Many “Waves of Pain” stories are about merciless thrashing handed out by the ocean when it’s in an angry mood. Not all. Some come from a wholly different kind of pain. I remember thinking, oh… what a load of bullshit, the first time I heard the expression “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” To me, an emotional beating has always been way worse … [Read more...]
Surf or golf? Nah. Neither. Should have stuck by the pool.
A bloke I know was taking a quick holiday at a luxury golf resort that just happened to own its own private beach rimmed with an outer reef that had pretty good waves. Ninety-nine percent of the guests at the hotel were golf nutters (and the beach was off-limits to non-guests), so my mate, Grunter, figured that a quiet paddle with no-one else to nick any of the best waves might … [Read more...]
Surfing is my feminist origin story – (in that I left for the arts swiftly, and remained angry)
We crowded around the TV in a sweaty demountable and watched footage of the high school surfing team. I saw stringy boys in black wetsuits ride wave after wave; I was waiting for footage of me, which arrived unexpectedly spliced into the year ten boy’s semi-final, although I wasn’t surfing. I was emerging from the water and onto the shore—like girls I had seen in Tracks … [Read more...]
(It’s Great To) Suck at Something – Karen Rinaldi reveals why being a surfing kook is better than just okay.
Over the past 15 years, surfing has become a kind of obsession for me. I surf eight months a year. I travel to surf destinations for family vacations and seek (forgiving) waves in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. I have spent thousands of dollars on boards of all sizes and shapes. In the sport of (Hawaiian) kings, I’m a jester And yet — I suck at it. In the sport of … [Read more...]
Surfing in the land of ice and fire – exploring Kamchatka… Siberia’s wildest region!
In the sixties, adventurous surfers stowed away on ocean liners to discover the exotic waves of the Hawaiian Islands. What a blast that must have been? Even if you got caught. In the seventies, the next generation of surfers with wanderlust took cheap flights to Indonesia to discover destinations like Bali’s Uluwatu and Kuta. Wave-mad hippies like Rusty Miller and Stephen … [Read more...]