Centrefold VS The Girl Next Door
Can't say I disagree with ya. For mine, a similar parallel is seeking out a bank away from the crowds. I'm always happy to surf a lesser quality wave with fewer people rather than hassling at the best bank/reef/point with the hordes.
Great thoughts Blowin love ya thinking, similar appreciation.
It wasn't ya good mate who lives on the cliff and now owns the close by reef break...?
Now that's Hollywood.........
I reckon it relates also to the ratings given on the daily reports. The surf might be 7/10, but if the crowd is thick and full of tossers, then the actual experience of surfing there might be 5/10.
If, like you mention Ben, I find a semi-good bank (say 5/10) and surf it for a good while by myself or with about 2 others, my experience when considering wave count and general mood could be 8/10.
Love those surfs when you go expecting mediocrity and get slightly better with no one around, makes for a great session.
Yeah very true Kiaser. Hence the reason why I don't really like the surf report ratings (but that's another story for another time).
thermalben wrote:Can't say I disagree with ya. For mine, a similar parallel is seeking out a bank away from the crowds. I'm always happy to surf a lesser quality wave with fewer people rather than hassling at the best bank/reef/point with the hordes.
Totally agree Ben, while the superbank would be great out with just a few (ha hahahaha who am I kidding!!!) I much prefer to search out a bank where my mate and I can surf together with maybe only a couple of others, with Gentlemans rules.
Believe it or not, had a similar experience to yours Blowin on Monday arvo.
Been pretty so-so around here for awhile and apart from 2 days of sizey waves a couple of weeks ago, been pretty much flat.
But on Monday (and Swellnet called it) a little waist high sth swell dribbled into my local reef break. Went down about 3 pm and armed with my funboard paddled out with very low expectations. Sheet glass and really pretty light. Up in the cliffs I could hear the Uguisu (native Japanese songbird) teaching their younguns to sing and apart from a few passing cars, all I could hear was the birds, the waves and not much else.
The incoming tide started pulsing a little and I started getting wave after wave of thigh to waist high zippers. I was practicing my fades, backfoot stalls, a few round-houses, little foam glides, nose rides, the full repetoire ha ha. It was so much fun just soaking up the arvo and getting my glide on.
The best thing about it was that it was only me, all by myself. I few people stopped to check it but nobody bothered paddling out.
Two hours later, rode one in, said g'day to another bloke paddling out on sunset and drove home stoked.
So we all want to drool over a centrefold but it's nice to steal a kiss from the girl next door once in a while too.
zenagain wrote:So we all want to drool over a centrefold but it's nice to steal a kiss from the girl next door once in a while too.
Yeah once in a while. I don't find myself frothing over the shorie for two x 3hr sessions/day, day after day though.
Wow, that's a sweet story Zen, love those surfs, have a couple of similar stories I might pen down later!
Life's good Zen.
Couldn't agree more with the thread of this topic. Another thing, after stumping up the cash, travelling for a day or more to some far off exotic location personal and group expectations are through the roof. Everyone's frothing in the expectation of getting the perfect wave, barrel, session, surf trip, bragging rights blah blah. Sometimes as Blowin so beautifully describes its a little session down the local that gives the simple joy.
Well put Blowin and for me quite pertinent as I come to the end of a five year adventure in Oz.
Some of the places I have been over here are the stuff dreams are made of for a surfer from the UK, warm water, crystal clear and sparkling in the sun. Being able to head off with just boardies and board and post surf beers while you drip dry. And the waves, some that I will never forget, some that were out of my league but incredible to witness anyway. All of this and more making my mates back home pea green with envy and skint, last minute flights to Oz ain't cheap.
So why am I more excited about getting back to my local break than just about anything else? I know it'll be freezing and probably have that dull grey frigid look about it, there'll certainly be no boardies.
But I know there will waves, uncrowded and plentiful. I can camp on the beach at the best spots on the best days and know there will only be a handful of surfers turn up for an early one. The line up will be spacious and relaxed. The gulls will sound like gulls should and other seabirds will be more familiar, there'll be Iron Age burial mounds and ruined castles visible through the early morning mist. We can scurf pre dawn and after dark without a worry, the fire ready to warm us and our beer. And we won't need to travel far, half an hour back to bright lights.
But people will want to hear about Oz and the waves, did I surf snapper? And bells? I'll have some great stories to tell. But I'll want to talk about bamburgh and black middens. Hardly comparable on paper and I will miss the board short paddle but beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder.
Upnorth - " Fire ready to warm us AND OUR BEERS !!"
Tell me it ain't so champ.
Haha wouldn't want to disappoint mate.
I surfed a session in flawless perfection recently. Double overhead barrels grinding down a barely covered coral reef in oil slick calm conditions . Boardshorts and tropical warm water. Slight crowd.
Perfection on paper. In reality very demanding. For every tube was 5 floggings. Serious , rolling along razor sharp reef smashings and compressed on the reef hold downs. Caught some of the waves of my life but just as stoked about finishing the surf in one piece. The sort of session that , when I describe it to my mates , has them openly envious . The sort of line up that would grace a double page spread in a magazine.
A few weeks later and I'm at another beach. I've brought my board in the vain hope that the flat sea will throw up a couple of waves on the incoming tide from the dead low. Soaking up the weak sun and just loving the serenity and privilege of having such a beautiful slice of the planet to myself. I decide to have a swim in the crystal clear water and bodybash a couple of waist high wedges breaking in 2 feet of water only 30 metres from dry sand. The waves are small but hollow so I run back up the beach and grab my board.
Before long I've got a smile like a split watermelon and hooting out loud at the mini tubes lurching on the bank.
Later , when I describe the session to the same mates that were drooling over the reef break session at best I got a couple of non committal pleasantries in response. Not Hollywood enough apparently.
But without question I can say I actually had more fun, a more enjoyable experience playing around in that shore break. Turns out that happiness is where you find it. So while I'm never going to turn my nose up at ruler edged perfection and I'm sure I'll keep throwing good money after bad in the pursuit of it, I'm just going to have to accept the fact that I'm the kind of guy that is more than happy to settle for that pretty, yet not exquisite girl next door. Cause while she may not make headlines , she's plenty pretty enough for me.