“If you think these waves are worth fighting for, you’re a loser.”
A few weeks ago, I was surfing at my local beach break trading kinda shitty but still fun waves with about ten other desperados/frothers. That crew and I had been at it for about an hour when I saw this old bloke rock up with a big ol mal, strap the leggie on and start paddling out… right into the path of the take-off zone.
Physically, he looked like the type of old bloke that knows his shit. He was very fit and had that leathery kind of skin that only comes from long hours spent absorbing mass quantities of ultraviolet radiation. Basically, he looked a bit like Ken Bradshaw. An almost, but not quite, geriatric ken doll.
As he was paddling out, a three wave set rolled through and a 17-ish-year-old looking kid was in position and took off on the first wave. But Old Ken was floundering around right where kid needed to be to nail his bottom turn, which totally screwed him over, killed his speed, and wasted the wave.
Old Ken eskimo rolled under the second set wave and a girl on the shoulder slid into it. Cool. No harm done. But then he popped up on my inside, spun around and started paddling for the third wave of the set. My fucking wave. This prick had only just paddled out, already screwed one guy over, and now was just going to casually drop in on me like I was an insignificant speck. I couldn’t believe the audacity and was, at first, stunned into silence. I even made eye contact with the guy as we were both paddling for the wave. He knew. This was no innocent mistake.
As we both got to our feet and did our respective bottom turns, my voice returned and I yelled at him, more in disbelief than anger, “OI!!? NAH MATE!!!?!”
I knew from his change in body language that he heard me, and then he just bailed–rather than kicking out–and completely screwed up the best section of the wave, both for me and him. I had to straighten out to avoid decapitating him and killing myself by hitting his massive board.
Normally, in that situation, both heads pop up in the foam, the guy who messed up says, “sorry mate,” and all is forgiven. It’s even a kind of bonding experience. But not this time. No sorry was forthcoming. I even paddled back out right beside the guy so as to make it super easy for him to make amends, but nada. I was giggling and shaking my head at that point, because prickish behavior cracks me up for some reason.
Anyway, we awkwardly avoided acknowledging each other while bobbing around out the back waiting for the next set to show up. When it finally did, Old Ken was deeper than me, but the wave was a gem, so I just thought, “screw it,” looked him dead in the eye and dropped in on him on the set wave of the day. I even did a little fade on the takeoff for extra-bonus-rubbing-his-nose-in-it points. Old Ken ate shit.
At this point in the story I should mention that, earlier in the session, a nipper (an Aussie surf lifesaver in training) paddled up to me and we had a little chat. He said he was trying to learn how to ride his big nipper board on his knees but kept falling off. I said something like, “Just keep trying, mate. You’ll get there!” Then he said he liked my surfing and I was all like, “Aww, shucks.” Long story short, it was a super cute little interaction with a grommet.
I saw Old Ken paddle in and get out shortly after that. I lasted about another hour, then decided to get out myself. When I got to the carpark, Old Ken jumped out at me from behind a van in full boxer stance, ranting about how I disrespected him and now he was gonna smash me, etcetera.
“What the fuck, mate?” I said. “You dropped in on me, so I dropped in on you. Even Stevens. Chill out.” But he was having none of it. He wanted to biff on, ranting and raving and making a hell of a scene. There were quite a few onlookers now, having been drawn to the ruckus.
Then out of nowhere, the little nipper grommet kid from earlier showed up. Ballsy as hell and calm as you like, he walked in between me and Old Ken and said, “If you seriously think those waves are worth fighting over, you’re a loser.”
Old Ken was stunned. A few of the onlookers started laughing. Ken got embarrassed, jumped in his car and bailed. A little kid saved me from having to fight a psycho gym-junkie old man.
