It's not just big wave surfers who have to overcome their fears, and it's not just talented surfers that get a buzz from riding waves. For that matter, it's not just renowned authors who can capture the surfing spirit in words - include a bit of exaggeration, a dash of self-deprecation and top it all with a celebration and you've got me in.

Here one Swellnet reader shares a session where they pushed their own boundaries and enjoyed an afternoon full of stoke. Thanks to Hugo and thanks to Gerard, who penned the letter and probably had no idea it would end up here!

Note: there were no photos taken on the afternoon of the session so I've supplied the images. The size, I imagine, is equal to that which Gerard sees when he replays the afternoon in his head.

Doubting Dan,

Long time no see. I hope you, Row, Johno and family are all well. John keeps me aware of your occassional meeting but life just seems too busy these days to catch up with the people you have to , let alone the ones you would just like to.

You may struggle with the following - excuse the potential embellishment - but I did do it. I know it is hard to believe that the middle-aged, balding, overweight person who couldn't run up and down a netball court without getting injured is now a genuine, hard-charging, gonads-the-size-of-pineapples hellman who looks death in the eye and laughs.

I may have overstated my case slightly but on 19/5/2010, a cloudless afternoon with a shifting breeze of less than 3 knots I decended the hallowed steps of the Bells Bowl.

50 years to the day of my birth, with the trusted Hugo, a veteran of one previous Bells surf (coincidently 47 years after he first drew breath) and my guide and lifeguard for the day faced the 4ft + swells on the famous break. Cursing at Swellnet which had promised 2ft with maybe the occasional 3ft set and agog at the number of tradies who had taken the morning off, we faced the biggest shorebreak I had seen.

5ft walls of white water smashed into the beach that lay at a 45% angle towards the dark grey water.

Thankfully a small lull occurred and we managed to get out. After 15 minutes of furious paddling and praying I arrived "out the back" a full 40 metres past the break zone. After 20 minutes of not being killed, Hugo encouraged me to come 30 metres closer to the break zone to at least give the appearance of being partially interested in catching a wave.

After a further 15 minutes and watching Hugo catch a couple of screaming 12 to 15 ft faced monsters, not just surviving but screaming 60 to 100 metres down the line, only to return with a smile splitting his face in half and urging me to "have a go".

Realising I couldn't sit there all afternoon without at least having a crack, and consoling myself that drowning and being ripped to pieces at Bells will sound better than dying of a bee sting while surfng 1ft waves at Grove, I decided to try.

With a wall of water charging at me threatening to break 15 metres before me and being no chance of reaching me without breaking, Hugo again (for the 10th time) urging me to go, I stroke halfheartedly in the direction of the beach with a mountain standing menacingly behind.

Yeilding to the inevitable, the board begins to slide effortlessly forward, without thinking or apparently acting I find myself on my feet and screaming down the 15 ft wall of water. Suddenly, ever the gentleman, Hugo drops in on me. For the next 100 metres he flies down the line with a style closer to grace than I have ever seen in Hugo, with me 10 foot deeper and feeling more in control than ever before, we swooped and climbed and then repeated 3 or 4 times along the wall, calmly raising over the lip before the wave closed furiously out, some 40 metres from the beach.

As I landed beside him in the water, I was greeted with, "F#ck, I didn't think you would go".

Laughing throughout the 100 metre paddle back to our starting point, I have not felt like this since the birth of my children, or coming third in the second round of the Corporate Head of the River.

We continued to take on the wave for another hour and a half, with Hugo hardly missing a wave and me making slightly more waves than not.

Although the last wave almost drowned me, slipping from the board at the top, free-falling 12 ft to land on my upturned board, snapping my thruster fin, and a grueling 30 second holddown that felt like 3 minutes, I reckon I broke even for the day, which is more then I could have hoped for as I paddled out.

So there: I went, I saw, I survived. When are we going to see you out there?

Gerard Pitcher