Should you really have gone surfing?
Holy shit this is a timely question.
Currently sidelined with injury after surfing through initial pain. Was it worth it? Hmmm. I got some epic waves and some tasty barrels but now I’m house bound as more waves and the last big pelagic fish hunt hurdle past without me. It’s all goodish right now as the hiatus is only into a couple of days duration. If it turns out to be prolonged, which it may well be , things could get strained on the joy front.
I only have one small anecdote to contribute.
Years ago, living on the Goldy.
Drove a Kiwi mate and his pregnant girlfriend to Doctors, Kirra was pumping and we were going surfing.
His name was Gazza, which he pronounced Gizza.
We got to Palm Beach to the Doctors.
Pregnant girl gets out of the car.
Gizza does not move a muscle.
Girl says, come on Gizza lets go to Doctor.
Gizza says "hey babe, all I know is Kirra is pumping and I'm going surfing".
Different days. .........
Not sure what happened to the girl and baby.
Gizza went back to NZ and died of a drug overdose.
Plenty of times.
One that sticks with me was missing the funeral of a very close family friend. Told my family I had a uni test but went surfing instead. It must've been good surf, but it wasn't good enough to remember it now.
Justified it in my mind that I was 'getting a wave for XXXX', but it was bullshit and I felt like a heartless ghoul for doing it.
Definitely not worth it that time.
I'm struggling to find a time where I shouldn't have gone surfing. I can think of dozens, maybe hundreds of times where I should have been doing something else, but when I shouldn't have gone surfing? Very little comes to mind.
My first job was when I was 15 at Safeway pushing trolleys.
I was over it one day and knew the surf was good because I called the old trigger bros surf report and told mum to drive me to the beach instead of work.
She said not a chance so I went oh well bugger ya and got my stuff and hitched down the beach.
Came home to an angry mum and no trolley job. Good times!
I contracted Glandular Fever in my early twenties. I was chronically sick for 3 months. Even had a spinal tap because the doc thought I had meningitis. After recovering my doc said no physical activity for 6 months. Pfffft!!! Back then I lived on the beachfront in Port Elizabeth and woke up one morning with a solid swell rolling in and knew JBay would be a perfect 6-8 foot. I ended up crook for another two months because I ignored my doctors advice. Definitely wasn't worth it as that is a motherfucker of an illness.
About twenty years ago, I was attending a conference in Jakarta and arrived a few days early, so I headed to the west coast and surfed one day without suncream. I got the worst sunburn ever and had some shrooms later in the night with a mate in the village. I headed back to Jakarta the next day, blistered face, red as a beetroot, with a wild look in my eyes. I got some suspicious looks from the straight-laced conference attendees.
Ments boat trip, first day. Really, really good HTs with 4 to 15 guys out. Unreal dawnie, and a really good pre-lunch session, then a good early arvo sesh too. Finally went out for nr 4 and could barely paddle.
Next day I had a raging headache and was basically a wreck.
During all my high school years i probably shouldn't have wagged school and gone surfing, my parents and teachers said if you go surfing instead of going to school when good waves, you will never get a decent job and achieve anything in your life.
I didn't listen and went surfing but I don't regret it at all, maybe its different now but the results of school didn't really have much of a bearing on my life or others i know, pretty much all us surfer bums ended up getting our shit together and most become quite successful
Plus i still have some really good memories of wagging school and going surfing with friends :D
My school had a yearly event called energy day where we would all walk to raise funds from cronulla point to merries reefs (kurnell boat harbour) One year it was pumping and me and my friends all went to Aussie pipe and scored it at 3-5 foot, later on in the carpark a song came on the radio by smashing pumpkins called Today is the greatest...best day ever.
School Sports day…cricket or footy…big choice but no role marked when you got there so….just before the lunchtime bell sounded my mates and I were at the ready…desk emptied …bags packed and a firm grip on the handle…a crouched position at my desk like a sprinter in the blocks…the bell would sound and whoosh…out the door down the long hall and straight out the back of the school at full sprint behind the buildings across the oval and straight for the 8 foot rear paling fence throwing the bag over …and like a pole vaulter, a leap for the top and in one movement a gymnastic display of vertical legs and torso rolling over the fence with absolute precision….multiply this by about 25 bodies and it was a sight to behold…like gazelles or wilder-beasts in some weekly tribal ritual…then within about 20 seconds later…the rostered teacher would come out on lunch patrol…nothing to see here…nobody..all clear…..then, our crew would get in my mates older brothers car and hit manly.
Wednesday. After work session with grom, collected with board in lip of wave, seemed to knock the funny bone in my elbow, and I noticed a ding up near the nose. Paddled back out. Next one I kicked out (it detonated a bit on the inside), found myself up in the air upside down and twisting* so disoriented, landed getting a smack in the face which stung.
*I'll be learning airs for the G-Land comp if I'm around. I'll be calling each one I see. If I get it wrong, it's bingo time for you lot and I take a gentleman's sip. The fastest way to learn.
It's a question my high school teachers used to ask me a lot. Particularly when I rocked up for a school certificate exam 10 minutes late, hair dripping , covered in zinc and still doing the buttons up on my shirt. I think I held the highest absentee rate in most schools I went to over many years.
'Regrets , I've had a few , but then again , too few to mention.'
What I've noticed is that whenever you have to go to a wedding or family get together with the outlaws etc. the surf always looks a lot better than it really is and as you get a glimpse of the lineup as you head off it looks "all time", its then you feel angry and moody and have an argument with the ball and chain. Chances are if you were free it would have just been another crappy grovel.
To get away with fobbing of certain events and activities one must be consistent. I've found if you do it regularly and often enough people just seem to accept that it's just normal for you to do that ,.
A month go. Slipping out of work early, hitting the road and pulling into the car park to see glassy peelers. Suiting up, duck dive through the shorey, popping up just as the wind change hit. Should have stayed at work.
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:Holy shit this is a timely question.
Currently sidelined with injury after surfing through initial pain. Was it worth it? Hmmm. I got some epic waves and some tasty barrels but now I’m house bound as more waves and the last big pelagic fish hunt hurdle past without me. It’s all goodish right now as the hiatus is only into a couple of days duration. If it turns out to be prolonged, which it may well be , things could get strained on the joy front.
Maybe the risk was worth it though....surfing thru the pain, how could you know what you'd be in for? A couple of days or a couple of weeks recovery.
That's a timeless thought old dog, and applicable to so many scenarios.
I feel surfing magnifies this. The idea that it looks more fun than it is, the reality that much of surfing is just grizzling about how it's the wrong tide, or too small etc.
Liking the spread of fond memories, versus sobering realities in the responses.
Island Bay wrote:Ments boat trip, first day. Really, really good HTs with 4 to 15 guys out. Unreal dawnie, and a really good pre-lunch session, then a good early arvo sesh too. Finally went out for nr 4 and could barely paddle.
Next day I had a raging headache and was basically a wreck.
Thats why guides love the back half of the trip.
Regale me of you tales of when you probably shouldn't have gone surfing.....but you did anyway.
When I say you probably shouldn't have, maybe it was doctors orders, you had a sprained ankle, you were recovering from surgery, you promised your partner you wouldn't, you were supposed to be on the job etc.
Want to hear the positives and the negatives. Was it worth it?