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A series of musings from Rob Jones at All Plants North.

Surf and turf?

I read a while ago (but don’t take anything I write as fact) that killer whales have started to attack people in boats. Which begs the question – why has it taken them so long to work that one out? David A and his team did a very fine job of filming these aquatic monsters using tag team tactics to hunt a seal when all they had to do was nudge a human out of its skiff and hey presto – lunch. It always struck me as odd that people would be happy to paddle a canoe in waters known to have Orca in the naive belief they were somehow not on the menu. You wouldn’t catch me on a pedalo within 600 miles of anything like an animal with so many teeth. I once went swimming in Cornwall on a beach where just the next week a basking shark was sighted near shore. If I had seen its massive dorsal fin aiming for me I’d have just had a heart attack on the spot. Vegetarian or not. The problem is I watched Jaws too young as a kid and have been a confirmed land-lubber ever since. I did, however, in an aversion therapy kind of way, have a go at surfing when I lived in Oz.

I thought my first outing was my last. The shadow of my longboard on the seabed looked just like a shark and I remember thinking that’s just my luck. I only succeeded in confirming to the locals that I wasn’t a local – providing them some amusement by drinking so much salt water and being bashed around on the seabed every ten minutes.

My surf buddy was an Aussie of Fijian heritage. Of course he looked like a god doing all the tricks  on his short board. He was a nice guy giving me a few pointers and looking out for me. In retrospect though he was probably just hanging around to identify my body when it was washed up on the beach.

Stupidly, I decided to go out on my own one morning and got caught in a rip tide. Damn near tore my arms off paddling for half an hour back to shore. I was absolutely done in, if the sea hadn’t swallowed me up I’m surprised a shark didn’t with all that distressed flapping around.

I didn’t need any more life chances – that was the end of my surfing career. So I tried wind-surfing. Set off from Spain – would have ended up in Morocco if it hadn’t been for the rescue boat. Ditto paddle boarding. I think if I had grown up on the coast it would have been a different story, maybe not. I just know that I’m happier in the woods and hills – there’s something reassuringly familiar about our landscape which must be in my DNA. 

And I know there will be someone out there happy to point out the risks of country life. But to my knowledge you are 100% less likely to have your legs bitten off by some unseen creature creeping up on you in woodland.

And that’s a fact.

Rob Jones

All Plants North
The Farm Shop
Cracoe
North Yorkshire
BD23 6LB

www.allplantsnorth.co.uk

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