Surfing Life 2017

The best explanation of a wave
I’ve ever heard was: it can’t be
described, it can only be experienced.
I was 19 years old when I heard that,
and may or may not have been stoned off
my tits on cheap bush weed, perched high
up on a headland waiting for the tide to
turn on a fairly remote patch of east coast
real estate. I’m now far, far removed from
my teens, but this explanation has not
only stayed with me all these years, it’s
crystallised and resonated.
How does one describe a moving body
of water, which has travelled hundreds, if
not thousands of miles to its destination,
before rising up off the shallowing ocean
floor and bursting its insides up onto a
sand bank, down a long point, outside
bombie or inside reef ?
The whole time its journey has been
watched by a collective of humans with
wax under their fingernails and salt in
their hair, armed with computers and
weather maps. They’ve followed the wave’s
path from its embryonic conception
IF THIS WAS A RELIGION, WE’D BE RADICAL
inside the core of a storm, and into its
final faultless form where it is ridden
standing atop a polystyrene core wrapped
in fibreglass.
We dodge sharks; jump into rips, rather
than avoid them; allow currents to drag
us further into the abys; we dance to the
beat of live reef under thick, heavy lips.
The ways of meeting our maker out in the
ocean are only limited by our imagination!
No wonder the rest of the world thinks
we’re stark-raving, mad.
Who in their right mind would dedicate
their lives, blowing off loved ones and the
ravages of societal commitments, to chase
these sometimes murderous – most of the
time, mesmerising – things we call waves?
How many marriages and relationships
have ended, or jobs been lost, or parents
gravely disappointed while we chase
waves with all the fervour of a back-alley
crack addict scoring a little bag of white
disappointment?
Hell, look at us here at Surfing Life.
Devoting a whole bloody issue per year to
the whole damn phenomenon!
The spellbinding, untamed wildness
and beauty of a lonely, perfect wave reeling
down a sand-bottomed point, or A-framing
into a little wedge 15 metres from shore.
Whatever the perfect wave is that you
play on a loop inside your head, we’ve got
you covered in this issue. This magazine is
a keepsake. Buy two copies – one to keep
in your car, the other for your house. Never
be more than 15 metres from this baby at
all times.
When life is giving you the screaming
shits; when bosses, parents, wives and
boyfriends are yelling at you to do better.
Grab this little baby, and flick through its
smooth pages and let it take you to another
time and place. A place where it’s just you
and your perfect wave and favourite board,
and mind surf that fucker until all the
outside noise has stopped.
Because riding waves is the simple bit;
it’s everything else in life which is freaking
complicated.
– Craig Braithwaite (Guest Editor)
PHOTO: CURLEY
SURFING LIFE 5