‘I set out to rediscover a love for the sea that was lost to tragedy’ | Telegraph Travel – Telegraph.co.uk

Posted On: September 27, 2020

Benjamin Parker, who grew up surfing, lost his beloved aunt to the ocean when he was a teenager. It took more than a decade for him to trust the waves again

I stopped walking into the waves and looked back towards Praia do Castelejo, a beach of light golden sand in south-west Portugal. Although I was only up to my knees in the ocean, I felt a tremendous weight of long-spurned fear fill my entire body.

Other surfers bounded past me, splashing as they duck-dived through arching water in search of their ride back to land. I stood for what felt like an age, my body motionless and the world silent. I didn’t know what to do, if I should wade back to the shore, or paddle out with my board – if embracing the water could soothe a decade of emptiness.

I was staying at the European outpost of Soul & Surf, known for its popular retreats that blend yoga and surfing with an emphasis on guests socialising during downtime. After opening two properties in Asia – the first in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and another in the south of Sri Lanka – and successful pop-ups in Portugal, founders Ed and Sofie Templeton brought their signature rusticity to the Algarve in 2019, which is when I visited.

They took over a traditional quinta, or Portuguese farmhouse, the whitewashed walls and terracotta roof striking among fields parched a vanilla shade of yellow by summer rays. Frills across the nine rooms (currently reduced to six because of coronavirus) are minimal, save an occasional piece of art by Ed or fresh lavender in a glass. The patios are adorned with plants and wooden benches, and a neat lawn surrounds the pool. It is calm and restful, with plenty of nooks in which to tuck yourself away. It was this peace my fellow guests were seeking. My reason for visiting, which I shared with nobody, was much darker, and years in the making.

Soul & Surf Portugal Credit: PETER CHAMBERLAIN

After reaching my teens in west Dorset, friends and I were water-bound most of the year. I remember treading water in storms that launched us towards rocks, when not even repeated bruising would stop us from trying, and trying again. I narrowly made it to a maths GCSE exam as I’d lost track of time on a surfboard off Lyme Regis. Summers were feet in the sand, poring over surf films or memorising the chords to songs by Jack Johnson, Eddie Vedder, Donavon Frankenreiter. Our patch of the West Country wasn’t really a surf hotspot – occasionally we made it to decent breaks in north Devon – so many of our days were spent waiting for a wave that never came.

As much as I channelled that lifestyle, it became harder to reconcile it with my real life. By 2005, I’d seen the hideous divorce between my parents, a violent stepfather had thrown me – literally – on to the street, and my father had been reported to the police for sex offences (of which he was convicted). The one sanctuary was my maternal grandmother’s house in West Bay, a parish now better known as the setting for ITV’s Broadchurch. From 2005 until I properly moved out after university, this was my home, shared with my grandmother’s youngest daughter: my wonderful auntie, Victoria.

She was more a sister and friend, just nine years older than me. I felt more grown up when I was with her, something every precocious teenager wants. We went to gigs, she’d pick me up late from parties, and be kind to me during hangovers. At the beach, we’d make the most of sunny days. When others said it was too cold, she’d go for early-morning dips in the sea. She understood my father’s crimes like nobody else.

We called her Ora (like “aura”), a nickname that entered our family’s lexicon owing to my inability as a toddler to say “Victoria”, which was adopted by her friends, too.

On the evening of Oct 27, 2007, when she was 26, she never came home. I had a brief chat on the telephone with her around 7pm – a conversation I’ve played on a loop ever since – and that was it. Confusion reigned before turning to panic, then panic to dread. Police told us that she’d driven her car to the cliffs in Burton Bradstock, three miles from our home, and it had plunged over the cliffs. Dive teams scoured the Jurassic Coast; it wasn’t until the following September, standing on the pier at West Bay, that I watched her return home as the vehicle was lifted from the water.

In a blur, the sea had changed from a place of joy to wordless pain. I didn’t want to be anywhere near it, let alone in it. For years, I have been unable to sleep as my mind imagines the weight of water dragging me under. Since 2007, I’ve snorkelled over shallow coral and waded in warm ocean, but my trepidation has never subsided; getting snared in a rip current in Queensland, Australia, further rattled my anxiety

Ben Parker after surfing the waves off Praia do Castelejo

That’s why I was fixed to the spot, water knee-high, in Portugal: the memories were irrepressible. But I couldn’t reveal my fear to anyone; as I write this story, my best friends will be hearing about what happened to me and my family for the first time. I’d come on this retreat because I was tired of feeling trapped, and needed to move on. So when a shout came, “Come on, Ben!” in a thick Glaswegian accent, I steeled myself to take the plunge. It was Findlay McGlade, one of Soul & Surf’s instructors. I jolted forwards. With the stirring of a wave, I turned my frame on the board and slid to a stand as the water hoisted me up.

I fell. Slipped under, writhed as salt stung my face, the board buffeting my head as I surfaced. I was reeling, but a deeper memory – of being in the water before October 2007 – kicked in. I repeated this pattern, eager to crack through the rustiness while I gulped down mouthfuls of the Atlantic. Hours passed, and every time I dropped in to ride to shore, it was as though time had slowed down, that I was weightless but rooted to my board.

Once peeled out of wetsuits, it was a 40-minute drive back to Soul & Surf for lunch. I was impressed by the food there – a salad of chickpeas and spinach in a sharp citrus dressing, a Spanish omelette, or couscous with vegetables plucked from the kitchen garden – but, lost in my own head, I was dreading the conversation communal dining demands.

Somehow, during meals on lengthy wooden tables below festoon lights and drooping branches, I did start to feel comfortable among the fellow guests, sharing plump prawns from a pan of arroz de marisco, and the twice-weekly pizza night – baked in the outdoor stone oven – turned into a late evening of booze, music and board games under a waning moon.

That first afternoon, though, I decided against yoga and stole away to my room. Through the window, a breeze, fragrant from orange and lemon in the grove outside, skimmed over me as I napped. I’d been beset by guilt since I was 17: at not being able to save Ora, not being able to heal my family, guilt that I would one day actually move on. I’d long fixated on the day I’d be older than she ever would; when that date passed, another ounce of guilt across my shoulders.

For the first time in years, I saw life undimmed. That the future needn’t be a fake smile, lonely weeping, withdrawing for days under the duvet in an attempt to halt real life. While the other guests moved through their yoga postures, I skipped class, opened a beer and dangled my legs into the curved pool. A brief moment without worry.

Guests from Soul & Surf talk to Findlay McGlade, one of the instructors, on the beach Credit: DTL PHOTOGRAPHY

The next couple of days in Portugal passed in much the same way, or I thought they did. In fact, I was gaining confidence.

Having never really fallen for yoga – the only one there without experience – I joined classes in the thatched shala on pranayama, vinyasa flow and meditation. Nothing too hippy or highfalutin, which I’d found off-putting elsewhere.

My surfing got better. I was reacting on instinct, carefree as the scruffy-haired teen I once was. I even attempted a “soul arch”, leaning back in a show of nonchalance as a swell picked up. Of course I absolutely wiped out, taking a neighbouring surfer with me. I was last to leave the water that day.

There’s not a romantic ending to this story; grief, heartbreak, loss, black dog – whatever you wish to call it – doesn’t wash away easily (believe me, I have tried). The burden that lingers is as heavy as the coffin I once helped carry. But there’s a glimmer of acceptance in the turmoil, which is all I can hope for. That surf and yoga hideaway in the Algarve, straightforward in concept but executed with swagger, helped reconcile an unsettled soul with a love of surfing. With saltwater washing over my skin, I’ll be thinking of you, Ora – and I promise no more pausing on the shoreline.