“‘What?!’ I hear you cry, ‘snacks in the water?’ YEAH. SNACKS IN THE WATER. Thanks to QI, no one believes in that 30-mins-before-swimming-after-eating shit anymore… which has really opened the floodgates for this kinda thing. And I’ll let you in on a little secret… it’s easy.”
“Been a while, has it? Injuries, responsibilities, plain laziness… The reason doesn’t really matter. Or maybe you’ve reached an age where you’ve realised that bucket list is not going to get done if you don’t start soon and you’re thinking now would be a good time to nip down to Cornwall and have a stab at this surfing lark. Either way, getting (back) in the water can be a bit daunting.”
“Like the falling leaves of Autumn, that small punchie wave you miss jumped that shocks your ‘baby making apparatus’ as you wade through the shallows is usually the sure-fire signal. Regardless of how cool we think we are, what follows this event is a rather unusual involuntary vocal reaction, like some dark dark place between squeaks and groans. Definitely not sexy ones.”
“As watermen & waterwomen we notoriously spend a lot of time in the outdoors, we therefore likely have a few more outside cooking occasions a year than the average minion. We find outdoor cooking sesh’s or BBQ’s go well with a tipple…”
“So many fitness for surfers programmes are too ambitious, too boring or just completely ineffective. Too many need a tonne of kit; think of that disused rowing machine gathering dust… So what we need is some realistic things to do that require little or no kit, some excitement and some rewards.”
“If you’re interested in big wave surfing and big wave surfers you don’t have to look very far before you see the name Andrew Cotton or ‘Cotty’. This Devon native rocks up at Nazaré and rides 70ft+ waves…”
“Music has always played a big part of the journey to getting amped before a session. To truly arrive at ‘Ampsterdam’ (look how clever we are) you need the right tunes….”
“The closer the moon, the stronger the pull of its gravity on the sea, the bigger the tide. Think about it. Think about being able to harness this power. Maybe even bring the moon closer for certain evening and weekends so that your spot is guaranteed swell, and then putting it back after. It’s genius and we can think of no downsides at all.”
“There are plenty of inventions that borrow heavily from the animal world. Radar, for example, or Japan’s bullet train (the shape of which was based on a Kingfishers head, don’tcha know). But MIT’s furry otter-inspired wetsuit tops our list for most anticipated. We’re eagerly waiting to try it out on the chilly shores of ol’ Blighty.”
“We have been collectively putting this off for far too long now. It seems like every year one of the AS broom cupboard Intelligence Committee (we need a punchier title) suggests it as a thing but not one of us organises it. As our self help book shelf grows it appears if you want to achieve your goal, you start by writing it down. So here we are writing it down. We are gonna ride the Severn Bore in 2020 mutha truckers!… for hopefully more than 20 seconds…”
“Mainly, is it really surfing? I mean, it’s surfing, but is it surfing surfing? You’re outside, you’re on consistently good waves, you’re surfing. But… you’re nowhere near the sea. You’re not at the mercy of any of whatever nature wants to throw at you. Are you not just a bit… removed from it all?”
“A surf fit plan is needed for Alchimedes. He’s walked in to the AgeingSurfer broom cupboard with a hangover and a belly full of over indulgence. He’s short tempered with a lack of sense of humour and keeps making smells.”
“They made their name as pros but despite retirement from the circuit they are still ripping it up. Here is just 7 of them and why they are still smashing it at 50+ years old. There’s cause for optimism…and nostalgia.”
“Valentine’s day is upon us (posted 14/02/20), the surf is mental this weekend and likely a no-go so time to exercise the other passions. If that doesn’t convince you look at it this way; passing this around to a loved one may score you a fumble.”
“Localism in surfing is an inevitability whichever way you look at it. For the most part human nature is tribal and surfing abilities differ. All around the world there are certain surf spots and breaks that will always have rules attached to them. Rules that are not necessarily put up on a massive neon sign or printed on a laminated leaflet (wouldn’t that be a lovely touch?). Rules that only apply to outsiders to the regular line up.”
“Naturally we want to do better surf ‘journalism’… we need to get on the road, go and visit the surf spots (no secret spots), meet up with the shapers we are trying to champion, take the surfers who surf these different areas for a beer/pasty/cup of green tea and find out more about what makes their local spots great, alright or a bit shit…If you feel you could stretch to buying us a pint in a pub it could be the catalyst that creates more.”
“Issues with body image can lead to isolation, loneliness, eating problems and obsessive behaviours. All these are really shit things. Particularly when you boil it down to the simplistics of anatomy…”
“You’re going to fall, a lot, you’re going to get smashed by waves, and you’re going to swallow a shit-ton of saltwater. But that’s all part of the fun…”
“Friends, their un-roadworthy cars and Sheffield University Surf Clubs petrol money fund would help to reveal the left reefs, points and beach breaks of the East Coast. I filled my boots and then the time was gone. Finished. I returned for a three-day surgical strike to ******* and Sandsend in the 1990s but this coast has stayed largely only in my memory since the 80s. Was it real or imagined?”
“We’re all used to the road trip to go surfing and getting impatient to get to the coast but this trip had taken just a tad longer than is reasonable. About 25 years or so…”
“Do you want to surf for the rest of your life? Do you imagine being a grandparent catching waves with your grandchildren? Do you, like me, want them to say on the day of your funeral when you’re way past 100 years old, “Shit Grand-dude, you should have stayed alive for one more week. Pete’s Reef was firing this morning!””
“Picture the scene; A full two week surf festival in one of Australia’s surfspot gems, ‘we’ll do a live feed and reports across the socials and some funny interviews’ with some leading Oz and worldwide professional watermen and women. ‘There’s even a dog-surfing event!’ The last part of the pitch naturally won us over….”
“I was 25, I was fit, I’d surfed Fistral as big as it got, throwing myself off the ‘shit-pipe’ jump off rock at the end of South Fistral in huge swells. This was going to be the the year. The Cribbar, however, had other ideas…”
“I watched the approaching swell line take shape turning from a long, bay wide, 2ft ruler straight, languid, ripple into a rapidly rising A framed, hollow bottomed bomb…”
“Grom is a funny word, a slang word for the younger wave dancer given by elders. You’d be forgiven for thinking that at this point a good article written by professional journalists would insert a load of history surrounding the background…”
“You ever want to guarantee that no one drops in on you then make sure you’re an out of shape, mostly naked dude in your 30s with a shit board. Wide berths all round.”
“I wasn’t going to just walk sheepishly back through the group, f*ck no, I was buoyed on, I was owning this foolishness, it was time to crowd surf…”
“The next morning my knee was like the size of a balloon, so I took some Nurofen put my wetsuit on and went for a surf…”
“I spent that first year practicing and spending more time wiping out than anything else. But every trip to the beach helped me gain a little bit of head space and confidence that this was a life I could stay for…”
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