Chapter 2 - Breath Hold

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BEFORE WE BEGIN.

I am not the subject of my soul’s journey; I am the witness. “What is important is invisible to the eye”, it’s not the words, but the space between, and “If I write as if to save somebody’s life, it’s probably my own”. This is not an epilogue, nor an obituary, but neither seems so far away. This is about gratitude, reflection, and contemplation.

In a world obsessed with narrative, what’s more important — theirs or yours? Sometimes remembering one’s past can unlock the door that is chained in front of us. Sometimes what we saw at first was not the whole picture, and the retrospective journey is a requirement of enlightenment.  We are all leaves and branches of the same tree, yet none quite the same, and all of our survival relies on the tree.

These are the imperfect, mismatched, ramblings of a leaf (me) slowly falling from the tree. The wind is blowing, yet what is sweeter for a leaf, than to fall on the trees earth?  

CHAPTER 2.

Australia, New South Wales, is experiencing unprecedented surfer shark encounters, already 5 incidents since the beginning of January 2026. Some of these incidents with very close calls, but also some tragic circumstances. As a surfer, but also a parent my heart feels overcome with emotion, for parents, families, and friends that are affected by the events, (and in general for many other non-surfing tragedies occurring worldwide).

At the age of 20, I was packed and ready to go to the airport destination, Australia, New South Wales. This was much more of an intentional step on the journey towards discovering my purpose, more than a casual detour, and months of work finishing boards, onshore surf schools, along with extra labour in the mountains cutting down alien vegetation (work that will stretch your resolve), just to get the airplane ticket.  

About a year prior I made my first trip over to Indonesia, the seed of exploration being firmly planted. Whilst still working at Lifestyle, True Blue Surf Travel had an office in the store as well, coincidence? I choose to think not. Their experience with travel to Indonesia especially for surfers was vital at the time, for planning a starting point for the trip, arrival accommodation, finding the best flights and knowing what malaria tablets to take etc. and much more.

At 19 years of age this experience for me was life affirming, spiritually and culturally expanding, and incredibly humbling. However, I need to slightly, maybe a little more digress here.

My mother: no words are enough to describe my deep love for her. I gave her, and my beloved dad a tough time growing up. Their lives a branch, which leads to another branch, and another, of another, before reaching the tree, and then diving into the earth where its roots lie deep. Of numerous close to abrupt departures from the tree, the one at three and half years old probably metaphorically sums up best a difficult wipe-out in surfing.

On the particular day I was really battling with breathing, no doubt a common respiratory infection of sorts. So, my mom took me down to the doctor, he performed the necessary checks, and prescribed paracetamol. When we got home my mom administered the paracetamol which did not go down but rather seemed to get stuck in transit. I proceeded to initiate my ultimate breath hold (very much doubt I could repeat it 😊) and went from a shade of blue to purple as the breath hold continued.

Now in surfing you learn that panicking does little to help, but it’s also easier said than done. What really helps is repetition, in other words putting yourself in close to drowning situation increasingly until you start to feel familiar and at ease with your bodies response to stress, and you can then train your mind to hold yourself together and allow your bodies incredible responses to activate and function at optimal.

On this day at three and half years of age, I had no repetition training, and I’m sure that my mom also had no training for what she was encountering, but her instinct’s must have kicked in, she grabbed me, threw me into the old Datsun, and rivelled Juan Manuel Fangio's nineteen fifty seven grand prix performance down Quarry Road, directly into Kommetjie Road (there were no robots at that intersection in those years) and straight to the emergency room at False Bay Hospital.

Once in the ER they tried their best to intubate me, this was not proving successful, at this point we have no idea how many minutes I had been holding my breath for, but something greater was with me (and mom) under that proverbial “wave”. There were no thoracic surgeons or highly trained ER doctors on duty at that moment of the day, the only Doctor the ER could find in the hospital was an on duty Orthopaedic Surgeon named Dr Mullins, the only option left was an emergency tracheotomy. (For anyone who has farmed, this is a little bit like a trocarisation for a cow, when the cow is bloated, they will restrain the cow and puncture the cows left side with a trocar which is a sharp, pointed metal spike, in order to save the cows life). Dr Mullins did not routinely do tracheotomies, but there was no time, my mother held my hand and turned her head away, and Dr Mullins grabbed my other hand and “pulled me up out of the proverbial water”, and I inhaled a lifesaving breath of air.

It was clear from the very early onset to me that this journey was not going to be boring, things were already at play that made me feel like I don’t really have control over the events that lie ahead, but I really wanted to learn how to have control over myself and my response to the events which would without fail arrive. In essence the ocean, and surfing is an impeccable teacher of this. I remain always, its student.

At the end of primary school in my final year the school elected prefects, this was essentially a role created by the school and teachers to help maintain direction in the school, the prefects duties were to act as role models, to be a voice for the students, but also the teachers, to lead by example, to speak truthfully even when it hurts…(I would imagine this is how politicians are supposed to function at state level, no easy task, and very easy to get lost in it) . I remember being approached by a senior teacher who said they had voted for me to become head boy, spontaneously I said, “no thank you”. To this day I don’t know whether this was self-sabotage, self-preservation, self-doubt or perhaps all three, but in the moment, I gladly receded to deputy, the thought of confrontation with classmates or teachers at 11 years of age seemed burdensome. Life lessons had already started to shape me, good or bad, and in retrospect minding my own business was healthier, but in contrast another part of me was in complete turmoil over the contradiction between minding one’s business and social responsibility. Or was there truth in the words of Lao Tzu, “Silence is a source of great strength”.

Life doesn’t wait for you to find your answers, the journey continues with or without you. Still involved with my community, but perhaps slightly withdrawn, sports were everything to me, rugby, water polo, athletics, sport united us, moulded us, but as Murphy’s Law goes, as you hit your groove (perceived or not) the next event was there to challenge your certainty. At the beginning of grade 10 whilst body boarding an epic day down at Kalk Bay Reef I landed heavily in the flats on my left side, it was painful at the time, but I continued to surf the rest of the day. It was only by the evening that I realised something was wrong, I hadn’t had any red grape juice, but my pee looked decidedly like red grape juice. The next week was doctor’s appointments, scans, tests and shortly after a surgery to remove my left kidney. They said it was most likely congenital. Two specialists told me I would need to quit rugby, water polo, and even body boarding as the risk to my right remaining kidney was high. This was a devastating blow to a 15-year-old. After the surgery whilst still in hospital a Catholic priest came to me and we went to the church chapel, he said do I have any questions, I said spontaneously  why is God doing this to me…he responded with a theological response, I was tone deaf to whatever he said, all I thought was my life as I know it is over. 3 months went by after surgery, I would go down to the beach and watch my mates surfing, to say the moment was tough would be an understatement, but on our final visit to the Urologist he gave me profound advise he said “live a balanced life, you only have one heart, and now you only have one kidney, live the way you did before when you only had one heart, but be smart. ”

His words were prophetic to me, my loving mom and I went in search of protective sports gear, though not a common request, we found a company that could make a neoprene kidney belt, and after those 3 months of recovery after surgery I wrapped that kidney belt on under my wetsuit and paddled out, and I honestly never looked back, eventually relinquishing the kidney belt altogether. At the time of this many will recall the great rugby legend Jonah Lomu who played for the all blacks in the 1995 world cup against an exceptional Springbok team in the final, and he then faced kidney complications in 1996, he continued to play, but having various setbacks to his career as he circumnavigated his own challenges, I was acutely aware of his situation because of my own, and from my perspective he gave me hope to persevere. Life is how you hold yourself and others during, and if you’re lucky, after the event, not how the event defines you. The purpose of your life is bigger than your circumstances.

Remembering my first trip to Indonesia, travelling with good friends we all set off to find what we were searching for. On a particular morning 27 June 2000, a new swell had just arrived, the lines were thick and stacked, a few of us made our way down to Pa-dang Pa-dang just before sunrise. Even in the low light of the early morning the line-up was already thick with really top class surfers, the window of snagging a wave was going to be small, a set approached, it was solid, 3 waves went by and the forth looked thick, I was in the spot, I turned, committed, in those few seconds everything up to that point flashed through my mind, the kidney, the challenges, and the very last thing I thought of before taking the drop was Kalk Bay, the break, the people, and the confidence and lessons I had taken from that spot, I gave a respectful hoot to surfers down the line so that they knew I was fully committed, with due consideration that I was a body boarder and that there was every likelihood that I was going to be burned by a surfer that morning, I rode that wave alone, through the barrel all the way to the channel. It was a wave and morning I will never forget. We didn’t stay out much longer the crowd was increasing, so we headed back to Bingin and on arrival seeing our other friends stroking into pristine 10 foot plus waves at Impossible's, we joined them and the rest is history. That first trip to Indo was an experience filled with the kindest and warmest people, a place of diverseness, and physical beauty, but also other sides, challenges, and many branches, attached to branches, so much more to life than I could ever have imagined.  

Bidding farewell to family and friends we boarded the plane for Australia.