THE TOECUTTER from Joel Parkinson on Vimeo.

Okay Joel, talk us through the wave.

The wave I cut my foot on was such an incredible little wave. A sick, sick wave. A tank. Did you see how square that wave was? It was mental. Mate, it was one of those waves that when it stood up on the bank and I was paddling into it, I knew I was taking off two feet too deep even before I stood up. But it was such a drainpipe that I was like, “I’ve just got to have a go at this!” From the moment I saw it I knew it was going to be a rad drop and that I was going to be a little bit too deep. I would have had to take off on the shoulder to make it, but I was going anyway. Once I pulled into the barrel the foamball just got under my board and blasted me forward. I thought for a second it might just fire me out of this thing like a bullet in a gun. Instead the foamball flipped my board over and the fin has sliced my foot. I knew instantly I’d been cut. I dealt with the wipeout and just as I’ve equalised underwater and got my bearings I’ve reached down and felt my foot, thinking that I’m up for a few stitches, maybe three or four at best. But when I put my hand down there all four fingers have disappeared into the gash. That didn’t feel good. Then once I got to the surface I’ve lifted my leg out of the water to have a look and there it was – my heel just kind of sagged off, a quarter of my foot just flapping around. It was like watching a horror movie. Just went, oh my goodness, get me to hospital.

Describe the scene once you washed up on the beach.

First up I’ve got to thank the paramedic who was there and the lifeguard. But the first guy who got to me on the beach just happened to be an off-duty paramedic… how lucky was that? The first guy I yelled at for help on the beach was a paramedic. It was good luck for me but not for him; the week before he’d been up the Seaway when a girl was run over by a boat and lost her leg. He’s had a pretty heavy week. Andy [Irons] was with me down at the waterline, and he was next to me as they carried me up the beach. I was asking him how it looks and all he could say was, “Oh bra, oh bra…”

I heard you were cracking jokes while they were treating you on the beach?

The whole scene was pretty intense. It was school holidays and there were kids around everywhere who were starting to freak out. I didn’t want them freaking out because that would start me freaking out. I tried to keep everyone calm around me, cracking a few jokes, going to the paramedic guy, “So I’ll be right to surf tomorrow, eh?” Then I look at all these peoples’ faces standing around me and they’re white as ghosts and nobody’s laughing. It was pretty wild just trying to deal with it, but then as soon as I got into the ambulance the pain started to kick in. I got from Snapper to North Kirra in the ambulance, about two minutes down the road, and told the bloke, “Mate, this is really starting to hurt.” And he’s just pulled out the green painkilling whistle and I was off with the fairies after that.

What was your worst fin chop before this one?

I almost cut my toe off once in Hawaii, and I’ve had my fin go through the webbing between my toes twice, once before my first heat in J-Bay last year. That one was three stitches, the Hawaii one was eight stitches, and I’ve had 10 stitches in my head, so I’ve smashed my record with this one. The doctor put a lot of stitches inside the cut – he lost count. Then on the outside there were 15, 20 maybe across the bottom of my foot. There was a bit of work to do there. This shits on anything I’ve done to myself in my whole life; my ankle injury, my knee, medial ligaments, this shits on it for pain and sheer gruesomeness. You wouldn’t wish it upon anyone else in the world just to come up after a wipeout and see your body hacked at like that. Come up and one of your limbs looks horrifically not right. Like when a footballer seeing another players knee bending the other way, just that immediate horror of seeing a body not looking like it should.

What’s the prognosis for getting back into the water?

Because it’s a flesh wound it’s one of those things we really don’t know how long it’s going to take. It’s not like, “It’s a grade one medial tear, you’re out for four weeks.” There’s no timetable on this and I won’t know until I’m up walking around on it. I’ve been getting some physio on the foot, and I’ve got an electronic machine that stimulates bloodflow through it. I’ve got to get the movement back in my toes as soon as I can, and then I’ve got to put weight back on it. With the scar tissue in the wound it’s hard to tell exactly how long it’s going to take to heal. I haven’t pulled out of Tahiti but I might have to. You’ve got to stay upbeat with something like this and use some positive energy to help it heal.

What did you learn from dealing with the ankle injury last year that you can apply to this one?

That I’m not coming back until I’m 100 per cent. Because I was chasing the world title last year I was coming back at 60 per cent and I never want to do that again. I hated last year going to Trestles thinking, if I can just get a 9th here I’ll take it. You need to go into every event thinking you can win it. Even if I get it to 90 per cent with this injury I’ll wait. I want to come back at 100 per cent. I was talking to Hog [Nathan Hedge] today and he was talking about his shoulder injury that he did a few years ago, and he said it was the best thing he ever did, waiting a bit longer for it to heal rather than rushing back.

That’s two major injuries within 12 months. How unlucky are you feeling right now?

Pretty bloody unlucky.

You were just three days away from getting on the plane to J-Bay. Surely that added to the pain?

It did. I was so fit and I’d trained so hard and all the work had been done. I was so ready. I’d finished training and was only a few days from getting on the plane. All the hard stuff was done and I was so ready to go and start reaping the benefits of feeling amazing and surfing J-Bay and surfing heats again, but now I’m here lying on the couch instead.

Are you going to be watching the contest webcast?

For sure, I’ll be cheering on Deano and Andy and Mick. I’d love to see a Deano and Andy final. I wanna watch the heats… but I’m not so keen on watching the waves. There’s swell coming and I’ll just be torturing myself by watching it. If it’s pumping I’m going to be in all sorts. But I love watching the heats live when I get the chance, screaming at the guys on screen telling ‘em what they should be doing. You never lose a heat watching it on the beach, and I don’t intend to lose a heat watching it on the lounge. I’ll be the supercoach on the lounge telling everyone what they should be doing.

And what about the other 20 hours a day on the lounge? How much Oprah and Doctor Phil are you watching?

I’m over the couch already. I’ve been reading my fishing mags and watching some fishing shows on the Discovery Channel today, which were pretty cool. As soon as I can walk around I’ll be getting my boat out into the river and going fishing. Hazza’s injured and has got a boot on his foot at the moment, so he might be my fishing partner. We might go chasing some whiting and flathead in the river. I think just getting into the outdoors at the moment will be good for my mind.

Job's back on. //Swilly

Even the clichés have taken a break.

Gauging how absorbed a pro surfer is in The Game can usually be measured by talk of sprints and marathons. Talk of one heat at a time. Talk of the opposition knowing every grain of sand out there. Truth guarded and refreshing honesty hidden behind game-faces. But for all involved, right now the tour and its attendant hyperbole is a million miles away.

“Sweet f*ck all,” states Joel Parkinson of what’s been up to lately at home in Coolangatta. It’s the longest unbroken stretch of home-time Joel has had in a decade. There’s no talk of training. No talk of boards. No talk of the next contest. Instead there is talk of children’s parties, football games, and his long-held goal of one day dropping daughter Evie at school by paddling her across the river on his paddleboard.

The pro tour has gone into hibernation. The Tahiti event moving from its traditional window in early May to the end of August in search of better swell has created a 10-week black hole. A mid-season break longer than the entire off-season. The tour bus that had been travelling at a hundred clicks an hour has suddenly ground to a halt, and surfers have had to formulate strategic plans around doing nothing. The more cynical amongst you who consider the life of a pro surfer tantamount to a holiday at the best of times aren’t going to like what comes next.

“I’ve had two weeks of, hang on… [yawning at 3pm]… not much I suppose. I’ve been surfing on little fishes, hanging at the beach and the surf club. Just cruising. Haven’t been training, haven’t been surfing my contest boards. It’s been awesome not doing any of that. Just be a family man, be a dad, do the school runs every day. I’m picking Macy up from kindy right now.” The weather and waves have fallen into place; the kinetic summer long gone, replaced by lazy lines, balmy days, empty car parks. The only 12-hour days going down around here are all in the water.

After dropping the kids off at school, Joel’s daily ritual has only really extended to driving down to check Snapper. “It’s been so fun every day. It’s a phenomenal bank. At two foot it’s the best I’ve ever seen it, the best two-foot pointbreak in the world. The other day it was waist-high and too small to get barrelled, so I grabbed a boogieboard and got an eight-second tube out there. No shit. It’s been so much fun. The kids have been all over it. Jagger Bartholomew, Sunny Cohen, and Luka Stevenson, all these kids are on fire. It’s like what surfing Snapper in 2020 is going to be like.”

The break has also allowed normal transmission to resume with Mick Fanning, who’s also been at home for the best part of a month. After spending the back end of last year trying to avoid each other while duking out the world title, the two have been living in each other’s back pockets lately. “He faded me,” barks Joel of the wave he and Mick split at Snapper last week. “Don’t believe him if he tells you otherwise. I was riding his board, trying to fit into the same small barrel. It was such a fun little surf.”

The pair has even been daytripping down the coast together, invoking teenage days when Joel’s Commodore Vacationer with the leopard skin seat covers would be piled full of boards and blackguards and pointed south. “Yeah, it was kind of like the old days; me, Mick and Shags in the car going down the coast. We used to do a lot of trips down the coast in the old days, but in the past few years we’ve been so busy that we never have time to go down there,” recalls Joel. “It’s such a full day, you leave at 4am and get home at six that night. But we had a ball down there, got some really fun waves, got bogged. It seems like when we get together like that something hilarious happens.” The fact this time it was only Joel’s car bogged in the sand and not Mick’s ski being washed onto the rocks, as has happened during previous incursions, saw them drive home laughing instead of trying to get their stories straight for the insurance assessor. They even ran into Big Artie Beetson while getting a feed on the way home, the chance meeting with the walking headland of a man proving a good omen for Joel’s Queenslanders, who would go on to win the first State of Origin game two days later.

But while the surfers have had a break from clichés, rust never sleeps for surf writers. This 10-week spell is a false dawn, the calm before the storm if you like. The back end of the season is going to be frenetic; five events back-to-back between Tahiti and Puerto Rico where the world title will be won and lost. “It’s a hard year to prepare for,” says Joel. “It’s been so stop/start. If this was last year, my roll would have stopped after three events because the events stopped. This year no one will have any momentum coming into J-Bay. It’ll be like the first event of the season all over again. So I figure it’s the time to recharge the batteries now. With a break like this you’ve got to take it slow. You can’t rush into it and surf yourself stupid. You’ve got to have a program for your holiday. J-Bay’s not so far away I guess, eh?” I tell him it’s in six weeks. “I’m back training soon, doing a lot of paddling, back on my normal shortboards. I’m surfing my normal 6’1” this arvo. Then I’m off to Bali next week and I’ll be starting to fine tune. Come J-Bay you want to still be eager to surf and in good form. You don’t want to have surfed yourself into the ground in the break.”

Although Mick and Joel are currently holding down fourth and eighth places respectively on the ratings, neither seem too perturbed. As both found out last year, it’s momentum at the right time that wins world titles. “I think I’m in a pretty good spot,” says Joel. “I’ve had two decent results, and it’s the guys who get on a roll at the back end of the year who will fight it out. It’s all a matter of timing.”

“It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” says Joel.

Clock punched. Job on.

[For video from the boys trip down the coast click here, and for more photos from Joel and Mick's trip down the coast check out next month's issue of Tracks]

Eagle? Looks like a turkey… from Joel Parkinson on Vimeo.

Earlier in the year Joel lost a bet to yours truly when his beloved Titans lost to my Dragons. The stakes? Surfing a lap of the point at J-Bay in boardshorts during the Billabong Pro in July. The water will be around 13 degrees, and it will not be fun. Foolishly, riding my luck, I made the same bet with Joel’s resident video guy, Kenny when my Dragons played Kenny’s Sea Eagles. Joel will now have company when he surfs his lap of the freezing pointbreak in boardies… me. The video above turned up in my inbox the morning after the Eagles won.

Kenny, you are a turkey.

Joel and Kendall at his victory party. //Shorty

With the J-Bay trophy in the bag for the first time since 1999, it was time last night for Joel and his crew to get a little bent out of shape in celebration. They headed up the hill to J-Bay matriarch, Cheron Kraak’s place, where they drank, danced accapellaed and swam clothed into the early hours. Details are foggy at best, with the photo gallery here piecing bits of the night back together.

J-Bay Sunshine Reggae from Joel Parkinson on Vimeo.