PKRA Wave Event in Chile: The Great Travel Conspiracy Continues, Sept 28th - Oct 6th
Alternately Titled: The Trials and Tribulations of Clinton on Tour
Posted Monday 22nd October 2007
By Clinton Bolton

28th September

Right now I'm in the Madrid airport. I left yesterday morning from South Africa and flew to Zurich, and arrived early this morning. I had a 6-hour wait in Zurich, and now I have a 10-hour wait here in Madrid, but it's great: I met loads of interesting people. My 13-hour flight to Chile leaves tonight at midnight, and I'll arrive tomorrow morning at 7 AM. Then from there it's a 4-hour bus ride to Matanzas, where the final PKRA will be held. Right now I'm just doing some stuff, downloading music and charging up my ipod for the long flight.

29th September

Man, what a morning. I'm at the bus station … it took me 2 hours to get here! When I landed at the airport, I caught a taxi, and told the guy where I needed to go to catch the right bus. But I think the taxi driver is part of the International Travel Conspiracy to make my travel life miserable. I think he thought, "Let's make Clinton's travels longer," and dropped me off at the wrong bus station. There just HAD to be 2 different bus stations - one for buses going north and one for buses going south and of course he dropped me off at the northbound station, when I need to be at the southbound station. So had to get a taxi back to the airport, get back into another taxi, and go to the right bus station. This time I made sure I was at the right one before he drove off.

Bus ride

Point break at event site

The bus leaves later this afternoon – I've got another 5 hour wait, and it's freezing cold here. I want to go into the restaurant, but have so much gear they won't let me bring my stuff in and I'm not leaving my gear alone outside. So I'm just right now warming up from my laptop that's heating up. Hahahahaha. Who would have thought you could use your laptop has a heater.

Ok, so it's 6 pm. I just arrived and I'm staying at this sick house on the beach with some other riders that I know. We have a sick view of the beach and I'm looking at this left pointbreak further up the beach that's just cranking with waves, so I'm going to go for a quick 30 minute surf before it gets dark. Tomorrow there is no wind but the waves are firing so I'm going to go surfing tomorrow and check out this left point break where the wave event is being held.

30th September

Woke up this morning freezing … the house is not air-proof. Cold air just gets sucked indoors and windows have gaps between them. Waves are epic - solid 6 foot, no wind, and glassy but it's cloudy and cold. Locals say when it's cloudy it doesn't get windy; it only gets windy when it's sunny.

I just came back from a 3-hour surf session. It was sick. I just don't know how I survived that long in the water - you need gloves, boots, and maybe a hoody if you're a chicken. After 10 minutes I had brain freeze, and couldn't feel my hands or feet, but the waves were so sick had to stay in. Also, I got the crap scared out of me: no one told me that there were seals in the area. I was paddling out – until a seal decided to pop up 2 feet in front of me, and then disappear again. Then, the whole paddle back out the next time, the little guy (well shouldn't say little more big he probably weighed more than me) would not leave me alone! He was having so much fun playing with my leash and tugging on it, making my paddle doubly hard, until I finally had enough. I took my leash off and paddled out with it in my mouth.

Trying to keep warm

Right now, I'm back in the house with a fire going to get the house warm. Thank God for the fireplace. For now, we're just waiting to see what the weather will be like tomorrow. Can't check the internet as there is no internet. Nor is there cell phone service. The town we're in probably has only 50 people living in it - we are in the middle of nowhere.

1st October

Still no wind. It's cloudy and cold as hell. I'm sick as a dog with the flu. I must have caught it on the plane, and then surfing in freeing cold waters isn't helping. The surf is bigger today so I'm going to go surf down at the event site again Can't help it when it's solid 8 foot glassy and no one out.

So just got back surfed only for an hour. I don't have the energy to paddle and I'm more likely to drown. This flu is sucking the energy out of me.

Later in the day, the wind picked up and the sky cleared so they did some heats of the single elimination of the freestyle and did an expression session for the wave riders. Tomorrow skippers meeting is at 11am. It's supposed to be clear and windy so let's hope and see. Right now, I have to put some wood on the fire and try keep warm during the night.

View from the house

2nd October

Didn't have a good night sleep. This flu is killing me with fever. My whole body is aching, but good news: the wind was light in the morning so I could sleep in and go down to the beach later. The wind eventually picked up in the afternoon, and they finishing the single elimination in freestyle and got underway with the wave event.

Competition area

I was in Heat 10 against Martin Vari, who was riding backside and hitting the lip in the critical section a lot more. I'm still borrowing wave boards, and I wasn't really liking the board I went on, and was crashing most of the time on the wave when bottom-turning. So that heat, Martin advanced.

I had a second chance in Heat 14, and in this round I was against Simon Vanucci. We both were waiting for sets, as there weren't a lot of waves coming in between sets. This time I borrowed another board from Jeremie Eloy, and at least this one was a lot better and went well. Unfortunately, towards the end of the heat Simon crashed his kite and was detached from it and had to be rescued by jetski. I advanced into the 3rd round against Herve Boure, who pulled a hamstring the day before in the expression session so I'm stoked that I'll have a somewhat easy heat and will hopefully make it through to the 4th round. But the competition is over for today, and there are still a few heats to finish in the second round.

3rd October

It's clear skies today, but the wind is light. The freestyle riders are released from competition, but the wave riders are on stand by.

The wind never picked up though. Instead a thick fog rolled in and the competition was called off for the day. Tomorrow is no wind again as it will be cloudy, so the organizers have organized a trip to Santiago to go ride the Flow Rider. I'm super stoked that we doing that … we have one in South Africa and it's just loads of fun, especially when you watch others that have never been on one. The wipe outs are priceless.

Messing around with the Mac

4th October

Well, it's not going good on this trip. I've been sick all morning in the toilet and with the flu giving me fever, I could cook an egg on my forehead. So I won't be going to the city to ride the Flow Rider. I'm super bummed but right now I can't leave without having a toilet within 30 feet from me. I'm not sure what's wrong, not sure if I got food poisoning from the lunch yesterday at the event site or what??? Right now I just want to leave Chile. I'm not enjoying it right now. I want to check into a hospital. I'm tired, weak and hungry, but anything I eat won't stay down so I can't eat. I hope there's no wind tomorrow so I'll have another day to get better.

Sunset in front of house

5th October:

Unfortunately, the wind was blowing today, so once the freestyle was over, the guys came and picked me up, and I went down to the beach. I was on the beach, watching the heats, not preparing for my heat. I had a couple of hours to wait, so I wanted to wait till later to see how I felt. Ten minutes before my heat, I decided to go out. I borrowed Alvaro's wetsuit and lycra and went out against Herve. Three minutes into the transition, I tacked up wind and threw up in the water. Hahahahaha, I hope there weren't any sharks because I was seriously chumming the water.

When the heat started, I just waited for the set of waves, instead of wasting my energy on the smaller waves between sets. Five minutes towards the end of the heat, I had the first wave of a set. I smacked the lip, landed, and footstrap broke, so that was it for me. I didn't have the energy and called it a day. I wasn't getting into the critical section as much as Herve, so it was his heat anyway. So that was it for me. Contest over. I went back home. They still have to finish the 3rd round, semis and finals, which they will do tomorrow.

Event Site

6th October

I'm just chilling at home. My stomach's still not right. Everyone's at the event site. I told them to pick me up when it's the award ceremony. I'm going to watch some movies on my laptop and sleep a bit.

Ok, I just got back from the beach. The final was against Martin and Drew. The winner was Martin, Drew in second, Guilly got 3rd and Felix ended up 4th.

So now all I want to do is pack and make my flight tomorrow morning and check myself into a hospital. Catch you later.

Podium

Chilean Coastline