From Zero to 15th in the world, I’ll take it, having only surfed for 6 months! This photo alone was worth the trip! Look! That’s me, James Price, surfing a beautiful wave in Surf City Huntington Beach, California, with just 4 of us allowed out there. An honour and a privilege 🏄‍♂️🤙

I am no stranger to Huntington Beach, I have been blessed with my own determination and drive to create some pretty fortunate and cool experiences in my life, since breaking my neck in 99. Back in 2009 / 10 / 11, I would regularly travel solo to LAX with my rugby wheelchair, spare wheel bag and luggage to play for teams in California and flying round the states (thanks to the Northridge Knights, my host Leon and Crown Rugby in Orange County. It is one thing loading a rugby chair in and out of a car or rolling it through an airport, I can do all independently, but 2 x 7ft surfboards in a massive bag and my luggage, impossible. Definitely the first time I have travelled internationally and literally knew I needed help throughout – made me a little apprehensive knowing I needed to rely on airport staff etc. USA I knew there would be no problem, they work on tips so, I knew I could get help on the other side to carry stuff.

I was actually pleasantly surprised when I got to Heathrow terminal 5 – I rang the special assistance number when I turned up at the carpark meet n greet drop off, and they were straight out, unloaded my car, took everything through check in, it was so smooth. Took me by surprise, all went smoothly stateside too getting me through security, collecting my bags and helping me to the rental car pick up bus. Hertz screwed up my booking but I got a Chevy SUV with hand controls that just squeezed everything in – and it always feels like home when I start the LAX drive to Orange County in California sun. If life could have been different I would have moved there in a flash all those years ago. I Drove round a while because my phone would not connect to the internet so had no directions, but after my much anticipated ‘In and Out’ double double burger, I made it to the drive up room Best Western in Huntington Beach. I was bloody exhausted, no sleep, but buzzing to be there and the accessible room was large, could park the SUV outside, all was good.

I was there a week early, acclimatising, doing what I used to love doing in my rugby chair and pushing up the miles and miles of tarmac pathways by the beaches in Huntington, fitness and just soaking up the weather and scenery, swimming in the freezing cold unheated hotel pool! I was determined, but damn! It is a cool thing that all the years after I played international wheelchair rugby, and some wheelchair athletics, believing my shoulders being shot and my age, having a child, thinking my sporting days were over; that I was back in California about to represent my country again, in another sport! Breaking my neck may be the worst thing ever, and I would not wish it on anyone, but I have done some pretty cool shit. It was 20 years ago almost to the day I was representing England Wheelchair Rugby in Hong Kong, all the years later I was representing England again in California, surfing, f*cking surfing man!

Anyway, how did it go down?! Terrifying! And I am the most chilled out person going but knowing I would be in the big waves having never surfed anything that size, was scary. I’ll get onto that later. Firstly , the welcome from Huntington was amazing, met up with the team of course, big opening parade down Main Street was really cool. Felt like a really big deal and the place certainly embraced the event. Of course, I got totally stitched up as the newbie and had to go up on stage and be the England Flag bearer and waiver. Of course, it is nice to be asked to do it as such a new member of the team, but I hate the ‘sunshine bus happy to be out the house’ waiving crap! Ha ha. I mean that with no disrespect, that’s just my own hang ups.

New people, new dynamics and of course, new disabilities / impairments to get used to. It’s always fascinating, I was born able bodied and lived 21 years without impairment, one doesn’t grow up thinking they will ever have one, life is just life and the normal trials and tribulations. Since breaking my neck over the past 25 years I have been lumped into the ‘disabled’ category and as such, from day one in a ultra special needs nursing home while they found me an apartment, to events like this; a new team of para-athletes, I come across impairments I haven’t spent time with before, not just physical but mental, too. It’s fascinating really, on this occasion a fellow team mate is losing his sight and can barely see the phone in front of his face, and only a small glimpse of it. Dave was staying in my hotel, so naturally with an SUV I was his transport, but then there’s the jokery pokery of the blind guy and the cripple, who’s leading who?! Actually, we nailed it, me getting in the car, Dave figuring out by feel what buttons to push on my wheelchair to take the wheel off and then pass to me to load the car etc. Well oiled machine by the end of it, but comical to me none the less! Even after 25 years of being in a chair it still cracks me up the situations I find myself in and the locations. Yet, entirely interesting because the things I have to look out for and avoid everyday when I am out and about… pavements, drops, obstacles, road crossings etc, all can cause me to fall out of my chair so, I avoid them like second nature so actually, voicing those to my blind team mate as we are going down the street was more than natural, I was just saying aloud what I was avoiding myself anyway.

And it really was welcome to the F’in jungle man!! If you watched my heat on YouTube when it was live you’ll know how my heat got wiped out by some huge waves. Cyril my coach and ‘pusher’ (the guy who gets me through the waves and launches me onto one) had to turtle roll me (I bearhug the board, he flips it over) to protect us from getting smashed by waves we were taking on the head, it was crazy. It totally threw us; plans to hang out and wait for the perfect wave were gone. Other surfers in my heat were washed up against Huntington Beach pier and needed rescuing by jet skis, we just had to shake it off and get some scores on the board. That meant taking anything that looked average and that’s what I got; dropped on a couple of waves, they closed out pretty quickly so just rode the white water in to the beach for two low scores, but better than nothing. I actually finished second in my heat so for my first time out, I was pretty happy, not just first time out – first ever international competition, first competition in the sea, it was a whole event of firsts!

I came second in my heat, stoked. On day two, I just needed to stick a decent wave and ride her into the beach to probably get through to the quarter-finals. But seriously, like a comedy of errors, my wetsuit broke just before the heat, putting people in a flap, so I just put a rash vest on, covered the zip, and got Coach Cyril to get me in the water into the calm. We had a plan: stay away from the seriously good competitors and find our own wave away from the worry of priority in case we got stitched up. A good wave came to us straight away, on my left, which is the weaker side for me, but we got on it. Then comedy of errors number two piped up; I rubbed sunscreen on my face five minutes before the event, so in the midst of this big wave breaking on me, it smashed my slippery hand clean off the board and I was washing machined in the surf! Rookie mistakes with not good enough wetsuit and sunscreen hands! From then on, any plan just went out of the window! What I should have done was get out the back and waited, waited for one quality wave on my right side, just for me. Even if it was just one wave, I only needed one good score. However, Cyril and I just decided to grab any half-good wave coming my way – I was surfing dream waves in California; that was a result in itself. However, when it came to the dying seconds of my heat, I had gone for an average wave before everyone else, so I lost priority, and that final comedy of errors became evident. A set of massive, fantastic waves rolled in and I had to watch the other competitors ride them in; when it was finally my turn, the buzzer sounded. It was gutting; I knew I had not done enough. But hell yeah, I surfed California in a world championship having only surfed six months! I was gutted, of course, that is the competitor in me; I was sad I had let my team down by not accruing team points to add to the total at the end. It was a bitter one to swallow that night, but sure as shit, I was up the next morning and down there early with Dave to cheer on everyone else.