Life is complicated and love is even more complicated. And I am not talking about my endless love toward surfing, the ocean and the waves; no, I am talking about love, intimacy, butterflies in your tummy, sex and lots of kissing and hugging. Yes we cannot live without love, but actually, the truth is that I had lived without love for a long time before destiny chose to mess up my world and turn everything upside down. I don’t really want to share the entire story but rather explain how I feel. Thank you for reading.
I may be an avid surfer but I will be the first to admit that I do enjoy other outdoorsy things such as hiking. My friends recently invited me to go on a hiking trip with them to the Bay Area and to say I was excited would be an understatement. The San Francisco Bay Area is rich in scenic hiking spots. The Lost Coast is one especially wonderful spot to hike and backpack.
Need to brighten up your home? Or maybe you have a bro’s birthday coming up and you badly want to give him something special…something really creative that none of his other surf buddies would ever dream of. In that case, I reckon you came to the right place! Here’s what I did when I wanted to get creative – it’s a super cool idea, it doesn’t cost too much, and it’s worth doing for your soul, too!
1) First you need an image. Look online or flick through some old surfing magazines for a really cool picture that’ll blow his mind. Make sure it’s dynamic and simple! (Unless you’re an artist, in which case why would you be reading this article?! You must be really bored.)
2) Second, get inspiration for typefaces and stuff by looking on the internet at tons of Big Posters that you’ll remember from your childhood when every wave looked a hundred feet high. Then copy accordingly and try and put your own spin on it. It’s all about putting your own spin on it, dude!
3) Now for the sketching: sketch lightly with a 2B pencil, and always keep a putty rubber on hand. Putty rubbers are great because they are softer than normal rubbers. This means they don’t wear the paper down, which is really good when all you seem to be doing is getting the head wrong and the legs all strange…
ALWAYS be sure to varnish your painting after you have finished
4) When it comes time to paint, always use acrylics. Acrylics are good because they dry quickly, leave a great texture, and are generally favourable for beginners. You can also use newspaper to build up texture if you so wish – this’ll make the poster come more alive. You’re friend will be stoked on it, and immediately the nostalgia will commence!
5) Surfers have a habit of leaving their windows open; if they’re by the sea that means a lot of salt coming in on the air, ruining the painting. ALWAYS be sure to varnish your painting after you have finished. But be careful…too much varnish and you won’t be able to roll it up, which will be a bummer!
6) One last tip: if you need something to store the painting in until you hand it over, just use newspaper or brown paper. Wrap it up at the end to make sure it’s firm and secure, because the very LAST thing you want is for it to unravel before it’s time for the grand unveiling, right?!
In my working life, I often feel alone. Don’t feel too sad for me – I’m surrounded by people all the time on phones and the like – because it’s not a bad kind of loneliness. It’s more like I’m missing something vital. Or sometimes like I have lost something.
I work in the field of customer data management and, if you didn’t know, that means I manage a lot of data and try and look at it and see what it means and how we can do better as a company. Interesting stuff! But not half as good as surfing…
See, surfing, for me, fills a void which nothing else can. Nothing else even remotely touches it. When I’m out there with my boys and girls, there is the most unique kind of bond between people and the atmosphere and the ocean. I feel alone and in my own little world, but at the same time I feel isolated like I’m constantly in one big warm hug. I know that when the surf is up for the day and I go back to shore, we’ll be laughing and talking and watching the Sun go down together, as a unit. There is something phenomenal about that, whether you like the idea of battling the waves or not.
on any given day we’ll be out there, regardless of if anyone is watching
I’ve given up trying to explain this to people at work. They don’t get it and really, it’s not their fault. How could they ever understand? The only way to properly get it is to come out here with us and feel the amazing mix of pleasure and pain and friendship and achievement.
People think surfing is all about long hair and fashion and showing off. But the truth is that on any given day we’ll be out there, regardless of if anyone is watching. For us it’s more personal than just the way it looks.
Man, it’s about the way it feels inside. It’s like a drug, that thing, there’s no denying it.
I can’t see a day when I stop surfing, but when that day comes, as it must, I’ll know that I gave it my all and went for it as well as I could. That’ll make me feel like nothing else matters, like I can die peacefully now and everything is all right.
It’s never too late to surf, you know. If you have even the smallest desire to do it, there’s no time like the present, my friend.
People often laugh at me when I start talking about the Sun and how good it can be for you. Not just the Sun, but the combination of this and the wind and the sea. All of them come together, without you really even noticing it, to create a powerful effect on your mental well-being. For me, it’s something I just can’t live without.
Allow me to be more specific:
When I head outside, the Sun is just starting to come up. Starting. It’s not up enough for me to really see in front of me too well, and on the drive down to the beach the lights go on.
Now, sometimes during the drive – just a short trip of around 10 minutes – I switch my lights off. Reflex action.
The weight of the moment. It’s this that I try to convey to people. It is this force of nature which, unless you have experienced it, you can never know
And when I park up and get out I feel the Sun on me. In the distance, the sea roars and laps and as I set foot on the stand, breaking into a run with my board, I realise that the heat and everything is all part of the experience. If you were to take just one of these near perfect elements away the house of cards would collapse on itself and I’d be in an entirely different reality which I wouldn’t even be able to recognise.
As I paddle out I feel the water all around me – sense the depth of it below me, the horizon broken wide-open with a wide band of bright light as the reflection of the Sun dazzles me, forcing me to look away – and sense the power of it all. The weight of the moment. It’s this that I try to convey to people. It is this force of nature which, unless you have experienced it, you can never know how critical to all of us it is.
After my session I am exhausted. But in a good way – my body conditioned to deal with this and growing somehow stronger yet weaker all the time.
It is all this which no amount of money can replace. No independent financial advisor , with his flashy car and expensive holidays will ever, ever be able to recreate this feeling.
Why? Because he doesn’t even know it exists in the first place. He or she will, tragically, never feel what it is like to be truly free of the grapples of society.
Wait, forget that. You know what I mean by that. I mean that thought in your head that tells you you can’t surf…why am I reading this? The reason: you don’t have to be the world’s greatest surfer to enjoy being out on the open ocean. You don’t even need to be able to stand up (although it helps if you’re wanting to carve up some gnarly waves, yo!). All you really need to be able to do More
Sometimes, at work, people ask me how I have enough energy left over at the end of the day to go out surfing and wake up early day after day to catch the waves. I always laugh at that: like there is some secret surfing secret. There isn’t, believe me. Here are the things you need to become a good surfer who can handle this stuff:
1) Determination: or just being really stubborn. Are you the kind of person who More
For some strange reason – and probably a lot to do with Point Break with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, because that’s got to be a huge contributing factor – I’ve often found that people who don’t surf think that surfers are all rugged looks and big attitudes. The kind of guys that couldn’t care less what anyone else is upto, and the kind of people who frequently break the law, thinking they are better than the rest. They see More
You wake up, head hurting from the beach party the night before, and you look outside. No, you try to, but for at least ten seconds you find yourself thinking that the brick wall is a view to the outside world. “I should not have mixed my drinks,” you say, “never again”, and you smile and pull yourself up. More
If you’re not the kind of person who’s at home in the sea, you might think of surfing as an elitist kind of a thing. A sport for people with long flowing locks, bodies conditioned from riding waves for thousands of hours, and muscles built to take the brute force of the sea. While all that is undeniably part of it, I’d like to introduce you to Malcolm. A friend of mine for ten years, Malcolm recently decided that the More
