SURFER: Hayden blair PHOTO: the light by the sea Cape Solander is an uncompromising proposition at the best of times, but then again, its writhing, near-shore funnels also offer the potential for a very satisfying kind of barrel glory. Overcome the steep gradient drop, a buckling face and the trip-wire backwash and perhaps you’ll feel like you’ve run through a field of land mines and survived.  And for all its snarling brutality, Solander can toss up a tube that’s thicker and rounder than just about anywhere. Hayden Blair is one of those devotees who has been chasing Solander’s distinctive high for two decades. For the most part he has remained unscathed, but when an intense east swell collided with the Cape in late winter, things went a little awry. “It was big man, that day we towed… Ten to 15-foot easy. There were waves we let go… just because of the backwash … the wave was eating itself,” Hayden told Tracks from a hospital bed soon after the incident. “When I let go of the rope (wave pictured), I knew this thing was evil,” he continued. “Then I had to go over the backwash to set my line. The next minute it was just mutant, and I was trying to fight through it. The boys said I did pretty good. I got over the backwash and pulled into the barrel, and I was riding it… my line was really good. I thought I was going to make it, and then I kind of fell mid-face, which really just forced me straight over onto the bottom, headfirst…” “I just remember hitting the bottom and going all limp… It felt like I hit and then got dragged, I must have, because I got cuts on my shin and like, little grazes everywhere… I don’t think I blacked out. I just went really limp and was kind of just floating, like I was floating on air… And then I kind of popped up as another wave hit… I had flotation on, the impact vest helped massively.” Skipping the dramatic rescue, Hayden wound up in St Georges hospital where he was forced to spend two, long nights under strict orders to lie rigid on his back to avoid potential spinal damage. Meanwhile, the doctors plucked nuggets of rock and shell from his cranium and sent him for numerous scans. Fortunately, Hayden was discharged and … Read more