Today I took 2 of my boards into the shaping room (a.k.a the back garden) for a bit of an overhaul. I had gained a few battle scars from surfing in Brazil, Portugal and Devon, both in the way of the normal cut up feet, but also damage to my hardware (no I don’t mean my tackle, haha).
I had a few heavy collisions in both Portugal and Devon which occurred, mainly due to inexperienced surfers not knowing what they were doing, more on that later. Anyway I spent 2 hours today cutting out the bad foam, mixing up the resin and hardner and cutting the fibreglass cloth to size. The end results are pretty good, check out the pics below.
Anyway this brings me onto my second point. Beginners not knowing what the f*ck they are doing in the surf. This happened to me a few times whilst in Portgual, with some of the surfers who were learning. What became evident whilst surfing with these people was that they didn’t really have an awareness of their surroundings. I am sure they didn’t intentionally drop-in on me, but the end result is the same, a dangerous situation where large surfboards go flying, both into other boards and into people.
I admit awareness of the waves, the situation and safety comes with experience, and I have dropped in on a few people in my time, but I think a lot of this could be avoided by surf schools teaching surf etiquette to those learning to surf. People need to how to surf safely, both in terms of not hurting themselves or others, but also to avoid getting a thumping from some local.
I must admit, I often get the hump on in the surf, when I miss a wave or someone snakes me, or I just generally f*ck up by wiping out prematurely, but I nearly actually belted someone the other week whilst in Devon, surfing Croyde.
I had clearly got a wave and had been riding nicely along it for at least 5 seconds, when suddenly out of nowhere a lamo on an indescructable NSP board dropped in on me and caused the ding you see above. To say I was unhappy with his general lack of awareness was an understatement, but I let it go and just gave him a firm look and then paddled off. Croyde is not worth getting the hump over in the summer, the waves are generally small, sloppy and very over-crowded. Had I been on a low-tide barrel in a heavy swell and something had happened then maybe I would have got more annoyed, but battle scars go with the territory I guess.
Anyway hoping to go surfing towards the end of September at some point, with BJC and Sulli, hopefully the swell will get a little more consistent and the waves will be a little more challenging. I am also thinking of investing in a 4/3 or even a 5mm wetsuit this winter, as I want to hit up Thurso East up in Scotland, which is reportedly an amazing wave, reminiscent of Indo, and yes you can get some pretty good rides up there, they even host a WQS event: The Highland Open, all good!