The Great Tabelini
media courtesy of Mike Tabeling
by Mike Tabeling
posted 2004-03-15
When the headlights were gone for good and I'd gone off the road a few times and I was thinking about how I was going to explain this to Kelly's mom Judy if I hurt him; so I pulled over. We had to get our battery charged if we were going to get out of here and a jump from a car wasn't going to do it. We hadn't seen another vehicle for nearly a half hour. I figured that if we waited another half hour one would come along and we could tail it to the next gas station. Since there are only two places at night to get gas on the one hundred and fifty mile stretch of no-man's-land we'd only need to follow a car for about thirty-five or forty minutes.
Photo courtesy of Mike Tabeling
Sure enough Kelly spotted lights approaching from the rear. I pulled the car as far off the road as I could for safety, as soon as the car roared by I punched the gas and pulled onto the tarmac. The car I was tailing probably was going around seventy to eighty miles per hour or faster as most cars do on that road. My poor little 240D engine couldn't catch up before it disappeared around a corner and left us in the dark again.
I cursed loudly and stopped the car again. Next time we would have to be more clever. When we saw the lights of the next car I pulled onto the road and began our sloth like pace until the approaching car saw us and was forced to slow down. When he passed I was able to catch him easily. Then I shared an unsettling thought with my passengers, everything we had just done to the other car smelled of highway robbery and now we were tailgating it with our lights out. I told my buddies that if they heard a bullet to hit the floor and protect themselves behind the firewall. I started to think about Judy again, but I wasn't about to let this car get away until we reached the station ahead.
After about five minutes the car turned onto a dirt road and disappeared. I figured it was a farmer going home and we debated whether to follow him but I decided that since we had no lights we could either get lost on his dirt road or the farmer might certainly suspect us now of being highwaymen and in South Africa he had every right in the world to shoot us first and ask questions later. Prudently we decided to wait for another car and use the same technique. A truck came along and we stayed with it until the gas station. From there we met another trucker who agreed to let us follow him to the N2 and Jeffreys Bay. We were home free.
Although I learned to fly airplanes in America and held a twin-engine retractable gear rating, it wasn't until I learned to fly motor less Para gliders in Africa that I truly fell in love with flying. The fact that one has to use Mother Nature's power to do ride the warm thermals up to the clouds reminded me of how surfers use ocean waves. Thermaling is like tube riding. Unfortunately I had a wicked accident, which rearranged my body, but as bad as that might sound it was worth it. We are only given a few short years to play on this earth and like the saying goes "If you aren't living on the edge you're taking up too much space".
After recovering from the accident I went on to become an instructor and won the year long cross-country title for the Eastern Province.
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Today I'm living back in Florida and have been helping Bob Baugher with his surf shop, the Cocoa Beach Surf Company, one of the finest shops on earth. I have to thank him for all he did to help me. Now I'm running Surf School Tabeling, which serves the entire Brevard County area. If you know of someone who wants to be introduced to surfing by an old pro with a lot of crazy stories have them give me a call. I'm in the book in Cocoa Beach.
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