SURF STOKE

This is the place to woffle on about your most recent surf or daily surf sessions.

Photo’s and video most welcome.

I hadn’t been in the water for several weeks and haven’t ridden my shortboard in over 18months. The mini-mal doesn’t fit nicely in my new car so the 6’2” is now my standard -keep in the car just incase- board.

Yesterday at 7:30am, after 3hrs sleep following a +10hr shift on my feet (and a few beers), I woke up in the car at the beach.
High tide, nice wind but no swell that I could notice. I hung around soaking up the unseasonal warm weather. The occasional shorey crashed on the beach and every 20min a 3 wave pulse of swell resembled surfable waves but no one was on it.

I was due to meet some people at the surf club later so drove to Coledale. In the corner were a small crew getting their Saturday morning fix.

By 9am there were 20 people in the water, the tide was dropping and waves were beginning to emerge. The 20min swell pulse was now 10min between sets and creating a nice wedge off the rocks. When some of the crew started coming in I decided to go out for a paddle, knowing I would be a gumby on my shortboard but needed to wash -the stench of working all night in a bar and sleeping in my work clothes- away..

On the sand did a bit of stretching then worked on the top part of my steamer, jump off the rock shelf a little further out than the others in the lineup just as the sets rolled in.
The first wave lines me up and I’m into it but expect to fall during takeoff… get my feet planted nicely and the wave walls up…. I forgot how maneuverable my shortboard is; after the initial shock of making the takeoff my surf starved body takes control, I lay over a bottom turn and look for a section but it’s a closeout, get to the top of the wave and the fins hook in for a solid top turn as the lip curls over me.
“WTF” to myself underwater as I wait to surface, my body rewards me with a huge adrenalin rush. As I get a lung full of air it’s like being reborn, I emerge from the salty womb a surfer instead of a tired, smelly, middle aged man whose life weighs him down.

I surf for 2hrs during which the tide drops and I am rewarded with a half hour barrel-a-thon and some good turns. At the end I didn’t want to go in - my arms just couldn’t pull me into waves anymore - eventually I caught one, had a beach shower, back into my boardies and laid in the sun.

Muscles aching with surf stoke, reborn a surfer.