Two long days of travel to get home. We woke this morning to a howling Westerly that had smashed the swell. After rolling around in nausea inducing waves for an hour at p**** s waiting to see if it would clear we decided to head back to port a few hours early. Everyone done with boating. Everyone surfed out.
The trip across the straight was wild. High seas, hammering rain and squalling wind bourgeoned the boat for hour after hour, taking half of our glassware in its course.
The earlier arrival at port meant I could change my flights home in an attempt to make a good mates' birthday party on Friday night. What ensued was abrupt goodbyes to the boys, missing half of them as I whisked away by the driver who insisted we would miss the flight if we didn't leave now. On route I was offered a brief heads up that we needed to go fast, the next fifty minutes characterized by your typical semi-rural Indo road travel. Horn blaring, headlights flashing, emergency indicators even, as we weaved amongst cars with no regard for lanes, overtook rickety buses on blind corners and sped past villagers walking, cycling, moped riding - near missing all manner of wares strapped high to their transport of choice. Oddly I loved it. Didn't find it hair raising in the slightest. Perhaps I'm used to it. Perhaps it appealed to my sense of adventure. The main thing however was that we made it to Padang Airport in the knick of time and I was on my way to Singapore via Jakarta.
Back in radio range I discovered the party was no longer happening on Friday night. Haha. Ah well. Happy to be on my way home. Happy to have eaten muesli, yoghurt and an orange for breakfast after loading on croissants, eggs, pancakes, muffins etc. Happy to skip the overnight flight. Happy to be traveling solo after two weeks in a group.
To my partly nervous self before I went on this trip I would say with hindsight: DO IT. The conversation wasn't always interesting and the movie choices mostly sucked but the crowd-less waves were all time and the adventure into no-mans land incredible.
I've learnt more about how crazy fear can be. Remembered that things can change quickly. In any one of bigger or shallower sessions I went through moments of intrepidation, moments of being literally stalled by fear and moments of courage to give it a go. In the same sess I was in one minute called a frother (for my willingness to have a go despite the likely pumping) and half an hour later too frightened to take a wave the boys were calling me into. All in all though I did pretty well. Actually I did well. I listened and trusted. Had my eyes wide open. And gradually got there. Geny even snapped a couple of pics to prove it (that will surely (?!) look better when not set against pics of the boys catching bombs!)
Every bout of sea sickness and every wrinkle from squinting into the blazing sun for twelve days straight was utterly, utterly worth it. Trip of lifetime. Stoked in particular to have shared the experience with Sime and Jase. Now to scheme up the next.