A few months ago, a friend known as to ask if I’d like to join her on a surfing lesson. Giving thought to my answer, two images flashed to mind. My thirty-nine year old battle weary entire body, attempting to hang five having a gaggle of bewildered foreign backpackers and pointing college children. And more vividly, the look on the faces of my settled couple and married-with-kids friends if they knew I had been even considering the idea.Getting recently broken out of Sydney’s Lower North Shore maximum suburbia and moved to the fun-filled northern beaches, I had already become a prime suspect in their case against dirty-thirties attempting to recapture lost youth. It wasn’t that I’d been caught driving a red convertible sports car or acting suspiciously outside Botox clinics. Nevertheless, I had been hauled into Fresco painted residing rooms and interrogated below the glare of designer mood lighting more than alleged mixed touch football games on weekends, bar hopping on school nights, and clubbing on any night, sternly warned that such activities were not something a self-respecting man of my age should be involved in.
“Sure, count me in” I replied. Breaking the news towards the fun police couldn’t be any more embarrassing than having to answer the question asked of every male residing inside a beachside suburb, “So do you surf?” with a mumbled reply About entire body bashing in a pair of flippers. Besides, 1 lesson was hardly a commitment. It was like a speed date. I’d hook up having a couple of boards, share some laughs, make a fool of myself, and in no way be seen once again.
The day arrived, and everything seemed to become was going to plan. Paddle out, thrash about like a puppet on amphetamines, catch a wave, attempt to stand shakily, fall off comically, try to laugh at ones self louder than at those close to you, and start once again. At this rate, I’d be back in the safety of the pub in no time, telling individuals who asked, “Yeah, I utilized to surf until I wiped out on the submerged German and did my back again in.”
Then the most bizarre point happened. After landing one particularly kind wave and staggering to my feet, the regulation left hook that had sent me crashing to the canvas all day never arrived. I had been nevertheless standing, surfing correct more than the top of the remaining backpackers, while the college children didn’t even register a bump!
There was no denying my giant esky lid was about the size from the QEII, and would have remained stable with an entire Central African government onboard, however, gliding across water with the sun on my face, salt on my lips, and sand in my shorts left me exhilarated in a way no Sunday night happy hour ever had. By the end of the lesson I knew that somewhere inside a Surf Shop available, a shapely piece of fibreglass was calling my name. From an early age, I’d always loved Sydney beaches. Face-planting on the sandbank after catching a ‘dumpa’ getting to “do a runner” across the “ouch, ouch, ouch” hot sand until we found a place to drop our towels waiting ravenously within the shop line for a chocolate Paddle Pop and a pie n’ sauce using the sensation of course damp sand under my feet, and scent of salt caking bodies under my nose the golden tanned girls who, well, just walked close to being golden tanned girls. My transcendental surfing lesson aboard the HMAS Polystyrene left me wondering, “Why didn’t I try this years ago?”
Amongst a list of really lame excuses, only one seemed to have any validity. Fear. As a teenager without a car, it had been less frightening to stand in the local nets and watch cricket balls fly towards my face, or attempt, and often fail, to jump BMX bikes more than 5ft ditches, than let golden tanned girls see me hanging out in the beach with mum and dad.
In my twenties, I had been building a career, travelling the globe, and discovering that there was a lot more to a female’s beauty than the shade of her tan. By this time my parents were permitted to accompany me in public, nevertheless, the believed of prehistoric man-eaters licking their lips underneath my bobbing sea biscuit, and tales of 120kg Neanderthals performing surfboard proctology on anyone who accidentally took their wave, ensured the closest I came towards the thrills of surfing was through the eyes of a six o’clock sports news camera.
After the lesson I realised how irrational these fears had been. I’d observed dozens of board riders emerge from the sea every day. They all still had their torsos, and very couple of walked as if they had a surfboard stuck in their backsides. In no way once again would I permit an issue outside of my control to prevent me from living out my surfing dream!
Which meant I’d require a more tangible fear. It came to me just after the smirking surf shop grommet had taken my cash and watched me leave with eight feet of fiberglass, a rubber suit, two packets of golden tan bikini girl board wax, and his sunglasses stand wrapped in my leg rope. Maybe my sensible friends were right right after all? Perhaps I had been pathetically holding on to a lengthy lost youth?
Coyly making my way down the seaside, I felt the stares of seaside dwellers boring into me, knowing exactly what they had been thinking. A voice came over the lifesaver club speakers. No-one ever understands those announcements, but I heard it clearly, “You, the thirty-nine year old bloke in the hysterically fitted wetsuit. Act your age. Put down the surfboard and move back between the flags. Nice and slow.” Just as I believed the game was up, I took 1 last look at the lapping water and realised I’d come to far to stop now. Mustering every ounce of courage in my entertaining frame, I clutched my board like a swagman with his tucker-bag and yelled, “You’ll never catch me alive”, crashing into the sea, leaving the globe of epochlitically correct troopers in my wake.
I’ve been honing my paltry surfing skills for a while now and nevertheless discover myself upside down a lot more frequently than not, but it doesn’t matter. As any golf hacker will tell you, one sweet drive down the middle of a long straight fairway redeems 99 slices to the car park and dribbles off the end of the tee. Just give me 1 smooth ride on the glistening blue satin-sheet wave, overflowing champagne froth in my wake, and not a backpacker to become observed in between my board and also the seaside, and this middle-aged delinquent will usually be back for a lot more. Because the only point that scares me these days is imagining what life would be like if I’d in no way become a surfer dude.
Four things every late starter should know about surfing:
1.Physiological studies have demonstrated that surfing is an excellent form of exercise. An aerobic fitness study at Deakin University found that competitive surfers rate comparable to Nordic skiers and distance runners, whilst my study discovered it reduced budding man-boobs and wobbly love handles.
2.Male surfers have licence to stand at the back of the seaside and ogle ladies for at least fifteen minutes longer than other men before becoming arrested, provided they a minimum of pretend to be studying the swells in the water too. Female surfers have no additional ogling rights more than other ladies simply because males only wish they all did it a lot more frequently.
3.It is worth investing inside a good high quality wetsuit. In addition to their heating benefits, they evenly distribute excess body lard throughout the rubber skin.
4.No matter what your mates tell you, a wetsuit ought to be worn using the zipper at the back. I promise.
RANDOM SURFING SOUTH AUSTRALIA PT1