Somewhere in Cornwall. Looking a lot like a surfer’s paradise. Image: Anthony
My body was in a bar in the Alps, but my heart was in the sea. As a surfer it seems as though the saltwater gets into your bloodstream and bones, forging a connection that binds you to the coast.
I spent the winter in Morzine cramming as much beer, baguette and snowboarding as possible into five months. I never tired of the mountains or of snowboarding, and the people were so relaxed, friendly and cheerful that afternoons would melt into nights and nights into hungover blissful mornings.
On this particular day, I had bowled around the snowy playground, bombing down mountains that basked beneath a violent sun and cobalt sky. I had eaten a cheese as big as my head, rested trusty boots against the radiator and was enjoying a cold beer with friends in the smallest, most chilled out bar in town. Life was good.
And yet…
In the corner of the bar, a screen flickered dimly with the Rip Curl Pro – Kelly Slater and William Cardoso battling it out on some sweet 3-4 foot waves at Bells Beach, and I noticed a familiar longing in the pit of my stomach. As each wave on the screen built, formed and pitched, the image was connecting to well worn neural pathways in my brain, generating a specific chemical response. The one that usually sent me dragging board from car and running barefoot into the sea. Only this impulse was impotent here, in the Alps, one hundred million miles from any coast. Surrounded by mountains that suddenly seemed less like playthings and more like a blockade – claustrophobically static and solid.
It’s difficult to know why one sport calls to us above others. John Cardiel said he swapped his snowboard for a skateboard because he felt a greater affinity with skaters. Being neither expensive nor limited to specific locations/seasons, skating is automatically a more inclusive sport – accessible to a wider community. Meanwhile Arielle Gold says that what she loves about snowboarding is the variety afforded by the mountain and the park, allowing for a multitude of riding styles. Ultimately our choices are as individual as we are.
I am a huge fan of boardsports – surfing, skating and snowboarding. Over the winter I had grown to love snowboarding even more than I had expected – and I had arrived with high expectations. Apart from hyper extension of your medial collateral ligament, and having to shuffle across flats, there is nothing to not like about snowboarding.The more you ride, the better you get and the more fun it is. And the mountain is always there. You can’t always see it – but it is always there. You get carried to the top and your rides down last two to three adrenalin-enhanced Biffy Clyro tracks.
Surfing meanwhile… well, it’s not like that. With inconsistent swells, progress in surfing is often in such infinitesimally small increments that it affords you no encouragement. Paddle-outs that take two to three super eons, and rides that last less than one crashing fleeting second before you’re nailed to the sea-floor like a surplus anchor.
I’m no masochist, but still my heart hears the siren, and feels the lunar pull, as the sea stumbles upon the seabed and pitches hypnotically upward into heart wrenching curves. Who we fall in love with is often inexplicable and similarly, why I choose surfing defies explanation – but it is something to do with the dynamic environment, the way the sea feels alive. If you can ride the arching back of the salty precambrian creature, you know you have earned it. It is precious for being fleeting and transitory. It is precious for being wild, untameable – and for being beautiful. It allows little time to think and possibly it is this that I chase – to be caught up in something out of my control and maybe, be momentarily allowed to accompany the beast rather than be dashed beneath its hoof. With surfing you are immersed, literally, in the environment – you are separated from the human world for a time and that is a rare thing. It is akin to a Shakespearean romantic love – you know it could kill you, but you continue to long for it even so.
