Most of the young ones I encounter who fit that description are “from away”. Local kids who surf aren’t quite as agressive or egotistical. Plus, most of the time their father is a friend of mine and they’ve been ‘educated’ to some extent. My biggest problems come from adult beginners who have a sense of entitlement. Such as, the billionaire who bought a house near the beach for $1.2 million, just so he could qualify as a ‘resident’ and have access to the town beach parking lot. His actual house, where he stays, is about 12 miles away in another town. He once griped to a mutual friend that I was catching too many waves. He is 20 years younger than I, and was riding a board a good 2 feet longer than mine. He said that I thought I “own the ocean”. I told him if he really believed that, he should find a new hobby to suck at.
Where I live, most of the surf spots didn’t even have names when I first moved here 40+ years ago. I named at least four of the breaks, myself. Many of these spots went unridden because of the rocky setups, and the fact there were less than 12 full time surfers in the whole county, back then. Now, imagine getting dropped in on or otherwise disrespected at a spot which was named by you? I once had to speak to a visitor about his impolite behavior in the water. He got all huffy about it and became a bit belligerent. Three of the younger locals paddled over to him and asked him if he knew the name of the break he was surfing. He gave the right answer. They then asked him if he knew who named the spot. He didn’t know. They pointed at me and said “That guy… If you fuck with him we will do something about it”. The guy left the water.
Surfed the Texas coast from Freeport to Port Isabel for 20 years, on and off depending on where life landed me in TX.
Last good hurricane swell I surfed was the day my first daughter was born. Epic day, surf and child.
24 years ago I had a wife and 3 kids to feed.
My first big professional job landed me in the middle of rural west Kentucky. Landlocked ever since. If I’m lucky I get to the coast once a year. Only way I could have gotten further from the ocean is if I’d moved to Minnesota.
Got into my profession to keep me on the coast and surfing. Sometimes the hand you get dealt doesn’t play out the way you expected.
I had to quit surfing for almost 2 years from breaking my leg twice from motocross.It was the worst time of my life so far and I am just now getting back to where I was once able to surf.I swore I would never ride again and sold my bike but for some sick reason I am starting to miss riding motocross.
Tom Eberly’s son Colin was on the way to becoming a motocross star, then began breaking everything, only 30 YO and feels like a weather forecasting device.
2+ decades of snowboarding out of bounds - damaged shoulder joint, refractured hip, fully detached pectoral, torn meniscus 2x, fractured ribs.
The bill - bad knees, bad hips, medically diagnosed traumatic arthritis of all major joints and fairly severe tendonitis.
Solution - save it by staying away from shallow reefs, bigger waves, and steep mountains.
Save it for what???
Just gotta keep finding reasons to paddle out as the decades pile on, fight the pain with diet, good conditioning and most importantly, good memories of why you’re hurting.
Only one piece of advice I would offer. I took NSAD’s for decades because of all the injuries and a bad back. Never much of a drinker, never did hard drugs. Recently diagnosed with an enlarged liver from almost continuous NSAD use. All blood tests are fine, no indication of liver disease. Can’t use the NSAD’s when I could really use them, however, so now follow an anti-inflammatory diet and just deal with it.
So suggest judicious use of the Celebrex, Naprosen, Mobic, Aleve’s, etc…sure do help in the short term, like everything however, not without a cost…and acetaminophen is worse then all of them…
Others out there but you get the idea. Nothing works for everyone but these are all better than harmless, the side effects are really all potential benefits!
I had one of those surfercross. Not from motorcycles. Head on in my VW bus. The doc didn’t do a nice job on it like yours. Closed reduction. 5 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics. Ten months in a cast. Got a crooked left leg, half inch shorter than the other, and the toes are a bit more pidgeon toed than the right side. Thats my longest stay out of the surfing. Second longest was my 6 months on the Gulf coast of Florida. Mike
I think the Mervia is the phosphatidyl choline. Other studies have shown even better absorbtion using the essential oil extract which is basically what the super critical (CO2 extract) is. I think both New Chapter and Gaia use that and likely others. It is expensive technology so only some companies have decided to invest in it. So far…
