When are you considered a local?
Firstly good luck Nathan in the new direction, hope it works out really well for you.
Sounds like that bloke wasn't having a good morning of freedom. Eckhart Tolle mentions a concept called the 'pain body' - that was him extending his pain body to you. Not your problem.
Local? Ummm, yes there's that intimate knowledge of an area and how reefs/tides/winds and the capability to surf it well, and yes there's knowing others there who are at the same places regularly, and a web of friendships I suppose. Peter Andrews of the reclaiming of farm land fame said "It takes them 20 years to forgive you for coming, then 20 years to accept you." lol
Prob having a bad day, or he’s a full time peanut, or you’re down playing the situation.
End of the day, who cares either way.
It’s a wave, plenty more to come.
Just say sorry, crack a smile and get on with it.
Yeah, doesn't sound like a localism issue- not many brain dead enough to get territorial over 2-3ft beachies.
bloke having a bad day.
Haha, this is a funny one. The short answer is never to some people. Some people are very accepting and some are terrible. I travel a fair bit and I surfed all over the place. If there is someone like you just described I just ignore it. I'm not there to impress them or give them joy in life.
Interesting incident today at my local which got me thinking.
After recently racking up 10 years with the same company and doing a job that was less than fun I decided (along with wife) to throw in the towel, have a break and then get cracking on getting a new and improved position. Today is the second day of my mini break. I dropped the sprog off at school and headed down for a surf as the tide was high and starting to fall with maybe 2-3ft of swell. I knew there were a couple of good banks as I had surfed these yesterday and last week. Normally I can only surf on the weekend as my previous position was a good 10 hours plus a day working for the evil overlords. Having a good session with about 10 waves caught, paddling back out when I spot a chap paddling for a wave. Thinking he will be going right I stop paddling to give him enough room to zip in front of me. Low and behold he starts to angle left and proceeds to fall off. At this point I don't think anything of it and continue to paddle back out. He then heads over to me and ask me why I got in his way in a rather aggressive tone. Why was I not paddling back out via the channel (this is a 2-3ft beach break). I am not a very aggressive guy but if I feel I have been called out incorrectly I will stand my ground. I process to explain that I was simply paddling back out and that there was ample room to catch the wave. There may have been some fruity language throw in with my response, but I didn't throw in that you had just "kooked" it. Well this went down not very well at all with my protagonist. He proceeded to tell me to go back to where I game from, I am sick of your kind, that he had lived there for 50 years and finally that "I'll go ya". At this point my thoughts were that I should ignore this shit and just get on with catching waves. I caught another wave and a bit sheepishly think that will do it.
This gets me to my question. When are you considered a local?
For further context I was born and grew up a couple of beaches south of where I was surfing today. I have been surfing this beach for over 20 years. My kids goes to the local school and we play with the local footy club. When are you considered a local?