EVERYONE I know who “gave up surfing” …their wife made it SO hard for them , every time they went surfing
It’s a balancing act…my wife has, on occasion, offered to and actually has gone to the beach with me to sit in the car to make sure I go in the water. As a frequent gentleman I never insist that she watch my every surfing move. This relieves her of a dull, agonizing obligation and me of having to hear about any miscues. An old friend once begged his wife to go with him and photograph a surf session. Nearly all of the resulting handful of photos of him were of him wiping out. He never asked again.
longest time i ever went witthout surfing was from when i was born till i was 16 or 17. i did lots of other stuff, traveled a lot, played sports, and now i hate sports. i was a kid, did kid things, and surfing wasn’t a part of my childhood, although the ocean definetly was.
im happy i had that time as a child to do other things, to experiment, to see who i was. now i know ill surf almost every day until i kick the god damn bucket.
and i get so happy and giddy every time i think about having found something to spend my life doing! something so amazing.
About 7 years ago I did a through the lip on a board I had made for Dale Dobson, he hated it.
I took it out at Swami’s and on the 3rd wave changed everything I had done for the 40 years before. My knee popped so loud that I could hear it above the sound of the lip hitting the bottom of the board. I was out of the water for most of that year, shaped in a knee brace and it still hurt. For a number of years afterwards, I only surfed 3 or 4 times a year, but it has mostly healed and I get back in the water as much as possible for a married, full time employed guy can, with child support too boot.
Shoulder injury-surgery from high school football game kept me out of the water for four weeks to the chagrine of my surgeon. He wanted 8 to 10 weeks. Yah, sure. When you are seventeen? Compound fracture of tibia and fibula kept me out of the water for 10 months or the time I was in a cast. Doctor made me promise not to go surf if he took off the cast. Paddled out the next day. Six months on the west coast of Florida kept me out of the water for six months except for one trip over to Sebastian Inlet where the 14 and 15 year old kids surfed circles around me and humiliated me. Dumped a girl who told me I couldn’t surf forever and married the one who supports my addiction. Mike
Knee reconstruction here as well. Blew out my knee on 6/1/2002 and had a trip to Maui already paid for for August. It was a bad injury - completely torn ACL and MCL, split meniscus, cracked femur. I think I was the first patient my doc ever had who paid for one brace for pre-surgery
And another one 6 months after. Needless to say, it was worth it. The trip was a great goodbye ( it was 9/20-28 and surgery was 9/30) but the next 6 months (no surfing, even with (either) brace) sucked.
I wore my brace for quite a while, but I found with the brace I had the false sense of security that everything was going to be OK. I had to re-think my method of surfing and remember to always keep a slight bend to my knees. With the brace I had a tendancy to over do it and wind up in pain for my efforts. In looking at photos of other really good surfers in the middle of radical manuevers, the all have a bend in the knee. I was one of those that got complete extension of my front leg and used it to pull my board around hard and fast. Well, I gambled and lost finally with a bad hyper extension, backwards and to the side. In the instant playback in my mind, the board was still moving upwards and to the right, while I was trying to wrench back around to the left. To compound the situation, it was a heavy longboard, dude I was like vertical !
I know what you mean about the brace & overconfidence. I quit wearing mine after about 6 months because I got sick of doing scratch & ding repairs to my left rail from sitting & turning The worst thing for my knee now is shallow surf zones. If I fall off wrong its way too easy to hyperextend if my foot hits the bottom. I never step off or try to stand up in the water. If the water is deep enough for my fin to clear, I’m paddling. If my fin would scrape, I turn the board backwards and go to the back end (nose) and paddle with the fin end front & sticking out. I get funny looks for it some places, but I know why I have to do it.
I know what you mean about the brace & overconfidence. I quit wearing mine after about 6 months because I got sick of doing scratch & ding repairs to my left rail from sitting & turning
Just curious if any of you guys with bad knee injuries tried using those neoprene knee braces while surfing. I had some minimal success with that under a full wetsuit during my sort-of rehab of a knee that I irritated (nothing compared to blowouts) working and trying to kneeboard. There were some slipping issues but not too bad. It would be minimal support but better than nothing I suppose.
Because I moved throusands of miles from my warm shark infested home break
Because the dark, murky and severely cold ocean was hundreds of miles away
because i became addicted to skiing powder
Recently:
3 knee surgeries leaving me with little if no Meniscus in either knee
working 60+ hours weeks starting from 3AM-6PM Mon-Fri doing what I do best
feeling like you are having to fight or compete with all kinds of idiots just to catch a wave
almost dying from a badly contaminated blown appendics and waking up from emergency surgery with a 14" scar from your pelvic area past your belly button
Now
I am still giving it a go as hard as its become
because its in my anatomy
because it calms me when I’m by myself or with friends and makes me smile
because it makes me feel healthier than working out doing anything else for exercise
and because even sitting by my lonesome in sharky murky waters, I get to talk to all my family and friends now passed on who’s ashes and spirit surrounds and protects me as I pay homage to them sharing the joy of riding waves with them remembering better times
a surfer never quits surfing, even when he can no longer paddle out.
Back when he could still make the short trek up the trail, used to occasionally see old Stan Ross on the bluff at Ross’s Cove, leaning against his cane, watching the waves.
One thing that takes the fun out of surfing is the younger generation of it’s all about me, had I acted like this as a youth, a severere beating would have been the result from my old man. Todays young surfers have NO RESPECT for the older surfers or any other person in the water, but if you are balding or white haired, you are fair game to be ripped off on any wave they see you paddling for. There is no way an older person could possibly surf well, so rip them off at every chance and tell them you’ll beat their ass too.
Assault on the ederly is punishable by 5 years mandatory, no parole.
It has made me not surf for months at a time, I surf for the closeness to God, clear my head of the troubles of the day, experience the thrill that only a surfer knows.
Not being so pissed off in the water that it all that is in my mind, I had to turn up under some 20 something at Church’s on Monday, me was going to take the wave from me at any cost, I hope it cost him plenty to get the ding fixed, when you drop in on me and I lose control, my board might fly out from under my feet and hit you in the head, be careful of us old surfers
You asked, so I’ll tell you. I stopped surfing because I build surfboards full time… Okay, it was really because my wife and I started a family, but since she makes more money I do, yet not enough to fully support our family, and because we can’t afford childcare and I have a flexible schedule working at a couple glassing factories, I began watching the kids during the day while she’s at work and building boards at night. This has pretty much destroyed my opportunites to surf. My wife and I both used to surf all the time before kids. Looking forward to getting back out there more often with her and the kids someday!
“when you drop in on me and I lose control, my board might fly out from under my feet and hit you in the head, be careful of us old surfers”
ah the long lost art among us “before leashers” old farts
but still one of the best moves you can make when the going gets rough
“oops, sorry brah, you okay?”
I think that’s how it goes when i let it fly past their head
that 4-5 shot sequence of Dora at Malibu is always in the back of my mind
another favorite is to just aim high and slam the lip/white water above them then let your board get sucked over the falls on top on them while you bail then you say, “oh sorry brah, I was trying to kick out cuz I neva like hit you, you okay?” then you can smile (inside if need be) all the way paddling back out
usually the boys whating from the outside will be silently cheering you on
and the bozos will stay out of the way after you do that a couple of times
once saw an old timer (50-60 yrs old) at full speed off the bottom plow his 9" glass on fin from his 30lb old style heavily glassed longboard 2-3 inches into the rail of a beginning standup paddler’s off the shelf epoxy SUP to prove a point before yelling at “her” to go in because she was dangerous. Prior to that she kept trying to catch waves just outside the line up before always falling off and having her SUP come through and clean up the lineup who were scrambling for safety. Thank god most of the standup crowd is halfway competant in managing their craft these days although they still hog waves.
but in the end there’s still allot of good days, with small crowds of old friends who still share if you are willing to venture out to find them.
Well being self employed has it’s advantages, when my youngest son was born, we had no type of insurance, she after her maternity leave was up, had to return to the school system. I stayed home with our son until 2:30 each day, then went to the factory until anywhere bewteen 11 PM and 1 AM, she would breast feed him before going to work, the two of us would sleep until 10:30 or so, I’d make a little rice cereal for him, strap him in the stroller and “explore” the neighborhood, best damn year and a half in my life. I blew out my knee during this time and was out of the water for the duration
Stopped surfing in 1976 to spend the summer with Oneula in Seattle. Rode skateboards all over Seattle and when I came back home I surfed better than ever.
Got hit in the face by a loose board (corded) in 1978 and almost lost an eye. Out of the water for about 6 months. Very hard time there.
Fell in love/got married between 1980-1984, heavily side tracked chasing my wahine. Down to surfing occasionally (when it was good).
Tore muscles in my back in 1986 and spent several months recovering, then a couple more just swimming.
Since 1986 I try to surf as much as I can, but with a 8-5 corporate job, kids, it hasn’t been easy. 86-92 or so I tried to surf everyday. It helped to live next to some of the best south shore surf spots on Oahu. Up until about 5 years ago, my bosses were understanding of my sickness, and allowed me to take surf breaks on those epic days.
I don’t think I’ll ever stop, but it’s down to weekends, but if the south side is going off then I take vacation. I try to save my vacation for the summer months when the south side gets bigger.
The trip was a great goodbye ( it was 9/20-28 and surgery was 9/30) but the next 6 months (no surfing, even with (either) brace) sucked.