Leonard Koppett – a great American sports writer – described sports as: "The essential commodity sports has to sell is an illusion. Specifically, the illusion that the result of a game matters."

Guys are limping, cut up, have infected scrapes and fevers. Micro Hall got airlifted out of here after wrapping his back around a coral head and copping a set on the face ... it's not the first 16-minutes of Saving Private Ryan, but it's no illusion. Shit here is getting real.

Everyone has cuts, and everyone is headed to Bali in less than one week's time. Bali, the infection capital of the surfing world, is the last place you want an open wound. Literally.

Is it too late for Billabong to bring out their own fashionable brand of antibiotics? Some bright pastel coloured capsules to go with Parko's signature lure series ... they could go from chumps to champs overnight.

On a recent layday, the Miami Heat lost to the Spurs in the NBA finals, and Brett Simpson's heart broke. After riling him up for 10-minutes over the loss, Kelly then called out to the bartender to make Simpo a shot of anything he wants and make sure he drinks it.

"He's hurting, man, he needs this."

I'm hurting too. In the middle of perfect waves I somehow got locked into a hectic battle of tennis while the Hobgoods cheered on. I should have worn shoes. Now, with no soles of my feet, only second-degree burns where they should be, I would have to be the biggest kook in the South Pacific right now.

Fantastic stuff.

On the same layday Kelly talked to me about his body. Two problematic shoulders, a balky back and a chronic right knee condition keep him from ever being 100%. He needs to rest his body, but can't bring himself to actually rest. There's always somewhere in the world with waves breaking. And invariably, Kelly is always chasing them.

I asked him about retirement and his answer resonated with even me, the most uncompetitive surfer who's ever waxed up a board. He said it's hard to think about retiring while he's still matching it with the best and is still winning.

How do you walk away from something you love to do, and you're still fucking good at it? I couldn't walk away, and I doubt any of you reading this could either.

The only way Kelly will retire anytime soon is if he gets no say in the matter through injury. Even an 80%-fit-Kelly is better than everyone on tour bar Joel, Jordy and John Twice.

A little known fact about John Twice. The kid is easily the most well-mannered kid on tour. Hell, he's the most well-mannered kid I've ever met full stop. Everything he asks for starts with a please and ends with a thank you. The way it should be.

It's an amazing little tidbit when you take into account that his life has been under the public microscope pretty much since he left nappies.

While we're on the topic of unexpected behaviour, lets talk about the perilous occupation of swell forecasting, particularly forecasting within the confines of a 'CT event.

Yesterday afternoon was pretty much firing. Four-to-six with an evening glass off delivering standup barrels. We never got to see those waves because unbelievably a call for a layday was made at first light.

Surfers this morning were incredulous at the waves they scored, and the fact they scored them not wearing a contest rashie.

Same goes for the day after we ran at Restaurants. The reason we didn't run on Friday wasn't because of a lack of waves – in fact, the waves were really good – but because there were lulls. So why not extend the heat times out to 40-minutes to compensate? It's not like we had anything else to do. We could have finished round three, and be sitting pretty to finish things off in epic Tuesday conditions.

That's a dropped ball if we've ever seen one.

... Instead we're heading into the final days of the waiting period and we still have roughly 12-hours of contest time remaining. The latest forecast models, which once touted Wednesday as the day of days to finish on, have suddenly downgraded the swell and raised the chance of stiff tradewinds.

So as the clock heads to extra time, we sit and we wait. The Spurs are playing the Heat again on the TV and I'm about to grab myself a double-dose of illusion.