This lovely, full-board Mango Lady is for sale. Never ridden, waxed, or had popsicle dripped onto it by four and six year-olds while using the deck as a Barbie Beach Party venue.
*update. SOLD to JD from ML, bicycle enthusiast, repeat customer, and proud shredder of the
BOB*
Why is it for sale? Well, my friends, it's complicated. Delicate. Thorny.
You see, sometimes a wild hare (rarely. Unjudiciously) lends me its soft, downy ear. Often, this hare indulges in a dram of scotch. Often, it requests another.
In this particular instance, Kilchoman's amazing Machir Bay expression proved the persuasive element.
In my lusty single malt rapture--nay, my pure Islay-inspired exaltation--this surfboard presented itself to me as a singular vision. Unseen hands guided me to the Blank Storage Area (staircase to the upstairs bedrooms). A chock of raw foam urged itself into my hands (first one I saw), and led me to my shaping bay. The hour was late. Family members slept. For some reason my dog was invited into the proceedings, happily plunked in a pile of foam dust. Tongue out. Enthralled.
What happened next I cannot be sure. Much like the narrator from Keats'
La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1819), I entered a liminal state, a diaphanous, filmy, place that ethnographer Arnold van Gennep would qualify as betwixt and between--neither of this world nor of another. Much like Keats' narrator I, too, emerged in the half dawn with only a fleeting series of images from the experience--planer on foam, plane on wood, ecstatic dog licking my leg as I moved from nose to tail and back again.
Suffice to say, fresh life--gasping, trembling, joyous--was coaxed into form during a gauzy, limitless session that lasted well into the wee hours (things get a little hazy at this point). Then, I emerged. Swaddled in foam dust, iPod drained (and, apparently, stuck on Chapter 27 of
Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens for reasons that have yet to reveal themselves to me). The resultant form was the Mango Lady Sans Merci.
Actually, it was more like a white lady, but I don't think I can call it that in a blog post.
Onto the specs!
La Mango Lady Sans Merci stands at 7'4, and is 22" wide and 2 7/8" thick. She features my Lady rocker, a gentle, sexy curve that prioritizes swoop-and-glide over rip-and-shred. Bottom contour is a dollop of belly under the nose to the front foot, then a panel vee off the tail. Rails are medium round and sharp in the rear 1/3rd. Cedar stringer. She can be ridden as a single or as a 2+1, and comes with fiberglass sidebites and a fiberglass center fin (TK Flex by Rainbow Fin Co.). You should consider the Mango Lady if you're looking for something to ride when the waves are waist-to-huge, like accelerating out of turns, and want to know what it feels like to be a hot knife slicing through a cool stick of butter.
Full board tint by the nice guys at Almar Surf Works, sanded finish (faster! Less slippery under the hands!), strong-and-lively glass job that's built to last.
First $580 takes it (plus tax, I'm legit). That's cheap, but whatever.
If you act presently, I will include a free mountaineering-grade through-the-box leash loop for your leggie. The only way this thing could fail is if someone were to take a hacksaw to it. Even then, it should still hold up to a good tombstone or two.
Email me at HeadHighGlassy@gmail.com if interested.
Swell in the water. Just saying.
