Entomologist?

Okay I should probably ask Dr Karl this and he will undoubtedly refer me on to an entomologist, but I thought I’d chuck it up here first. 

Why do insects fly out where we sit waiting for waves?

I’m guessing this is the same the world over, I know it’s the case in all the places I’ve ever surfed and that’s a fair few around the globe. It doesn’t really matter what insects, butterflies, beetles and heaps that I couldn’t even tell you the name of but still have six legs and wings. Some end up sitting on that ‘hard to get your head around’ layer of tension on top of the sea and some just whizz past in the breeze. But what are they doing out there? 

Insects inherently know where to look for food so it’s not that. And I’m pretty sure they can differentiate between liquid and solid so they’re not looking for real estate, but they’re out there. Just the other day I spotted some sort of beetle suspended on the surface looking like it was struggling to take off. There was a wave coming and I ignored the plight of the beetle and paddled for the wave, it rolled right on by underneath me so as I swivelled to paddle back to my position I looked for the beetle. It was still there, its carapace spread and its wings fluttering. I scooped my hand under it and lifted it from the water where it began to climb to the top of the nearest digit, my thumb. I sat looking at it and confess I asked it out loud what it was up to in such an alien environment. Fucker ignored me, but, another wave was coming and it was perfect so I told the beetle (yeah, yeah I’m a soft touch) he needed to sort his shit out and take off.  Leaving just enough time to spin and paddle, I flicked my hand up and he took off. I like stuff like that. And not only that, but the wave was a cracker too. Karma?  

I have some theories, and forgive me if you’re one of my surfing buddies and you dreamt one of these up, I’ll shout you a wave. 

The first is that they are getting a hit of negative ions. I will gladly admit that until a few seconds ago I was convinced that the ocean and moving water in general, releases positive ions, but it’s the other way around! The negative ones give you the positive vibes! TV’s, aircon units etc, they’re the baddies chucking out positive ions. So, our six legged friends are dosing up on good air. Updrafts from rolling waves were introduced into this theory, but the conclusion was they can get updrafts on land too. That they like Ozone (O3) is part of this theory too. Don’t know where, and believe me I’ve tried to find out, but I heard that that detergent kinda smell that you sometimes get when you’re surrounded by white water, especially in the tropics or very clean water areas, is actually O3 being released in the sea spray. I found this SEA-SALT AEROSOLS and it mentions ozone but shit I ain’t no chemist so perhaps some brainiac could help (see p25).  

Second was that they are just getting some respite. Laird knows most insects have it pretty tough. There’s a reason they’ve got such big eyes and so many of them. They’re tasty. Frogs, lizards, birds, spiders, sticky paper, rolled up newspapers, car windscreens; their possible cause of death is multitudinous! So they hang out over the ocean for a while in the knowledge that most birds with a penchant for bugs will stay over dry land. There ain’t no hungry mammals that fancy them and they can just chill and shoot the breeze both metaphorically and literally.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say it keeps me awake at night, but I lead a pretty simple life and quandaries like this seem to be taking up more and more of my time, so, help a brother out will you, indulge me and let your mind wander and wonder. Any thoughts?

Witches' tits

Popped down to the beach this morning hoping there would be some left overs from the East swell we’ve had for the last few days. There wasn’t. Tiny windblown NE ripples were missing the bank entirely and slurping on to the steep beach. It prompted me to tweet “flat as a witches’ tit #surf” and I soon had a flurry of replies questioning how flat witches’ tits are? Gorik (@badinskas) had his own vision of witches being voluptuous, mysterious fantasy females (hated by repressed Catholic priests (think female and voluptuous maybe clues as to why they hate them ;))). I reckon he’s getting them muddled up with ‘sirens’ or ‘sylphs’.  Mr Von Shag (@johan_vonshag) just took it as red that I was an authority on them and was content to believe he now knew they were flat. 

I wondered where I heard this first and worked back to an old friend in the UK called Dudley who used to give me rides to the beach before I could drive. I believed everything he told me; he was 15 years older than me. But then I also remember it being backed up by the author Terry Pratchett in one of the Disc World novels. A young witch called Magrat Garlick who, much to the chagrin of her co-witches, was tall, blonde, slim and buxom, was derided as not looking much witchlike. Her ‘Wyrd Sisters’ were portly with big noses and saddle bags for mammarys. 

More research has revealed  that the phrase appears to have originated in the 1600’s, which, I’m sure you’re aware, was not a great time to be letting anyone know you’re a witch, unless you’re partial to immolation or can hold your breath for a bloody long time. Depictions and descriptions of witches had them firmly in the’ barren’ camp, not in the slightest bit fertile and an expansive chest  has always been considered a sure sign, along with wide hips and a big arse, of good breeding stock.

 And that for me just about wrapped it up. 

 

                      

 

Poor fucker..

There was an oldish fella in the water on Saturday. I have to be a bit careful these days when saying oldish, so let’s say late 50’s. Oldish? Any way it was only a couple of foot. The odd bigger one, maybe shoulder high, was sneaking in. It was shifty peaks on a beach which kept the crowd spread out. He was a chatty type. I usually like that, it provides a kind of common solidarity to the line-up and does a good job of dissipating ‘stink-eye‘ and snakers . But I wasn’t feeling it from this chap. My wife often accuses me of ‘cynical and curmudgeonly’ behaviour or just downright rudeness. Sometimes She’ll tell people I don’t suffer fools gladly and in another breath that I’ll talk to anyone. Is any one of these a good thing? I digress.

Dunno what it was, too chirpy? Too needy even? I couldn’t tell but I couldn’t engage with him. By-and-by, one of them sneaky ones snook in. At least a foot bigger than anything that had rolled through previous and he was there, right in the spot for it I was outside of him by a couple of meters and had already conceded it to him when he suddenly pronounces, out loud, ‘Oh I’m too deep for it…‘. He wasn’t.  It was too late for me to do anything but look over my shoulder and watch it peel away down the line rider less. Involuntarily I may have groaned loudly.  ‘I… I did my back in a couple of months ago and I haven’t surfed for a while’ was all he managed. 

Poor fucker. I couldn’t give a shit about his back and I couldn’t care less whether it was his first surf since, my sympathy was entirely for the fact that he knew he should’ve had that wave and that thought would be with him that whole session, probably still is. And that is a truly shitty feeling. Maybe I should’ve said something consoling to him, but our addiction is a selfish one and it probably wouldn’t have made him feel better anyway. He paddled away from me with his lips drawn back breathing through his teeth. Poor fucker. 

Far out hippy shit...

A few years ago in the Maldives I had probably my most memorable wave. I didn’t get barrelled; I didn’t bust an air, I didn’t ping a huge roundhouse off the whitewater. I couldn’t have done any of those things because I couldn’t see it.

It was lunchtime and the sun was directly overhead, it was Pasta point and I was the only one out. As I said, it was lunchtime. It wasn’t big but it wasn’t tiny either, shoulder high would be the least controversial way to describe it. The wind was barely blowing, offshore. As I paddled into one the wind died, literally went to nothing and the surface turned as smooth as glass. The wave disappeared. I knew it was still there because I was moving along it but for all intents and purposes it had vanished. I could see the seabed as clear as looking into a fish tank and I could see them too but the lack of any definition on the seas surface meant the wave was invisible. All I could do was glide. 

By the time the wave had petered out and I started paddling back out the wind returned.  It was then that I had a revelatory thought. Surfers ride energy. From very basic physics I remembered that particles in waves do not move forward (at least until the wave ‘throws’) but up and down or in a circular motion therefore it is solely energy that is propelling us forward. Not gravity like skiers or skydivers, not wind like sailors, we don’t capture and convert this energy we just ride it!

Blew me away anyway.

Work!?

In the meantime while all this stuff’s been going on (see below) I have been mostly writing. And painting houses and installing air conditioning and surfing in the Maldives and mending broken surfboards and shaping a couple, but in between, writing. I send it off here and there and some I stick on here. I get nibbles every now and then but a couple of months ago I got a bite!

The Editor of White Horses mailed me back and was keen to do a piece for issue three of the mag on mine and Kym’s journey from the UK to Australia! An ‘as told by’ was talked about and I said I’d send him a kind of summary of the trip so he had something to go off when we hooked up. Well, turns out he liked the summary so much he ran it as the piece in the mag! Inspired by some positive feedback I wrote another story and sent that to him as well. He ran that too!