Skunked again

It was supposed to be the first big swell of the southern hemi winter. A big purple blotch on the wave charts smothering the South African coast in deep powerful ground swell for days on end, by Tim Conibear.

It looks good, but 2-3' is not what you want when you've rearranged your whole life to be here.

It had made the news, the front pages, everywhere there were weather warnings and the surfing community had gone into over drive at the hint of some all time action at the main breaks. All the points would be firing and the question was, with the size and power of the swell, which ones would be maxing and which would be holding it?

We went to J-Bay, and as it seemed on arrival, so did everyone else; the car park on Pepper St was clogged with number plates from all corners of the country. The first day, the Sunday, was good; crowded, windy, but enough to get a few waves in preparation for the peak of the swell and the day we’d all made our excuses for.

So it was with a wry smile that we sat on the decking on Monday morning, clutching our big boards, pintails and the rest, watching a fading 3 ft swell limp and splutter along the top section of Supers: The swell had swung west and was charging past us on the distant horizon. The guy getting the most waves was an old man who’d pitched up in a camper overnight, oblivious to the swell predictions and travelling with his wife down the coast, cruising on a brown and battered old longboard, stoked while the rest of us looked on in disbelief and indignation, our gleaming and freshly waxed ‘heavy duty’ boards lying limply by our sides. Dumbstruck, and with time now only to ponder and procrastinate, why didn’t we surf more yesterday? Take a seat and waste some time.

Low tide switched to high, the wind swung south, the day drifted slowly by with the sun and clouds overhead. And still the swell didn’t come. And yet we sat, conversation moving in every shrinking circles until by early afternoon we were left there in silence, pondering the responsibilities we’d all shelved, a motley and dishevelled crew united and disgruntled in boredom. Skunked. Good and proper.

It’s times like that I often catch myself thinking if this is a noble pursuit; sitting around, killing the day, chewing the fat and recycling the same old conversations in the hope of a quick slide. We were all ages there and had ditched our professional weekday pursuits; school, work, whatever, the excuses were all the same, and we couldn’t recycle those. Who knows how many working hours went to waste as we sat there, resting our chins on the driftwood rails, bemoaning mother nature’s lack of compassion to us, the well meaning surfers.

As I looked down the line of withdrawn faces it became obvious that we surfers have a problem; we are all addicts, too often drawn by our addiction to lie and cheat our way out of responsibility for one little hit, one little line down the point. It’s all we asked, all we wanted. ‘Surely’ we said in our warped minds as we ignored the attention of our vibrating cell phones ‘we deserve just a couple of waves?’

But no, here there was dejection, frustration, anger and injustice that what we had been promised had been stolen away from us at the last minute. We’d somehow been ripped off, cheated and I knew we were all thinking the same. ‘How can we drag this out till tomorrow?’.

I had to get away. I made my excuses and left. The following morning the swell had come. I emerged from my hideout to see the line-up filling rapidly with the familiar faces of yesterday, hurling themselves over the rocks and through the channel, desperate to snag a wave from the competition before the hungry pack grew too large. Craven addicts the lot of us, and I was right in with them.

There are worse addictions, especially when you’re half way through a Supertubes speed run with a barrel warping over your head. If that’s my lot then I’ll take it, if I’m a surf addict so be it. I won’t be looking to change it anytime soon.