Like every other child of the 80s/90s I've been listening to Beastie Boys songs all day. RIP MCA.
And 'licensed to ill' aptly sums up my weekend. I had to expend energy somehow so instead of tiring myself out on the waves - after the last couple of weeks we finally decided to believe Swellnet's 'no great days' forecast - I popped on the party pants (in the form of a black leather skirt) on Saturday night. All in all it was an awesome night in three acts - the last act of which is a little fuzzy around the edges but thanks to the kindness of a stranger I made it safely home in a taxi. I woke up in my bed fully clothed at 11am feeling like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. So much for the dry May I'd planned.
Hell, it was a special occasion as one of my favourite ladies in the whole wide world got hitched. Who doesn't want to toast to that?
She put a ring on it
When I was laying in bed yesterday waiting for my distress flare to be answered - home delivery of lemonade, coke and chips by Roobs, god bless her cotton socks - I was thinking how this violent hangover wouldn't have happened if there had been waves. (Perhaps if I hadn't got a little over-excited and drank too much I wouldn't have been feeling like death but that's beside the point). Surfing keeps me on the straight and narrow. There's nothing worse than surfing with a hangover because with my limited ability good things don't happen. So, this weekend it's off to Lorne for as many sessions as my paddling spaghetti arms will allow. I'll be dry May as a bone. And trying to surf like this ...
So I've been surfing with Doodlebum nearly every weekend since around September and we've decided to join forces not only in the surf but on the turf so she's going to fire up posts on Not Without My Do-Rag as well. Woopah!
Doodlebum ... take it away!
In the past year it’s only happened twice - making the rookie mistake of chasing after waves that just aren't there.
We set off a couple of Sundays ago tired, a little bit emo and with high
hopes of clearing our minds in the water. Instead, we were greeted with a surreal
scene of 50 dudes bobbing like seals in a lake. Jan Juc did not deliver. The
only thing it did deliver was a serving of fish and chips, and the impending
guilt of wishing you had actually earned the feed. We set off back to Melbourne
bummed and disheartened, a 3 hour round trip for 20 minutes of board time and
still feeling a little emo. Not ideal.
I recently came across an interview with Beatrix, an elderly lady of great
wisdom and style talking about the power of positive thinking - you actually have to inhabit positivity, not
just think it. The amount of car time Gillbraham and I have clocked up together
is substantial to say the least. But this is all a part of it. This surf
journey is much more than the time spent in the water. It’s also the time spent
getting there and back when we are each others' 'soundboards' for our dreams and
concerns.
So, I told myself I could no longer be disappointed about Sunday. Thanks
Beatrix. And Gerry Lopez. And hell, even Kelly Slater. (Ok, I added in the Kelly Slater bit.. sorry, D-bum!)
ONE WEEK LATER IN THE SURF ...
After our last trek’s disappointment we were pretty
pumped to get in the waves last weekend whatever the conditions. Hungover or
not… swell or not… offshore or not… whatever it was going to be we were going
feel that aloha buzz of a good session, goddamnit.
As it turned out the waves were shithouse but we must have
been oozing stoke (does that sound weird?) as everyone was on for a chat. Which
was kinda odd.
Since I started surfing I’ve always wondered about the lack
of chat between surfers. I’ve
talked about it a lot with the Baberahams, with the turf crew (as opposed to
the surf crew) and lately with the odd seadog. I’ve got a few theories that
I’ll write about some day but in short, I always thought there was something
wrong with the dudes. Lately I’ve realised it might have something to do with
me too (Really? You think, Gill??!).
Even though I don’t seem like it, I’m pretty shy, and
striking up a conversation with a dude in a wetsuit is rather terrifying. To be
honest I’d rather perve from afar and crack up my mates with inappropriate
comments than attempt to talk with said surf babe who unlike me can actually ... surf.
A radical surf babe
But something has clicked in me and I’m now loving a chat
in the carpark, at the lookout, walking down to the beach, on the waves.
Anywhere! Everyone is friendly and tips have been given by the locals. Sure
we’ve been asked if we were stand-up paddleboarders (No!), ‘Well, boogie
boarders, then?’ (Nooooo!) but I’m not letting that offend us. We told each
other the seadogs were just pulling our leg. Locals humour, right? Hopefully
we’ll see them again when we’re ripping and wave hello. Aloha!
In the midst of winter last year when I was feeling stoked that I was managing to brave the winter water for all of half an hour as I fumbled around trying to stand up, paddle out, avoid a smack in the face by an ice-cream headache inducing wave ... in short, do anything productive ... a friend of mine I went to film school with way back in the 90s told me she now understood why I'd fallen in love with surfing after she'd watched this film by Mickey Smith and Allan Wilson. (BTW, I reckon you should vote for it to win here)
It's the kind of film that when I watch it the hairs on my arms stand on end. It makes me feel good to be alive - precisely the 'fires of happiness, waves of gratitude' feeling. It also makes me want to want to be more watchful and thoughtful and considered. And it also made me go and buy a 4/3 wetsuit.
Today the forecast for Torquay is a sizable swell (for me anyways) with big, gusty onshore winds. And it's pouring with rain. Not ideal. We'd planned to go for a surf but given the conditions, I'm pretty happy to stay in my cozy bed and forgo the 'cup of concrete' that would usually be prescribed. Shitballs - I'm going to have to stock up on concrete for winter.
Jan Juc carpark with a bunch of ideal cars to throw boards into
Jan Juc is my new favourite place to surf. Perhaps it’s because I was shown where the local café is where there seems to be a plethora of 30+ surfer types hanging out (sausage forest, anyone?). Or perhaps it’s because last weekend Melbourne pretended it was summer again and it hit the high 20s. Or maybe since being dolphinised by Kelly Slater I am surfing with aloha and feeling awesome. Generally though, I gotta say…
Life. Is. Great.
Gerry Lopez says, 'Surf with aloha and live with aloha and all will be good'
I hit the surf both days this weekend – 6 hours of driving for about 3.5 hours of surfing. But the car trips were heaps of fun singing along to mix CDs my sister made me for my birthday. Doodlebum and I hadn’t hit the coast by ourselves in ages and it was fun to sing our arses off in the car and feel froffy about the waves.
After an incredibly drunken yet creatively inspiring Friday night I was in need of a medicinal sausage roll and caffeine hit on Saturday morning and when we first paddled out the back, the rolling of the swell made me feel more than a touch nauseous but I pushed on through. I have heard of hangovers so bad that vomiting while surfing has happened. Gross. This was not going to happen to me. Miraculously in my mentally diminished state and with a slight case of hysteria I managed to catch some great waves that made me smile and victoriously ‘woohoo!’ and air punch. The best hangover cure.
Yep. That's our spot.
Jan Juc is a long beach with a few different spots to surf so even though there can be probably about 60 people in the surf you still feel like you can grab a wave. The 29 degree day on Sunday brought out the crowds and the kneeboarders (why do they not want to stand up?? Whyyyyy?!) and with them some old salties as well.
Nothing like a bit of leopard print under a wetsuit to make a girl feel snazzy
Now that I’m bursting out of my wetsuit with aloha and not froffin’ as madly, I realise I can learn a lot by watching other surfers. Particularly the old salties with style. We saw one guy pull out an Endless Summer move of arms thrust forward like a superhero rocknroller, his rounded belly making him look like a cuddly neoprene teddy bear. Radical.
The longboarder. My hero
We visited Winkipop to watch them delicately pick their way through the rocks, board clutched under their arms before paddling like demons inbetween sets to the back. The only longboarder with the coolest board ever was my hero. Out of place on his boat among all the hyperactive shortboarders, he was doing long deep turns and cruising through the sea of surfers like a semi-trailer on a highway. D-bum and I were knocking back a post-surf beer (aka froffer) watching them, marvelling that you don’t even see these surfers pop up, admiring their style, their grace and their boards and placing bets on when we’ll be surfing Winki too. If we keep this aloha biz up it might be sooner (well, a year maybe??) than we think.
It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post because even though I’ve been surfing my arse off, my ‘oh I’m just plateauing’ has turned into feeling like I was getting worse not better and the ole ego doesn’t like that. And I’ve been feeling pretty depressed about it. Ahh boo.
I had a giant camera thrown over my shoulder. Pity you can't see it. I look like a wigga.
So my surfing has been more than ordinary but my enthusiasm is still off the dial and I've kept on going every weekend. This Easter meant one thing – Bells Beach Pro – and I was soooo pumped. A year ago I’d been surfing for but two months and was shocked at the amount of hot dudes this sport attracts when I headed to Bells. I’m glad I’ve stuck with it. Some say going to the Pro is like entering a ‘sausage forest’.*
A sausage forest
Bells was blessed this year with beautiful waves, the hottest day in 50 years and Kelly Slater pulling a perfect 10. As Kelly was running down the beach to the final Roobs and I found ourselves at the bottom of the crowd – media, grommets and us. Kelly stopped and tried to find his way through the crowd and our eyes met. The world stopping turning as I fell into his deep blue eyes. I saw dolphins. Yes. Kelly Slater has dolphins frolicking in his eyes. It's beautiful in there.
Grommets
Perhaps it was that moment of significant eye contact, perhaps it was meeting a new bunch of Seadogs in their 40s and 50s and having one of them tell me that being 36 was ‘yummy’, but somehow out of nowhere, I managed to catch the wave of my life on Easter Sunday – now and forever a special day for the God Squad and me.
I left Roobs to put on her wetty in the loos and she came out with it on... inside out
I’ve been trying to work out how I managed it. Was it because I was at Anglesea, a beach I know so well? Was it because I was surfing alone so was carefree and not subconsciously worrying about what the Baberahams thought of my attempts? Was it because I’d watched the Seadogs surf Winkipop and was impressed by their effortless style? Or was it because I’d been dolphinised by Kelly? I have no idea. All know is I can’t wait for the big swell to come through and surf all through to next summer where maybe I'll find the courage to take them up on the invitation to go with them to Winkipop.
This is what not froffin' out looks like. Dawn patrol and no waves.
There has been a Baberaham explosion this summer and my wildest dreams from a year ago have come true – a little surfing crew has been established. Yeow!! Last week there was a four-day Lorne lock-in and this time there were about 10 of us looking for waves. Sadly though Poseidon was not smiling upon us from the deep so didn’t deliver the clean sets we had hoped for. Instead for most of the time there was a choice of mooshy washing machine waves or flatty mcflatness. Nevertheless some of us tried our darnedest to surf. And sadly for me my ability seemed to go backwards rather than forwards. Dang.
THIS is froffin' out Doodlebum style
You’d think it would improve just by soaking up the Baberaham froffin’ force but instead I found myself experimenting with kneeboarding. And man, are my knees bruised. I’d manage one or two decent rides a session but for most of the time I felt like the fat kid in gym class. And the thing is a good surf is all a matter of what’s going on upstairs and not big guns and shoulders and athleticism (although that certainly helps. Bing! Bong!) As soon as negative chatter enters my head it all starts to go awry. My proudest surfing moment was managing to steer my board away from whacking a little girl on a boogie board on a wave a foot high. Sheesh!
Mad Dog making pizza. What. A. Man.
When the waves were dire the Baberahams had to find other activities. We made pizza. We danced. We talked surfing. We drank. We watched Morning of the Earth. We played tennis. We did crosswords. All the time quietly praying to Poseidon to show us some love.
The highlight of my weekend. An epic crossword session with Albatross.
And on the last day he did. Big bear hugs of waves. The type that tumble you around and you pop up, giggle and head on back out. At least that’s what everyone else did. It was a beautiful sunny day and I was in my saucy spring suit that I’d been busting to break out – it might make me surf better and sitting on my board with my arms and legs exposed would feel awesome. Well, the latter was definitely true.
It was a bit of a struggle to get out the back but I made it and felt good but then ended up floating around like a turkey as the Baberahams paddled in and enjoyed smashing fun rides. We were at the same spot where I’d had my working over a few weeks back and my confidence completely evaporated. I paddled in and pulled out of waves flapping my arms like an un-co chicken for what felt like eons before finally going for one and getting rough and tumbled. Then I didn’t have enough strength to paddle out again. I was paddling and going backwards. Oh, the frustration. I even felt teary. Woah. Talk about emo-ing out. So, before having a meltdown I went into shore and I prayed to Poseidon to lift me from the depths of despair to my bruised knees and pop me to my feet froffin’ out with joy. Praise be! It will happen. There's no choice. Now I’m practising every morning – I roll out of bed, lay on my stomach and pop to my feet imagining the best Gillbraham Lincoln style I can muster. Dame cinco!
This handsome fella caught my eye - a potential Baberaham, perhaps?
I had spent the winter and spring of last year dreaming of a surfari over Christmas/New Years. It was going to be down the Great Ocean Road, it was going to be with the Baberahams and it was going to mean great things for me and my surfing ability.
I would have to say that two out of three proved to be true. Woopah! Our basecamp was the Rough and Tumble in the bush at Lorne, away from the maddening crowd of Falls Festival goers and young families – a serious lack of MILFs and DILFs, I might add.
Sadly, Man Mountain couldn’t make the trip so it was left to the remaining Baberahams to do what is necessary on surfari – dawn patrol, burgers for breakfast, banana smoothies, daily naps, afternoon surf, more hot beef injections, beers, wines, watching surfing docos, talking about surfing, all with a dusting of lounge room dancing and trampolining.
A demo of a light dusting of trampolining
I’m not exactly sure staying in the one location for 6 days straight classifies as a surfari but we did travel up and down the coast trying to find a wave each day. And really, there was not much desire to move until a remote patch down near ‘Joey’s’ called Mad Dog like a siren song.
The boys head off to froth out while Doodlebum and I napped under an umbrella
Doodlebum and I have been trying our surfing darnedest the past 3 months – we’ve been heading down the coast throwing caution to the wind after reading the surf reports and have given all sorts of sloppy washing machine conditions a red hot go, including ½ foot waves that you could make in your bath. We were stoked on being out the back with the boys, stoked that we could now paddle out and stoked on the possibilities ahead of how our surfing ability will slowly but surely improve.
However...
This is what stoked looks like
I hit a bit of a snag day 3 of surfari. Dawn patrol led us to Fairhaven and what looked like messy lumpy conditions didn’t stop us all from heading in. Mad Dog and McConaughey were impressed that we managed to paddle out past the turbulence and get out the back. To quote Mad Dog, “Big tick, babes!” But to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t frothin’ out that morning but had a funny feeling. Not a sharky feeling, just a funny feeling. Never a good start.
Dawn patrol - pre-crunching
We were out pretty far trying to find some waves and after not going for anything for half an hour and starting to feel a little funny again what I would classify as a '50-year storm wave' and experienced surfers would call a wee 3.5 footer - hey let’s make it 4 foot for my ego – came upon me and I was what you would call wiped out. Rolled, crunched, axed, smashed. I was pushed to the bottom of the ocean, Poseidon’s front door, and I opened my eyes, saw nothing but brown sandy bits and realised I didn’t have much breath left. I remembered to not panic and let myself float back up. Gasp. Gulp. Yes. I’m back to the top, sans board. The force of the rough and tumble had ripped Dame Cinco from my leg. I was now but a frolicking seal waiting to be snacked on by the man in the grey suit.
Dame Cinco having a wee rest the day the waves were too big for this grom
The first thing I squealed was ‘I’ve lost my board’ and looked at Doodlebum and Mad Dog with the crazy eye. I then remembered that not only did Mad Dog wear red Baywatch boardies, he did have lifesaving experience. I admitted in a panicked voice that I was scared and he began talking to me in the only way you can when someone has the crazy eye – like talking to a 5 year old. ‘Okay, take my board. It’s just like yours, only a little bit smaller.’ I then clambered upon the board the size of a toothpick and feebly tried paddling back in. With a big push Mad Dog careened me onto a wave and I boogie boarded that thing in to shore to see McConaughey with Dame Cinco.
The Baberahams are good in a crisis. They got your back!
The Baberahams - Doodlebum, Mad Dog, me (the nickname Thruster by Mad Dog hasn't quite caught on), McConaughey
After having water flood out of every orifice in my face – no tears though – I felt completely shaken up. The boys headed back in and I sat on the sand with Doodlebum trying to explain the sheer terror that I felt. Perhaps I’m soft but it totally shook me up. I know as a grommet I should be stoked that I had my first big crunch but it ended up shaking my confidence and I haven’t quite got it back yet. It also made me question why we all surf – do we want to channel Bodhi? Or Matthew McConaughey? Or Jorgelina "Lina" Reyero (the chick in the clip below)? Or Eve Fletcher? I think I’m going to be more of the Eve Fletcher school – surfing for life not searching for the 50-year storm but a friendly little wave that will no doubt quietly grow in size as my confidence and ability will.
