He told me his name was Mike and he’d driven almost 2 ½ hours
from a small town on the western NH border, near Keene. The main, East/West route 101 would have
delivered him to Hampton beach in almost an hour’s less time, but he said he
didn’t like surfing the Wall so much, that he liked the wave and the vibe
better at my local spot here in Maine.
So he’d turned north at the NH coast and made the extra 45 minute trek
up to the Rivermouth in Ogunquit. While I
snapped a few more shots of the lines still rolling in, I chatted with him
about surfing and surfboards. I told him
I build my own boards and showed him the two displacement hull boards I’d
brought with me in the back of my Subaru.
I explained the nuances of the design and contrasted them with the
twinzer fish he’d been riding. Different
design concepts, but both very valid vehicles for the long walled up, reeling
sandbar waves at the River. The long
period swell was still dredging up some shoulder high sets and both he and I
had managed to catch some long rides on the bumpy (too much north,) NW, kinda almost
side-shore faces. I’d watched most of
the short-board tri-fin crew struggle with the wind on the take-offs, and when they
boosted attempted airs, most often they’d get left behind while the wave reeled
off without them. Mike told me it was
only his fourth session of the year, that he was really more a skier than a
hardcore surfer. But I could tell he had
experience. Like me, he was older, and a
bit stiff and slow on his takeoffs, but once he’d made that first turn, he
seemed to settle into a flow with the wave, garnering speed and flying across
the almost closed out waves with minimal input to his board. His style didn’t seem formulaic or homogenized
like too much of the surfing I witness these days. Like me, he rode “Old School;” surfed the
wave more than the board. Aesthetically
pleasing; more ballroom, than hip-hop.
While Mike and I chatted, I looked a few cars down in the
parking lot as two girls from Quebec suited up.
They didn’t seem to notice that they’d really kinda missed the tide, and
that it was mushing now as it filled in.
Neither was properly equipped for the cold, wearing 3mil suits and no
hoods in the barely 50 degree water. I
knew they wouldn’t last long, yet I had to smile as both, skipped…yes, skipped
down the street with their boards under their arms. Tide, wind, insufficient rubber…no
matter. They’d driven 6 hours down from
Montreal and they were going surfing!
How could you not admire their exuberance?
As I drove away, I thought about those girls, and Mike. I live a 5 minute drive from the ocean and 15
minutes from two of my favorite breaks.
I can sometimes smell the ocean from my bungalow, 3 miles from the coast. Mike had driven over 100 miles; the girls had
driven 6 hours. All for a day in the 50
degree ocean! Something is special in
that. Surfing, and the ocean have a mystical draw to those who are addicted to
it.
Culling through the photos I shot that day after my own
session had ended, I came across this one shot of Mike, looking back at the
waves after he’d exited the water. It’s
something all surfers do; we ALL look back after leaving the water. You don’t see tennis players, or football
players, or golfers, pausing to gaze and reflect on the court, the field, or
links, not unless it’s their last game or match before they retire and they
take one last nostalgic look back at the arena or stadium. But surfers, all surfers, we ALWAYS look
back. Hell, last summer I even broke my
toe, stubbing it on a rock, as I climbed the bluff and turned to look back at
the hurricane swell that was still pumping in overhead sets. Even after I’d cursed and danced around in
pain….I looked…back. Because in surfing,
it’s all ABOUT the arena! Of course, the
rides, the ritual waxing of the boards, the euphoria of exiting a tube, the
adrenaline of duck-diving a big set, the giddy anticipation of driving up to
the break when you know there’s a good swell…all these aspects can be compared
to the rush of any athlete in any sport…but surfing is way, way more than just
another sport. It’s more than a “lifestyle”
or “art form” or any of that drippy crap that it’s sometimes described as. Surfers, and surfing, are not like any other
people, or any other activity. When it
gets into you, it grabs hold of you like nothing else you’ll ever
experience. And each time you finish a
session, and you turn your back to the ocean, and begin to leave, there is
something about it, something visceral, that compels you…to turn one last time…and
look back…
