La Izquierda (Spanish Left) - Localism and drop in heaven!

OK - so here it is "SPANISH LEFT". It's one of the most famous beaks in Tenerife and also known as being a very competitive spot with good surfers, good waves, and heavy locals who dont exactly welcome travelling surfers with open arms! I'd surfed the spot 2 or 3 times before but on this day the swell was far more consistant and there were some great lefts rifling down the reef. The bottom of these two pictures shows pretty much what happens on every wave at this spot ....... ie. some local surfer (or bodyboarder) drops in on you and you just have to take it, paddle back out, and take whatever they dont want! :0) Mark was on the beach taking these pictures and I'd been in about an hour getting dropped in on, speed paddling back out in the hope of snagging a good one before the locals made it back into the take-off zone - and i was getting warn out. The top picture shows the result ......... i'd started paddling so early on this one that I hadn't even seen the local catch this wave! My "drop-in" was, I admit, dreadful but it was also by mistake rather than calculated - as was the case in all of 'theirs'. ha ha.

Unfortunately the local and his mate didn't see the funny side of this and dispite my "all-smiles" appology I was told in no uncertain terms to "GET OUT - NOW!". The surfer I dropped in on gave me a 1000 yard stare and paddled straight past me back into the line-up - I thought i'd pretty much got away with it - but then there was some Spanish chatter and his BIG, UGLY slugger of a mate paddled over to me. I held my had up and explained that it was my mistake and that I hadn't seem him take off - but he was "having none of it". This guy was a big bugger too and said "YOU MUST OBEY THE RULES, ONE MISTAKE AND YOU'RE OUT! GET OUT. GET OUT NOW (!!!)". It was very clear that if i'd tried to paddle back out to the take-off zone that I'd have been in real trouble!! ........... I paddled slowly back to shore with my tail between my legs ! ha ha. Meanwhile Mark continued taking photos of the whole thing - drawing even more attention to me :-) I do have a shot of the said "Local" but he's unworthly of so much as 1kb of my blog space ......... sorry 'mate' but it's you who are "denied" this time. :-)