One wave does make a session, whether it's yours or not. Photo: Alex Marks
One wave does make a session. This gets proven over and over again. The funny thing is the wave doesn’t even have to be yours.
It had been a pretty dismal summer in the Cape, but we can’t complain. The previous year was definitely more than a double scoop of summer sorbet. A good day did come along in mid-December. The wind went to blow somewhere else, and little pulse of swell timed its arrival. I was surfing a beachie down South. There were two of us on a peak, with a few more scattered on some banks nearby. The waves were good, not great. Glassy, three foot, a bit fat and sectioning here and there. I’d just caught a long one that held up through the sections and I’d enjoyed the long paddle back to the take-off spot. This was actually further up the peak than the other guy, but I knew a set wave would start breaking from there. A few moments later one did and I turned for it and gave a few strokes. So did the other guy. The wave picked me up and I was putting my hands on the rails as the inside man turned to look. I just nodded at him and pushed the tail down to brake and watched him drop and glide off down the silky wall. Cool, I was thinking, that was a good wave. I’d just had one and so it was his wave anyway. I didn’t think much more of it and started the wait for the next set.
It must have also held up as it took him a while to paddle back up to the top. He stroked up next me and in a French accent began thanking me profusely, saying how nice that was to give me a wave. I just shrugged, saying that with two of us out, it kind of made sense to share waves, and going one for one, that was probably his. He was adamant, though. That sort of generosity was very rare for him. He was stoked. It rubbed off. We carried on like that for a while, just trading waves. It was a good session in the end. The waves weren’t great but I got out of the water stoked. It could have been otherwise – I could have had one extra wave, and none of the good vibes that came from sacrificing it.
Looking back, that was the wave that made the session for him, and in turn, for me. Usually, we surf, we take waves, we get stoked. But there, I gave a wave, and spread the stoke, and it came back to me. That was a new lesson reinforced on an old one. One wave can make a session – and it doesn’t even have to be your own.
