The old fashioned way. The fulfilling way. The best way. Photo: Jeremy Koreski
Dick and I would squander hours up on the bluff, guzzling untold gallons of Arabian petroleum in our idling cars, gulping ounces of watered convenience store coffee from paper cups, all while talking story of past “epic” sessions. We stared out to the lineup trying to conjure clean surfable pockets in the usually small and crumbly surf. More often than not, we’d talk each other into paddling out into that small and crumbly surf regardless.
We’d scratch frantically into the gutless onshore knee-highs, only to have a section crumble before us just as we popped up or even have our fin scrape the sand bottom. Invariably, at some point in the session, one of us would turn to the other, wait to catch the other’s eye, and mutter, “Well, I’ve been out in worse.” And then we’d both laugh and agree that we had indeed been out in worse. But rather than grumble and complain about the death of consistently real swell activity in the Gulf of Maine, the session would elevate to a comedic episode of who could ride the most pathetic wave or execute the most goofy, exaggerated “Waimea survival stance” on an ankle-slapper. Invariably, in every session, one of us would catch “the wave of the day”–a ride that if not exactly worthy of a magazine cover shot was at least enough to redeem our decision to paddle out. I’m not saying we always paddled out, but when we did, there never seemed to be a reason why we would’ve been better off driving off our separate ways, grumbling expletives about the cruel irony of being a surfer on the East Coast.
I see them now. As I sit in my car, no longer idling not because of consideration for the atmosphere so much as consideration for my checking account. Surfers pulling to hard stops at the overlook, glancing quickly, not even waiting to see if there are any sets before making their decisions to squeal tires out of the lot, in hunt of better conditions elsewhere. When they do exit their vehicles for a more prolonged look, they usually do so with a cell phone bonded to their ear, talking to a buddy who is at that other spot so they can compare notes. Sometimes they’ll instead use their smartphones to check buoy reports and webcams. Rarer now do you see surfers congregate in mass to cast steely-eyed appraisals of the surf’s prospects while they regale each other with bullshit stories of “that time…”
There’s no sense of community anymore. Back then, a gathering of us, all warm in our hoodies and boots, coffee cups and/or ciggies in hand, would gaze out to laugh at the lone sucker who’d volunteered to be our guinea pig as they broke the ice to grovel in the slop and show just how bad it really was. And then the bullshit stories would become grander and more exaggerated once we were satisfied it wasn’t worth the effort. Of course, if that poor sucker managed to catch a half decent ride, you couldn’t have witnessed cockroaches scatter before a flicked on light with more alacrity than us into our suits and down over the rocks to the water, logs in hand.
Though my earliest inspiration was of course Bruce Brown and his “Endless Summer,” my period’s heroes were Kevin Naughton and Craig Peterson–globe-trotting vagabonds who would set out on their adventures impetused by no more than a rumor overheard in a pub, or a crude map scrawled on a napkin, of a mystical point break on a forgotten shore. Of course, more often than not, after slogging through malarial jungles, dodging AK-47-toting revolutionaries and bandits, and paddling down crocodile-infested estuaries, they’d find a break that was even more crumbly and depressing than my home break in Maine. Oh, but the stories Kevin could tell, accompanied by Craig’s pics, that even while you knew they were idyllic misrepresentations of the realities they’d experienced, would inspire legions to set out on their own adventures. You see, in those days, whether you were driving your VW van down to dawn patrol your local beach or stowing away on a rust bucket freighter bound for “somewhere in the Indian Ocean,” you went on hope and faith and mystery. It was a glorious time to be a surfer because it was all about “the score.” You never could be sure what you’d discover. Sure, we caught it good far less frequently, stood skunked and frustrated on more drizzly, small and crumbly beaches than we care to remember. But when you broke cherry on an undiscovered point, or even lucked into an epic un-forecast day at your home break, well, it was an experience that is lost on the current generation of surfers.
One standout day I’ll never forget was that sunrise morning when Dave, Clancy and I lucked into a head-to-just-overhead day at the Rivermouth when the sun was gloaming through the backs of the waves and the barrels were crystalline orange and surfer after surfer on the overlook would pause to check it. We laughed as, one-by-one, they all drove away. It was nearly two hours before another surfer finally broke the ice and paddled out. Within minutes we were overrun. But with the hordes came also the onshores. So we caught our last waves and went in, still laughing how we’d had it all to ourselves for so long. In the lot we watched them trying to outmaneuver each other, to catch what now had turned into sectiony, bumpy-faced walls. Clancy and Dave agreed that I’d caught the wave of the day–an overhead, long, long-walled bomb that they’d seen me screaming across, in the barrel, from behind the wave, riding a 5’4” stubby little quad that I’d crudely hacked from a broken board and glassed in hideous ’80s era neon orange. Both had agreed I had no hope of making what, from behind, looked like a closeout until I blasted out over the final section some 200 yards down the line.
Surfers now, instead of bundling into their cars with wetsuits and boards and coffee for the morning surf check, will stumble across the room to power up their laptops or cell phones or tablets to study web cams and buoy readings and tide charts and surf reports on Magic Seaweed before making the decision to crawl back under the covers if it doesn’t exactly look “epic.” I pity them. I weep for the loss of adventure, the independent “screw you” ethos that surfers once possessed.
Most surfers today miss out on what used to be an integral aspect of the surfing experience–the parking lot or bluff overlook surf check. The gathering of your tribal mates; of sitting in your car on a miserable, drizzly, lead gray day, gulping hot java and shooting the shit with epic characters like Dick and Clancy and the others I’ve known through the years. They miss watching Canadian kooks paddling out into onshore, closed out slop, merely for amusement. They miss the Naughton and Peterson inspired adventures. And they more frequently than not, miss those days when in spite of the cams and reports and discouraging forecasts, you paddle out into marginal conditions anyway, and just happen to score that wave of the day that sticks in your memory until the next time you arrive at the beach in a petrol-fueled automobile, coffee-fueled body, and a hope-fueled soul that there is something there that is worth the effort. Because there almost always is.
