Surfing isn’t the most efficient of endeavors. We grab our things and venture to the water’s edge, which is no more than a casual bike ride for some and hours of burning gasoline while listening to podcasts for others. We require equipment — weeks of dialing in the perfect board and perfect fin set up for the exact conditions we think are waiting for us, a full-body suit made of neoprene, and even a $2 puck of wax we had to drive out of our way to get because who actually has wax ready and waiting for them ahead of time when they need it most?
Once this is all settled and we’re in the water…we wait. We wait for set waves. We wait our turn. We wait and wait and wait. If we’re lucky all this preparation and work and eventual waiting results in a ride that lasts more than just a few seconds. How many seconds? Five? Ten? Twenty seconds? Man, could your legs stand the burn for 30 whole seconds in one go? Where does such a wave even exist? Thirty seconds plus no interruption of another human body on the same wave. That’s the kind of stuff you have to buy a plane ticket for, isn’t it? Well, now we’ve just ventured down an entirely different rabbit hole…
The objective, of course, is to collect as many of those five or 10 or 15-second rides as you can, like Gollum thirsting for his precious. The only problem is you were promised glorious, impeccable conditions offering up opportunity after opportunity for these rides. The forecast declared so. The YouTube videos you’ve been watching feature them. So does your Instagram feed. But this? This is drivel. Subpar at best.
You’ve been duped, friends. You’ve been told that surfing is nonstop perfect waves punctuated by glorious and triumphant claims. But more times than not it’s just getting super excited when a wave waits just long enough to close out so you could find your way to the lip and stick a single floater.
