WARNING: Some crowing follows.
IT takes a few minutes of idly staring at a flotilla of jellyfish the size of dinner plates while enjoying a fag on St Kilda Pier to click that I’m about to be in amongst these foul gelatinous beasties. Extra incentive not to fall off, I suppose.
“The wind’s at 16 knots,” our guide observes as we gather on the beach. “You’ll probably get chucked into the pier a lot.”
I’m the only person who accepts a lifejacket (the others are blokes who’ve turned up in schmick new rashies), because while I can swim as good as any English, rips are strangely drawn to me. Also, I have visions of being swept out to sea like my brother was on a lilo one year. Dad was furious: he’d only just bought the lilo from a petrol station.
After a quick tutorial that’s delivered in a thick French accent and largely carried off by the wind, we carry our boards into the shallows and kneel in the centre of them with our legs apart. Paddling out a few metres, we get to our feet, always looking ahead at where we want to be going so as not to lose balance.
From hereon in there’s a cacophony of splats, as the menfolk hit the water heavily, stagger back onto their knees, rock back and forth alarmingly in a crouching position and fall in again. It’s embarrassing. I feel for them, I really do. Clearly all my pillion riding has paid off, as ironically it turns out I’m the only person who doesn’t need a lifejacket. How do you like that? I could have kept my makeup on.
An hour in, a small crowd has gathered merrily on the pier and the men have crimson faces of thunder as I punt around them in a devil-may-care fashion. Look, I wouldn’t fancy my chances in surf any rougher than Port Phillip Bay, but still, I’d like to think I earn the admiration of all around – in fact, I’m quite surprised no one has come up behind me in a fit of jealousy and shoved me in.
Keeper? Bloody love it mate. You may see me paddling sedately down the Yarra in the next few weeks.
Hey man, now you're really living 
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