Surprising sunrise solitude, at a very famous beach in Victoria, NSW Photo: Jamie Davies
The alarm clock is an enemy most mornings. Rushing out the door before sunrise to sit in meetings with angry bosses or to toil away on spreadsheets seems like an empty pursuit – neither is going anywhere. And yet, there are people that enjoy this routine of waking up before the sun to get to the office. These morning people are psychopaths. The only prize at the end of that PowerPoint presentation is getting a few minutes to check your Outlook before starting yet another PowerPoint presentation. The road to hell is lined with Microsoft Office products.
Surfers are their own special breed of crazy. Nobody wants to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to surf. Crusty, bloodshot eyes are enjoyable to precisely no one. But there is a reward for our insanity – dawn patrol. It’s one of the best surfing experiences you can have, existing only for a brief time in the early morning hours.
Preparation for a dawn patrol session is essential. You can’t trust this crack of dawn version of yourself – who was minutes ago dreaming of flying naked next to knife-wielding crabs in a sky made of ice cream – to be efficient. The night prior, clothes must be ironed, bags packed, and coffee made. Once you pull your corpse out of bed in the morning, you then have to drag yourself to the ocean under the cover of darkness, pull on a sometimes-soggy wetsuit, and submerge yourself in chilly water – a less than ideal scenario come wintertime.
This is far more effort and much less comfortable than planning for a typical desk job day. But it’s worth the slog, or justified insanity. The weather is the most cooperative during the morning twilight, with calm winds prevailing to smooth the ocean surface. This makes for the cleanest surf and, tide willing, the best shape you’ll see all day.
Getting up early also sidesteps surfing’s greatest hassle: other surfers. Many afternoon Surfline reports usually feature the word “deteriorate.” And while this mainly applies to wave quality, the same can be said for the post-work surf attitude. Once quitting time rolls around, the rat race on land migrates down to the water, bringing the traffic congestion along for the ride. They’re escaping their cube farm only to run into the restricting confines of a crowded lineup. Despite the fresh air, the afternoon surfer’s rage means they’re still stuck in a rat cage, only a different kind.
But if you sacrifice your REM cycles to the proper wave Gods, they’ll smile upon you with fun waves with few other surfers to contend with. To surf a break alone often swamped with others feels like you’re getting away with something (or that you missed the memo about sharks and toxic sludge). These successful daybreak sessions will turn you into a regular Herman Melville, waxing poetic about still mornings and beautiful, empty seas as you chase waves alone.
Of course, those morning moments come with a cost – time constraints may force you to skip a shower, so you spend the rest of the day paranoid that your coworkers think you smell like wetsuit funk, the desire for a mid-afternoon nap are much greater, and you may not be able to feel your toes until sometime after lunch. But the benefit to heeding your alarm is a joyous bit of solace in a crowded world – which is always worth the price of admission.
Plus, once you finally do get to the office after a surf, you can tell that cute blonde from accounting, “Yeah, caught a coupla’ fun ones around 6:00 a.m.” The blonde will swoon over your ability to conquer nature before most have had breakfast. Surely, you must be a slayer of both waves and hearts. Then, just as you’re about to ask her about her weekend plans, saltwater drains out of your nose and into your coffee cup. Sexy.
