Friends of the Sea

It suddenly occured to me that all surfers around the world are a part of a very small section of society. The part that thinks of moving waves of energy crossing the vast oceans, about the storms and depressions which make these waves appear. About the interconnected nature of the Moons tides, the right winds, and the perfect swell direction hitting the right part of the reef or beach with the ideal sand bars to then break, and form the perfect wave.

We are a very small section of society and after an early evening surf in Bondi Beach last week this was even more apparent when I looked through the crowd and spotted a friend. A mate from a few years back, who I havent seen since my last surf trip Hossegor France, on the other side of the world.

It soon became apparent that we had been on the same journey type, a bit of ‘following the summer’ a bit of a change of scenery after both taking the winters off to go snowboarding.

Then a little lightbulb went on.

Its really important to see your fellow surfers as your companions rather than strangers as its such a rare occurance to find fellow humans riding waves together even if it is a crowded day. As a good freind Carwyn Williams once said –
” Smile and be friendly each surf, be sure to chat to each other and make sure you call your fellow man in to a few waves, even if they are a stranger and it should have been your wave. This is what surfing is !, you never know, maybe your life long best mate is sitting out there. Surfing is a million times better with friends”.
(Maybe not word for word but you get the idea.)

Not a truer word said, and if you consider friends to be people who have things in common who frequent the same places then, maybe everyone in that line up is your friend as they are following waves, wind, tide, breaks, boards, and water culture just as much as you are.

Happy New Year to everyone and may you have the best waves of your life this year and make many friends out in the line up.

The Perfect Wave