I am not one to usually start a thread but with the last few months of injuries and fatalities, i have been thinking a lot why I do what we do, I work in safety in the mines and if I was to say lets do a risk assessment on strapping a parachute on attaching a piece of wood to my feet and heading out into head height waves, surfing down a wave over concealed reefs which could cut me to pieces, attempting to do a back flip with a board with a mast and sail attached to it, not to mention dangerous conditions, rips currents and a shared ocean, I would get thrown off site. I challenge anyone of you that when you were standing at that ocean edge at least once you would have thought what am i swimming with.
Yet their we go, we weigh these risks up in our head we do the math and we balance these risks against what we love to do.
I worry and mourn the injury and loss of everyone of my fellow brother and sister water lovers, and I salute your memory,
If i had a choice to die doing something I really loved or play it safe all my life and die an old man without the joy my sport gives me and the friendships i have made, the latter would seem the poorer life. I believe that the after incidents analysis we do gives all of us a chance to make what we do safer.
But please if I was to die smacked on a reef, speared with a mast through my heart or launched into a tree, start a separate thread to Anallise what happened and not put it on the one offering condolences or get wells.
It would be nice for my family to hear he was a good pig, the pig lead a great life or get well pig and my family and others might understand why most of us this weekend will be standing on that foreshore with that dopey smile on our face weighing the risks and walking in.