For the past three weeks we’ve had these two photos sitting on our desktop, but we couldn’t seem to post them. When Keala Kennelly first uploaded the left photo to her facebook page we, like the rest of the world, gasped in horror.
We were amazed that Keala was still able to throw that famous twinkling glare in the face of a terrible injury. Badass, right? At the time we didn’t really care how it happened, we were just glad she was still able to keep those piercing peepers pointed in the proper direction and that there appeared to be no permanent damage.
Today, in an interview with Billabong Girls Team Manager Megan Villa, Keala tells the whole story.
It happened 2 days after the tow day during the AI memorial heat right before the final. It was a pretty regular looking wave. I took off and it kind of had a bit of bump that kept me from pulling into the barrel straight away. I had to make some adjustments and then saw that the next section was going to throw so I bottom-turned and parked it in the barrel. I traveled for a bit, had to negotiate the foam-ball and that may have thrown me off and made me have to draw a higher line than I would have liked. I thought I was coming out but the lip just clipped me in the head and threw me straight into the reef before I even realized what happened.
Strangely, each time we see these photos we can’t get that old Poi Dog Pondering lyric out of our heads: “. . . wear with pride the scars on your skin, they’re a map of the adventures and the places you’ve been.” Click the link for the rest of Keala’s interivew.
[Link: Billabong Girls via @kealakennelly]
