and hope to survive? I crossed myself thrice and paddled out into the belly of the beast determined that come what may I would find the answer.

The white horses came stampeding toward me in endless ranks as I fought my way through the pounding shore break. I dug in with all of my legendary strength but it was like swimming through a treacle hurricane and it seemed that for every foot of progress that I made I was knocked back ten. Undeterred, I ploughed on; ignoring the pain, oblivious to the biting cold and, within less than an hour I began to fancy that I had made some small progress. The water was a little quieter here, the fluid battering not quite so severe and I finally felt that I could begin to plot my triumphant return to shore on the back of one of these mighty beasts…. This was my first mistake. I’d let down my guard, I’d become complacent and my immediate reward was to be sent spiralling to the bottom of the ocean by a two and a half foot monster that had snuck up on me while my back was turned.

Within seconds the wave and I were locked in an epic duel to the death among the used condoms and kelp. It held me pinned to the sea-bed like a deranged lover and for a long moment it felt as if my challenge was finally over, my lungs were fit to burst, my eyes bulged with the effort of retaining that last few atoms of precious oxygen and eventually, it being a matter of life and death, I was left with no choice but to resort to the dreaded plan B. What was plan B, you ask? Well it was simply this: I stretched out my legs and stood up…Phew that had been a close one, I was already in up to my belly-button, another couple of yards and I would have been out of my depth completely with only my surfboard to keep me afloat, a truly terrifying thought…………..

Well, I decided that this was a good moment in which to recompose myself, to spit out the few gallons of Atlantic that I had swallowed, to remove my newly acquired sea-weed hat and generally to get a bit of a breather from the ceaseless aquatic battering, to which I was being subjected and it was in this pause that I noticed that a small crowd of people had gathered on the shoreline to watch my exploits. There were about fifty of them, I reckoned, including a couple of life guards who I could see were paying particularly close attention. I suppose they hoped to pick up a few pointers, to get a few hints that they could use to help them become more accomplished water-men and I was touched that they found my show of prowess so engrossing Of course I was aware that I must have cut a very dignified figure from the beach, that much was obvious, in fact I could see a number of them pointing and laughing hysterically in sheer joy and amazement at my display of surfing skill and, do you know, I really don’t think that the people of those parts had ever seen anything like it. Still, the last thing I wanted was to appear to be a show-off, I am by nature a very modest man. I am in fact world famous for my modesty, so I simply ignored their admiration and set about the task of picking up a ride back to shore on one of these awesome waves.

I scanned the horizon and saw that there was a “set” of half a dozen waves headed straight towards me, they were a motley looking crew, all spit and thunder and I noticed that the ring-leader, a brute of about two feet in height was due to hit me at any moment, quick as a flash I swung my surfboard toward the shore and waited for the waves imminent arrival, then with the timing of a maestro I pushed out powerfully with my arms and legs just as the giant wall of water came crashing down behind me.

This was it; I was riding the two foot wall of death! ok I wasn’t quite up on my feet yet, I wasn’t technically surfing but it was only a matter of time, it was only a matter of fighting those incredible G forces which already were making my face-skin wobble like that of an astronaut when he is leaving earth’s orbit. So I pushed. I pushed as I’ve never pushed before and within less than a minute and a half I had managed to clamber to my feet and had adopted the classic “Superman” stance that is I believe the favoured position of the truly “cool” surfer. Well this was simply TOO much for my audience on the beach, it was more “cool” than they could take and they fell to ground in one colossal heap of admiration as I sped like a missile with unerring straightness back toward the beach and the safety of terra firma…………Of course you wont be surprised to learn that I didn’t wait around to accept the accolades of the onlookers. You know me well enough by now to know that I am far too humble for that kind of thing and anyway. I had already achieved the thing I set out to achieve; I had conquered the eternal seas, I had faced up to Neptune at his most peeved and I had lived to tell the tale so I simply walked on up the beach into the setting sun leaving only that small group of devotees to tell the tale of the time they saw a mystery surfer brave the ocean on that day which will forever be known as “Large-ish” Tuesday