Ode to the City Surfer

I’m pretty spoilt these days. I get to surf pretty much when and where I want and am able to move with the swells. It comes with a sacrifice as my current chosen path is unlikely to lead to wealth any time soon, any sort of monetary wealth that is, but it’s a sacrifice I’m more than willing to make just now. I recall the darker times living and working in London gazing at untouchable swells in unreachable destinations as my surfing, and thus my enthusiasm for the city and life their-in, began to wane like the ebbing tide on the distant shores I so longed to return to. I had become a city surfer, and I hated it. So it is with a rye smile that I write this, ultimately an ode to the city surfers and their hardy souls, and in full recognition of my hypocrisy. Let me explain.

We are all addicts, us surfers. And like all addicts in their craven state, we’ll burn whoever needs burning in an effort to sedate the insufferable itch within. Friday closing ends one rat race and sounds the gun for the next as every salt-starved soul heads for the water with one mission and one mission only: To ride anything that comes between him or her and the beach. I’ve been burned many times. But I only remember the weekend burnings. Weekday burnings are easily shrugged off; usually a brief exchange ends in a smile as the waves are plentiful. But weekend burnings inspire an inner resentment, as much for the act itself as for the perpetrator, taking not just my wave but trying to covet the lifestyle he shunned when he or she ‘sold out’ to the city.

Obviously the above is not the most popular of musings on the animal that is the surfer and it was quickly pointed out to me, over the course of a couple of mid-week beers, that I had regressed to stereotypical mid-week surfer, prowling the line-up with all the cock-sure arrogance of ‘he who has found his place in the ocean’. The guy I used to rile against when I myself came down from the city to surf.  Jaded, vexed and pissed off that his little secret has been exposed and raped of its soul by all the marketing guzzling herds following the nearest rental sign to the beach and hoarding the waves on offer.

Worried at the potential wedge this opinion was driving between me and my surfing buddies, I decided to join them for a dawnie the following morning at a left point in the city of Cape Town. The first of the season: a little fieldtrip and a road to rediscovery.

The night before I left my beachside home in the southern suburbs and headed to stay with good friend and surf buddy Luis in town. Luis is an engineer who, amongst other projects, runs the wave modeling programmes for numerous large-scale ocean engineering projects. His job keeps him busy so he surfs when he can, often going for days or weeks out of the water in the winter when shorter days keep him landlocked. Surfing is a large part of his life, to be fitted in wherever possible. He too makes his sacrifices.

Sunrise is around 6am, so we set alarms for 5. When 5 o’clock comes, it’s still dark. And it’s cold. The inside of my window is covered in condensation and rattling from the incessant South Easter already howling outside. I fall out of bed, pull on jeans, heavy jacket, hat and boots and lurch into the deserted kitchen to make a cup of tea, nursing it gently as I rub sleep from my eyes. Luis emerges, clutching a thermos of tea and already in his wetsuit. Board at the ready, towel in hand, work suit packed neatly into a box and ready to go. We look at each other blankly.

Within minutes we’re heading through the dimly lit Cape Town streets. I do my best to keep up with Luis as his bakkie skips and slides through various alleys and back routes as he tries to shave every second off the journey. We pull to a halt some minutes later as a left peels off somewhere into the gloom, the ocean’s din lost under the roar of my maxed out heater.

The sun rises. Slowly. It’s still cold.

I don’t want to leave my car, but Luis is already gone and off down the beach. Within moments Giles, Duncan and Ross turn up. All surf buddies, all workers, and all in wetsuits, they all disappear within seconds, out over the rocks and into the icy waves. Not a second wasted.

I dawdle. My suit’s wet and the ground is cold. I’ve forgotten my boots and the rocks look sharp. The wind’s biting and I’ve got no hood. Then Duncan realises he’s got no leash, it’s six foot and some sets closeout, but he paddles out anyway. He’s got an hour till he has to be at his desk. I put my suit on feeling more than pathetic.

I make my way gingerly over the rocks, cold feet screaming with every barnacle, muscle shell and crevice and eventually rejoin the crew, some 20 minutes behind them all. I paddle for the first wave that comes my way, the wind holds me in the lip and I make a late drop, bottom turning into a blinding sun with spray whipping my squinting eyes, and get pounded. My suit flushes with cold water and I emerge down the point spluttering and coughing, reaching out for my board as I see Duncan take off, fall, loose his board and start the long swim. He’ll make it to backline before I will though.

And that’s it. I catch one wave in an hour and otherwise I’m on the shoulder. Cold and stiff, sleepy and disorientated and generally just a nuisance as I drift in the line-up while everyone else paddles hard to score their waves before eight o’clock comes.

We paddle in. Suits are changed for suits and we grab a quick coffee to rejuvenate our shivering bodies, numb fingers clutch at steaming china mugs in preparation for a full day’s work. And then we leave. Driving home I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket: My daily alarm, 08:30, and I’d usually hit sleep.

Hats off to you the city surfer man. If ever I scowled at you I apologise, for yours too are sacrifices of note. I stand corrected.

But I won’t go back to the city.