After a soulful session in the Boland, Bismarck Meyer spotted a mermaid. ‘I Believe In Mermaids’ is Bismarck’s hamper-winning entry into Write to Surf, which appeared in Zigzag 38.7 and scored him over R6000 worth of gear from Billabong. The overall winner of Write To Surf will be announced in the next issue (more details below).
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I BELIEVE IN MERMAIDS – by: Bismarck Meyer
Are mermaids real? They certainly are. I discovered this while sitting at Bikini Beach, just as the golden allure of a late afternoon was catching the wisps of water from a building southeasterly wind.
My mission that day had been soulful and the surf I’d enjoyed earlier, at a beautifully undisclosed spot in the Boland, had definitely placated my worries and forged a renewed desire to travel and surf, travel and surf… The crispness of the day, the coolness of the fresh wintery Cape Doctor should have given me a clue that today was different, that today what I wished for I might actually find.
Heading out on the Kogel Bay road is fulfilling in itself as False Bay stretches her wide belly towards Cape Point and back again to Hangklip. The purr of the old Westfalia Kombi I was driving – an heirloom from a belated bru – was the perfect soundtrack as I set out in pursuit of empty barrels.
I arrived early, but my mate Anton was already grinning like he’d just found biltong, beer, paradise, or all three at once. I quickly crested the dune with sand flinging itself into my boots and found myself staring into a rifling point. Not only was the hussss completely still (our term for wind when we don’t want it to know that we are talking about it), but the swell was finding its way perfectly down the rocks and into the bay.
I felt like a child running back down to the Kombi. My feet were going faster than the legs that carried them, and I wanted to bark like a Kogel Baai baboon in pure delight. Our spot – lets call it ‘Rowepielpunt’, or Rowies – was on fire and we knew nobody would be out. The world had gifted us a good, wholesome day full of potential.
What Anton knew, but also didn’t know, was that my surf here today was more than just another surf – it was a time to start living again. I had been sore inside for about six months, due to a relationship that ended and my direction was only just coming back. I was over the upheaval, but I needed to wake up and be whole again. To feel that my chest and my body and my head were strong and that I was capable of anything. To feel like my thoughts controlled me and that I would decide what they would be – that I had purpose and intent, that I was alive.
The swell was big, but it was beautiful as well. Not a drop seemed out of place, but we also knew that we needed to be focussed at this size; at this spot.
I caught my first wave, bottom turned, lipped it and carved the wall as best as I could. The speed was a rush. Seeing Anton do the same was a further rush. Trading these waves between ourselves was exactly what we had hoped it would be. I began thinking about my life, the privilege I had to surf the Boland and revel in its beauty. The difference here was not the idealistic setting, or temperature of the water, or the pleasure of the isolated beaches – it was all of that combined. What I sorely missed was myself, and surfing out here was giving that back to me. I wondered about my healing; I sucked two massive mouthfuls of air. I exhaled and wished for a girl that understood my life and how it was, and that she would accept it for what it was, without trying to change that. I let my thoughts ponder this for some time as a fresh set knocked up the coast towards us. My eyebrows had dried from inactivity and I could feel the sun begin its midday bake. How well was it all going to turn out? As well as I wanted it to, really.
The knowledge dawned on me that life really was about perspective. Regardless of the hassles that might be prevalent at work, or the strains in a relationship that was tumbling; if I could still step out into the ocean, how bad could it be? I just needed to take a step back to appreciate everything around me, everything that lay ahead, and immediately my window of understanding stood ajar, blown wide open. We surfed like that for about three hours. Our world was there, so small, yet so infinitely huge.
It was mid afternoon by the time I got back to Gordons Bay. Anton had decided to stay and I’d chosen to return. I decided to drive past Bikini Beach to check if anything was going on. This fickle little beauty wasn’t working, but it didn’t need to be after the morning we’d had. As I sat there revelling in my thoughts, warming myself through the slightly cracked windscreen of the kombi, I began daydreaming. The car was parked facing out towards the tidal pool and the wind was just starting its gradual climax. My eyes softened and my vision went slightly hazy as an apparition appeared. Sitting with her legs crossed and her hair lifting in the wind, I saw a girl. She stared out to sea with the whimsical intent of a person wiser than her young body and she had the allure of a mermaid. I stared, completely transfixed. I might have lost a week or even a month. I blinked and she disappeared. I shook my head. That moment was real, but how real? Then I remembered my grandmother once saying: “There’s more to heaven and earth than meets the eye.”
Well, I met my mermaid. The exact same apparition I had seen sitting alone on the tidal pool staring out to sea. It turns out I had grown up three houses from her family home. We bumped into each other at our local grocery store, and knew something good had arrived. Two years later I’m surfing better than ever and enjoying what I wished for; secluded sessions, and a partner who understands that this is where we find our perspective.
Click here to check out all the entries >>
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THE FINEPRINT:
Launched in March last year, Write To Surf is Zag’s surf journo competition with some epic prizes up for grabs. We invited our readers to send in their surf stories to stand a chance to win a hamper from Billabong worth over R6000 every issue. The main prize, the winner of which we’ll be announcing in the next issue of Zigzag (Vol. 39 No. 4), is an all-expenses paid assignment for a major Zigzag feature. It could be somewhere tropical, it could be somewhere cold, all we’re promising is that it’ll be somewhere rad.
During the course of the competition we received dozens of epic entries, which you can check out here. Winning entries received the following hamper from Billabong:
1 x Billabong Wetsuit; 1 x Billabong Boardies; 1 x Billabong Cap; 1 x Von Zipper Sunnies; and 1 x Set of Kinetic Racing (KR) fins.
