Just Another Surf Story  

By Lloyd Johnston

    To put these words down on paper or rather, to tap them slowly into a machine that glows in my face, is about as distant an act as it can conceivably be from what I am thinking.

    I write these thoughts to answer a question so often asked over the years and perhaps out of a deeper need to reassess my passion. Perhaps spurred on by something a friend said to me last night: "Is this what it’s all about? Is this as good as it gets?". These words coming from probably the most talented well-equipped person I know! My God, what if he’s right! When did it all get so grey? At what point did the edges started blurring?

    My mind wonders back to a spring day a lifetime ago. The time is around 11 am. The air is unseasonably cool. Crisp. Everything seems crisp. I stand on the small boulders trying not to slip into the rock pools. My eyes scan the horizon.

"How big do you reckon?" My stomach tenses. Will my voice give me away and reveal the paralysing fear that I’m trying so valiantly to suppress? "Umm...I don’t know...Maybe eight, ten foot on the sets". I pull off the nonchalant reply perfectly. The peak is clean. A set rolls in. The first one stands up in full grandeur and as if in slow motion the lip starts to pitch out. It takes what feels like an age before the glass-like bowl explodes in a release of kinetic energy from the impact. Shit! It’s big. My stomach wrenches. I’m positive you can actually see my legs shaking. "Let’s do it".

    Something in my brain switches off. I dive forward, arch my back and reach forward for my first stroke. As my fingertips touch the icy water another switch is tripped. It is as if she is washing away analytical thought. Purging my brain of "correct" thoughts. Something deep inside me is fed. Fear and calmness piggyback each other. I look over my shoulder and smile.Another set marches in and as if rehearsed, the ballet begins. Fluid power galvanised into action by wind, gravity and distant bodies. I paddle up what feels like a small hill. I look left. I peer deep into the barrel. God!

I reach the peak and make sure I’m not too deep inside. He smiles at me and I realize I’ve been grinning. For how long I don’t know. "Beautiful hey". Not a question. Not a statement. Fact. I nod. Shards of light pierce the surface of the water and plumb down into the depths where things loose their colour and the blue grey is all there is. Still. I look up. The horizon seems to be morphing itself. A set begins to build and that feeling in my stomach returns. Breath. Breath deeply into your stomach. Relax.

I stare, almost transfixed. Absorbing all I can. Time stretches and actions happen automatically. There is no place for analytical thought. Not now. Not here. I spin my board and push forward off the submerged tail propelling myself forward. I look over my right shoulder and see water beginning to move up the face of the ever-building swell. Somewhere my brain registers a voice shouting, "Go for it!". Did I hear that or did I think it? My hands move deliberately through the water thrusting me forward. Rhythm. I feel my body being drawn back. Back and up. My body registers height and pitch. I look over the nose of my board and down into the bowl. I’m being lifted and driven forward by an immense force. One extra stroke. Remember one extra stroke could give you the speed that makes the difference between getting pitched and making it. Breath. Time slows and fades away. I clasp my rails and in one fluid motion swing my legs forward. I sense the pressure under my feet. My vision tunnels as I begin to drop. The speed is immense and unexpected. The water somehow seems to harden beneath my board. I reach the bowl in a split second. Made the drop. Keep your head. Instinctively I put it on the inside rail. My legs feel weak against such incredible inertia. I bend my knees. Lock my thighs and drive the rail in hard, holding the turn. The board explodes out of the turn and I have to turn hard to set my line and prevent being catapulted straight up the face and over the back. For an instant the board slows as I feel myself being pulled up the face. Shit! I’m too high. My line is just too bloody high!

    I loose focus and fear rushes in and instantly consumes me. My body takes over. It’s seems to take over with mechanical, computer driven precision. In a fraction of a second, speed, distance, gravity and direction collide, are calculated and transferred into physical action. My outside rail frees up and I’m rushing back down the face. I manage to maintain my inside rails precarious footing in the face. It starts to wall up all the way down the line. I set the rail and know that the lip will pitch. The thick unyielding lip begins to pitch out about five feet in front of me.

    I remember looking at this very scene from the shoulder as I was paddling out. Only this time I’m inside looking out and my God it is such a different perspective. The barrel seems to rush up and over me from a place somewhere over my left shoulder. I dare not look back. It seems far too fast to be makeable. I feel myself getting overtaken and being pulled in. Just keep your line and drive as far down the line as you can. If I loose it now the next set wave will surely get me. Breath.

I remember having watched this kind of thing a million times from the comfort of a lounge chair. Laughing, hooting and the plethora of "Ow...poor bastard" as some poor sole gets executed by an avalanche of water. Today would be my turn to feel it firsthand. The words' divine retribution flashes through my head.

    I am now in a place I have never been before. There is noise, yet I hear no sound. There is immense speed, but I feel completely still. Time does not exist. It is cool and beautiful. It’s not merely a beauty of words or pictures, of sounds or colours. It is all these and more. It is nothing and everything. It just...is. I absorb it all and it is stored deep in my brain for eternity.

    Something explodes behind me. As the immense burst of power hits me from behind I feel as though I am going to be blown off my board. Board and body somehow accelerate in unison. Water is flying everywhere and I can see almost nothing. Everything is bright and loud. As my eyes clear a realization hits me. I made it. Shit...I MADE IT! I’m made aware of my speed as I rocket over the fading shoulder and go skiing over flat water, slowing fast. I arch my back and do a big sweeping ark on the flat water as I slow. I grab my rails and ease myself down onto the deck as the energy lent to me leaves. As I take my first stroke back out to the peak I look up and see a smile that will stay with me for life. I paddle up next to him. We are both sporting childlike grins that rap around our faces. We both start stroking our way back to the peak. Still smiling he looks straight ahead and says "That was awesome...My God...that was awesome".

---

    So now I have written these thoughts and perhaps I hoped I would find answers. One answer is very clear. As surfers we are lucky. We choose to spend our time in a place that we have not one iota of control over. We can always return to that place. Forget the car repayments, bad TV and road rage. At the waters edge it’s all behind us. At anytime we can choose to leave all the crap behind.

"Is this what it’s all about? Is this as good as it gets?"

    I phoned up my friend that asked me the question, the same friend that was out with me on that magical spring morning. Sure enough he had the answer all the time:

"Hello."

"Hi...It’s me. How're you doing?"

"Ah OK you know...Work's a bitch and I really miss living at the coast and I’m shitting off trying to make the payments on the new car. Surviving I s’pose"

"Yep, 'know what you mean. Listen, I was just writing something - do you remember that epic spring day when it got so big and it was just us out?"

"Yeah...O my God...remember that monster barrel you snagged?! Shit that was unreal and.............." and so over the next half an hour things became crystal clear. We reminisced, laughed and made plans to rent a house up the coast over the summer break.

    In conclusion we both agreed that in fact there was more to life and we both knew it all along. We knew it at fourteen and we still knew it now. We merely let the other "stuff" of life cloud the issue. We just needed a reminder.

Lloyd Johnston 

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