This time it's personal too (raises eybrows, rolls eyes)

Okay, where did we get to…? Ah, IVF. Ppffft, who needs kids anyway! Yeah yeah, it didn’t work. Two rounds was enough. Eight years of monthly disappointments with the odd spark but no flame brought us to IVF and you can’t get any higher up the ‘we want our baby‘  ladder than that. We could have kept going but that three months of Kym taking drugs gave us pause to think, really fucking hard, about it, and you know what, without discussion we both knew.  Shit, it may still happen, but honestly the weight that’s been lifted is palpable. To celebrate this we booked ten days in the Maldives! 

Slightly tipsy

Good surf writing will never be about surfing. It can’t be. You cannot write about the act of surfing. Many have tried and nearly all end up writing indulgent, far-out, preposterous, esoteric wank. I say nearly all because occasionally someone gets it. But you know; it’s never a surfer. Captain Cook got it as did Jack London. Surfers are too wrapped up in it.

Curren’s cut back at Backdoor that Tom Servais captured is burned into the image bank of surfers all around the world; can you begin to imagine describing that in words?

 The same year Joli and Hornbaker both got the shot of Tom Carroll at pipe, yeah that one, pink Rawson gun, black helmet, SNAP!

 That’s just two moments in surfing that I remember from images in mags never mind all the mental images I have stored from my own attempts at riding. You can’t transport onto paper, in words of any language, those moments in those surfers lives. Ask them about it. Lot’s have and you know what, even from the horse’s mouth it’s not as good as the picture.

But people still try, and people read it and people pretend to get it and they have beards and glasses with no lenses and a lomo camera around their neck and ride a hull. And good on them, because they might as well be on that band wagon while it’s rolling. Wankers.

PS I promise my next entry will clear up what’s been happening with this Mug and from then on will become a more regular occurrence, although I can’t promise it won’t be more moaning from a grumpy old surfing wannabe

This time it's personal...

I ain’t no hippy and I ain’t really no new age cosmic space cadet or to be honest a believer in much more than you make your own bed. Kym is, I’m not.  But some weird shit’s been going down over the last few years and it’s freaking me out a bit. 

For those that know fuck all about me I’ll give you as brief a summary as I can.I am English, I mostly grew up there (Army parents, some shuffling) and I am currently 43 (only just). I met my wife 14 years ago and we’ve been married 10. I’ve travelled a fair bit in search of surf and along the way I have tried my fair share of most things. Some I have enjoyed more than others, shrooms, weed; and some I have not enjoyed at all, actually, only one, smack. There’s only one I still enjoy regularly and that’s alcohol. I think the reason I’ve told you this is relevant because (a) It shows I’m not averse to sampling new things and (b) I’m not stupid enough to let them become a necessity and can be objective about altered states of mind. We planned/plan to have kids but a major fuck-up in 2004 and then nothing until a miscarriage in 2010 brings us to where we are now.

Wise decisions at young ages put us both in the fortunate positions of being home owners with small borrowings even before we met and as a consequence, put us in a position to be able to choose to live somewhere warmer and with better surf than the UK. Australia was an obvious choice. Fuck flying. We’d done enough of it already, so a plan was hatched to drive here. We set off in April 2009 and arrived in Australia in March 2010 19 countries later. In September while staying in Perth Kym (that’s my wife) miscarried. We carried on around the coast heading for our original destination, the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and looking back, this is when things started to get… well, weird.

At friends in Victoria en-route we browsed rental sites for ideas on where and what we should be looking for on the Sunny coast. On that first look we spotted an old Queenslander (timber, stilted, single storey) surrounded by woodland with a fair rental price. We liked it so much I emailed the agents. We were still 6 weeks away and they suggested sending a friend around to view it and make an application. We had no friends on the coast.  Kym was so convinced she wanted it that she printed a photo of the house and pinned it to our dash. The date the house was to become vacant was delayed by 6 weeks.

We got the house. The view from the deck at the rear is almost identical to the view from our old cottage in England (we didn’t have kangaroos hopping about though). Our container was pulled from storage in Brisbane and we made it our new home with all the stuff shipped from the UK. Kym walked straight into a job hairdressing and I after a brief interview while out surfing I started work as a painter. 

All good, but it doesn’t end there. I bought a car and ended up playing squash Monday nights with the bloke I bought it off. One day he didn’t turn up so I asked one of the 3 blokes playing on the next court if he wanted a hit. His name was Gary. His mates name was Gary. It was both their birthdays that day. The 3^rd bloke fortunately was only a Tony. I’ve never played with the car guy again; it’s now 3 Gary’s and Tony. One day Tony said he was a man short for his Tuesday night doubles so I went. I was introduced to Mike and Wayne who, it turns out, is married to one of Kym’s clients Yvonne. Wayne organised a dinner where I got to meet the missing player who was called Dennis. My regular partner back in the UK was Mike Dennis.

I bought a surfboard on eBay from a guy called Josh. It was made by a local shaper called Bart. I snapped it. I rang Josh to get Bart’s number to see if he could repair it. I ended up getting on with Bart (getting on, not getting it on you perverts) and over the course of the next year, along with a few ding repairs, I got him to shape me a new board. He then asked if I could paint his house which I duly did and whilst painting his house realised how busy he was. Bored of painting and with work drying up anyway I decided to make a big leap and ask if he would employ me as a trainee. The day I went to ask him Josh was there. I had not seen Josh since the day I bought that board off him. Bart gave me a job.  

We have a cat, he chose us when we went to an animal rescue centre to get one. He had already been named. His name is Victor. This is my Mums nick name for her partner of 25yrs Chris who passed away 5yrs ago.

One of our favourite people Ketut at 39 has been unlucky in love. He lives on Bali and a couple of years ago met an Australian girlfriend and married her recently. Her name is Michelle she is from Coolum on the Sunshine coast and we met her for lunch and she is lovely.

It’s not all good shit mind you. Most of it for sure but the odd shit weird thing happens too. One of my dearest friends had to have major brain surgery in the UK last November. The surgery didn’t go well. Kym believes butterflies can be the souls of people who have left us. On my way to work one morning a beautiful tropical butterfly flew straight into my windscreen. My very first thought was ”I hope that’s not Martin” in that instant my phone rang, it was Kym to tell my Martin had passed away. 

We have decided to seek help with a fertility specialist, we have unexplained infertility. The company offered us a choice of 5 specialists on the coast for referral, Kym went with one of the two women on the list. On our 2^nd visit with her she noticed we live on the same road. Not only the same road… she’s our neighbour, separated by a large field. We begin IVF this week. 

Maybe it’s time I started believing.

Volcom Fiji Pro (or not)

I’ve got to write something right now while I’m still angry. 

What in the most compounded of all fuckery happened today on Fiji!?

“The best surfers in the best waves” an Association of Surfing Professionals world tour mantra. We had the best waves in the world absolutely firing today smack bang in the middle of the competition period for the Volcom Fiji Pro; but we didn’t have the surfers. Well not the ones we should’ve been watching anyway.

This debacle started yesterday really. The swell was forecast well in advance. They got most of rounds 1 and 2 complete a couple of days ago and put the comp on hold knowing it was coming, good intentions and all that. So when yesterday rumours started circulating that they were moving from the preferred Cloud Break to the smaller but no less perfect Restaurants, the Twitterati and the mainstream asked the question why? Rumour turned to almost certainty when all the equipment for the live feed was confirmed as having been moved to Restaurants. Rumour also had it that a lot of the top 34 didn’t want to surf in such big conditions, but Mother Nature stuck a fly in the ointment. At first light this morning the wind was ruining Restaurants and grooming perfect booming Cloudbreak. Back in the boat for the tech guys. The last two heats of Round 2 were completed and some bombs were ridden. Big nasty Cloudbreak just what us punters had been looking forward to.

Then they called off the competition.

On Twitter there was a collective intake of breath, as though it might be a joke.  Then realisation dawned and all hell broke loose. Volcom, to their credit, kept the live feed up and running (wonder if the ASP were happy with this?) but for the people still watching it only added to the perplexity of why they had called it off. Free surfers, and the odd tour surfer, were getting spat out of once in lifetime barrels while the majority of the ASPs top 34 surfers sat in the resort on Tavarua Island and watched the same live feed as us. It was spectacular. There was no commentary.  Just giant perfect waves being ridden by metaphorically giant men. Kelly got invited to commentate for a while and, exemplary diplomat that he is, circumvented the pointy bit but summarily hit a couple more nails in the world tours coffin. Let’s be honest the vast majority of surfers do not have the skills to tackle those conditions, but you would expect the Top 34 to? And with that expectation, send them out there, if they fail no one will think anything other than they don’t deserve to be in the premier league, and that would be the truth.

Not only was it the fans questioning the ASP but also journalists, other pros and institutions. Everyone was waiting for an answer… none came. None has come.  As if the ASP hasn’t got enough on its plate with a dwindling client base a God fearing leader and a duff calculator, now this. It helps not one little bit that they don’t interact with their market. They are on twitter they have a website and a Facebook page and they say bugger all.

The whole ASP World Tour has today been shown up for the sham that it is. The person involved that should be most pissed off is the 11x champion Kelly Slater. What does this do to his championship winning credibility’s? Fortunately, amongst surfers globally, it is pretty much a given that he is genuinely the best surfer in the world, but when opened up to the rest of the non-surfing planet his star cannot help but be tarnished by these sort of events.

Sad sad day for the “sport” (eeugh) of surfing today. I feel cheated. I feel, as a surfer, that myself and my fellow sliders have been let down and made to look slightly tardy.  Below is an extract of a rant I had last year (my first on this blog), still an idea but whad’ya think?

“An alternative to the tour. I don't mean necessarily scrap the existing tour but lets not make it the be all and end all of competitive surfing. How about for instance all the big sponsors put a prize pool in a hat at the beginning of the year (the accountants will like this it'll be a set amount). Money is awarded commensurately to the surfers with the most image exposure monthly, in print, on line or any type of media. Adverts count, this is important because it means sponsors can boost their riders exposure. This has the added benefit that the mags are back in the driving seat, perhaps they could allocate just enough space to print, publish and pay themselves and let the sponsors race for the space. If a sponsor wants their surfer exposed they need to kowtow. It also means that good surfers who don't necessarily partake in competitions can gain some ground. Not sure how this would work internationally as mags tend to be necessarily jingoistic but I'm sure someone could come up with a sliding scale or algorithm to balance this out (maybe not Brodie Carr).  As I said it's just an idea. But you gotta admit something has to change.”

Just as an aside. One of the highlights of today was the live ticker tape feed along the bottom of the webcast, showing all tweets tagged #volcomfijipro. There was no filter on this feed and as soon as this was realised the feed became worth tuning in for alone. 

I'm in!

So I’m part of the surf industry now?  Maybe, sort of, but I’m bloody stoked whatever! I have a new job. It involves surfing and I am obsessed by surfing, this is a win win.  

Upon arriving on the Sunshine Coast 18 months ago I started getting together a quiver and my second purchase was a used board made by a local shaper called Bart, the template was taken from a Neal Purchase Jnr “sweet pea” and on its first outing I fell in love with it. On its second outing I snapped it. I got hold of the guy I bought it off just to get Bart’s number and took it down to his shed.

That’s how I met my new boss.  Since that first meeting I’ve been plying my normal trade which is painting and decorating and popping in to see Bart only when I needed boards fixed and for him to shape me (another) copy of the sweet pea.  Then he asked if I could do some painting at his house. It was here that I made up my mind to ask him for a job. He was flat out trying to keep with all the repairs from a recent run of good swell and was rueing the fact that he didn’t have time to do any shaping. Serendipitously the day I went to his shed to ask him, the bloke (Josh) who I bought that first board off was there. I hadn’t seen him since the day I picked it up. I took this as a good sign.

Well obviously he took me on. I have no knowledge whatsoever of ding repairs so a two day a week training period has been agreed on meaning I can do some painting for my old boss too. In the four days I’ve done so far I’ve learnt heaps. Bart’s not afraid to let me cock things up and is patient and subtle when I have. Without planning we’ve already fallen into a bit of routine. I de-wax, he preps the ding, I fill, he sands, I glass and apply filler coat, he sands to a finish and I clean them ready to go back in the rack. It works and we’re clearing a back log which means more time for him to shape and more opportunities for me to learn are on the horizon. 

Things I have learnt already;  Buy from your local shaper. He will generally be a smaller operation and will oversee the quality of his finished product even if he does not glass it himself. Big brands equals big staff working fast to maximise margin which inevitably leads to quality issues. Boards from Asia can be good but it’s a bit like Russian roulette, unless you can spot the inadequacies (and I can’t yet) you could be getting the bullet. Carbon strips are generally cosmetic and make a repairer’s job harder, and in some instances actually make the board weaker by poor placement. 

As my knowledge progresses I’ll add bits on here. Bart happily confesses to knowing bugger all about social media but we can learn from each other and hopefully before long we can have a blog direct from the workshop. Watch this space.

Maroochy North Shore

Couldn't resist sharing a couple of photo's with you today. I'm certainly no photographer so excuse the lack of skill, but how are those friggin waves!? Had an almost dry hair paddle out and stroked straight into a right before I'd even sat on my board, it walled up, slow enough to hit a couple of times then just bowled out giving me all the time in the world to stall and get covered up. Backlit green barrel for breakfast. Seriously I could have gone straight in and been happy with that for the day.