Got the ‘bug" in ‘64 when the old an got me & the bro an 8’ balsa board (with a handdrawn decal of Murphy the Surfie on it) havn’t stopped since.I’d hate to imagine the $ I’ve spent in boards,cars (vans),petrol,beer & time. High time for me was the 70’s were a blur of new boards Trackers,pintails, sideslippers then under 6’ boards one of my all time favourutes was a 5’6"Tom Hoye twinnie, work & pissoff down the coast for surf weekend with the mates. The waves, the chicks AH MAN the chicks, the crazy situations we’d get ourselves into all in the name of “Finding a wave” & I’m still doing it.
The people I’ve met with radically differet backgrounds & had noting in common with other than SURFING.Ever notice it only takes one small comment about surfing in a room full of people, you hear it, gravitate toward it and next thing you’re talking to a guy like he’s your long lost brother! What about the injuries you accrue over the years,I’ve had - 2 broken arms,nose reconstruction, both ears rebored (surfers ear),broken foot,hip replacent (right hip I’m a natural footer), stitches from a-hole to breakfast,broken collar bone, just been diagnosed with cervical spondylosis (arithrtius in upperback) & atrial fibrilation (irregular heartbeat) which I get when I get excited & I get excited every time I go for a surf,SHIT! Do you think surfing has had an impact on me?
Surfing affected me like a bad dope/gambling habbit that I’ve now had for 47years & I still love IT, Turned 59 the other day" what did I get I hear you ask " a new freakin 6’10" Josh Dowling board WHAT ELSE!! ha ha. I think the best way to sum up surfings effect on me is when I go to bed early & we have people over & they all say "Whats the story? why bed now? & the wife says “HE’S GOTTA GET UP EARLY TO GO FOR A SURF” - kinda says it all doesn’t it.
It is my life. Since my kids arrived on the scene it’s had to share the limelight, but I’ll never live more than an hour from a surfable coastline ever again.
And it’s only gotten worse now that I’ve started shaping my own boards…
The summer 1964 was a good year. My family and I imigrated from grey old Sth coast England to sunny East coast Australia. I was five years old. The Beatles also came to Australia in 64. Midget won the first world surfing champs at Manly in 64. I did'nt get to see either, but I did get to see every beach from Cronulla to Palm Beach that summer. We settled in Avalon on Sydneys Northern beaches after six months in a house overlooking Cronulla point.
We were hooked on the beach. No orange size pebbles on the beach here like we were use to on our home beach Brighton in England. Lovely soft sand for as far as the eye could see.
Fast foward a few years. It must be about 68 / 69 I get my first fibreglass board. A chopped down log. Stoked. I had been getting my surf skills up on Surf-a-planes and foamies, with Sunday mornings at the Nippers.
In 71 we moved to a brand new house we had built over looking the North end of Whale Beach. Not long after the old board gets replaced with a brand new Shane Standard.
By this time I was well and truely hooked. All those years of following the black line up and down the ocean baths my old man insisted we do was paying off. No leg ropes ment alot of swimming after our boards.
So what to do with the old board. I know I'll strip it and shape something. From that day on to 79 I surfed my own boards. Stopped surfing for a while while travelling around Oz with a non surfing mate. Got back into surfing on my return and hav'nt looked back. Married a surfer girl so no problems about heading down to the beach whenever.
Fast fwd to now. Still married the the surfer girl. Still heading down to the beach whenever. Still riding my own boards. And working for myself in the surfboard repair and restoration industry.
Even though I did’nt start till 1967 at the zenith of the Longboard Era/dawn of the Shortboard Revolution, The Frankie Avalon Beach Blanket/Ride the Wild Surf Hollywood flicks I’d seen in elementary school, had already instilled a desire to catch a wave. I was born and raised in Hawaii…what else can a poor boy do? It helped that I sucked in most team sports (always the last to be chosen when picking teams), and was a decent swimmer. All it took was that first wave that my neighbor, recently deceased Thomas Kodama, pushed me into at Ewa Beach that triggered the passion for wave sliding that has’nt yet to subside. Besides all the surfing and board building, I really enjoyed the friendships I’ve experienced from those who I grew up surfing with, to the ones I’ve made out in the water.
Surfing has brought me to foreign places I never would have gone, introduced me to friends I never would have made, given me moments I never would have experienced, provided a priceless bond with my surf buddy son, and still leaves mein bed at night replaying the best rides of the session exactly as I did when a young grom almost 50 years ago.
There is surfing, and then there is everything else…