The Slab of Death (Part 1)

At low tide, upwind of the main launch opposite Lawama the slab of death might not always show itself. 

On small days, it makes a nice peak for jumping and getting one or two hits on the way in. But windsurfers beware. As the swell picks up this cute little kicker can unleash it’s fury on the unwary sucking up the surrounding water and breaking top to bottom in an instant of power and determination.

I arrived in Moulay 2 days early. Excited to get some warm up sessions in before Jem Halls clinic started. The forecast was for building wind and waves. Yippee!! The first day was fun 4.7 jumping and the second looked great with building wind and waves. 

After a few warm up runs I worked my way upwind and picked up a nice set wave. Oozing confidence I lined up upwind of the peak and charged down the line cranking a hard bottom turn focused on the water in front of me. I looked up opening the sail for my next move, ready to hit the lip. In that instant a feeling of dread ran through me. A thick fat brown and white slab of water had silently snuck up on me. “Fu…”.  The lip hit the sail in an explosion of sound and energy. The sail and boom hit me hard in the shoulder with the pressure building. Then suddenly something gave way. I was pushed deep and bounced around like a rag doll.

“I’m hurt” I thought. “It’s not good”. Surfacing I tested my arm. It still worked! “Yes!”.

Once convinced I still had functionality in my shoulder I looked around for the kit expecting to see major carnage but the mast looked to be intact. “Yes!”.

Lifting the sail to waterstart I found the foot of the sail flapping around under the boom but the clew still attached. “Yes! I can still sail it!”.

Thankful that the sail had failed before my shoulder I waterstarted and limped downwind with my tail between my legs. 

Bit of bruising - Day 2

Man style! - Day 4ish

Addendum - I wrote this account whilst in Moulay in between plenty of windsurfing and SUPing choosing to ignore the pain and swelling in my chest and arm. Once back in Texas as the swelling reduced I noticed my chest looked kind of weird, like some of it was missing. A visit to a specialist confirmed major tearing in my right pectoralis and I'm now waiting on the MRI to find out if surgery is required. Doc reckons the 'impact' I described was actually my muscle/tendon fibers breaking...yummy.