I don’t know about you, but when I paddled out for my first surf of the year early on New Year’s Day, and there were already a hundred or more eager beaver dawn patrollers on every take-off spot between Gum Trees and Johnno’s, as much as I love Noosa I had this almost unbearably strong desire to be somewhere else.
Whatever happened to the old rule about Christmas and New Year mornings being the reward for those of us whose inclination to party hard is not governed by the calendar? Is everyone who surfs too old to rock and roll these days?
Actually, Christmas morning wasn’t so bad because the surf was on the beaches and all those groms with brand new sticks could spread out avoidably. New Year, with a bit of east swell and a sou’-easter howling around the corner, the points were the only place to be. It was intense, but I got a park with only a mildly abusive argument about it, and I got a few set waves because people I know took pity on me.
But I went home on the first day of the year, had a perfectly swell breakfast of eggs and left-over ham and smoked salmon – yes, all in together, who cares? It’s not like I’m that wanker restaurant critic they’ve hired here – but couldn’t settle to anything and couldn’t stop brooding. Then it dawned on me. For the first time since this whole Covid thing started, I’m jonesing for a plane-ride. Somewhere. Anywhere.
I shouldn’t be – it’s only nine months since I got back from surfing perfect Raglan in New Zealand, but I can’t remember the last time I went a whole gestation period without taking a trip. I suppose I could go back to NZ, but half of my Kiwi mates are actually French, and they’re in lockdown for the foreseeable future.
I haven’t not been to Bali in any year this century except 2020, and although the Bukit is mostly beyond me these days, I saw enough video of lonely waves being ridden at my local spots, like the Rivermouth Lefts, to make me salivate. There haven’t been so many waves ridden in Bali by so few people since the ‘70s, and as long as you don’t mind sharing with Kelly Slater and Rizal Tandjung, you could have had a ball.
But when will we be able to go to Indo again? Not this year, I’m sure. If there’s a bright spot, it’s simply that I know my Balinese friends are faring okay, living simply in their villages with the banjar officials keeping tourist and expat super-spreaders out.
I’d had my eye on Mexico for a while because they seemed to be handling the pandemic better than expected, but last month all was revealed. Like Indonesia before them, they’d simply contained the numbers for public consumption by not testing adequately, and now they’re approaching 1.5 million cases with an eight percent death rate. Of course, the focus is on Mexico City, which is a long way from La Saladita, where old mate Corky Carroll has a room ready with a view up to the point, but we’re too old to be taking chances like that, even if we could travel for leisure, which we can’t yet.
So for now I’m stuck here at one of the world’s great longboard waves surfing the points with just a couple of million good mates. Suck it up, old boy. Life could be a lot worse.
Doing the Barnacle Glide
And then, just when I’m feeling sorry for my stay-at-home self, up on my social media feed pops a photographic memory of a fine old time from a couple of years back, when we were the Noosa team at the Gliding Barnacles Surf Festival in Figuera da Foz, Portugal, romping around on the beach at that fine old surf and sardines town I first became acquainted with half a century ago.
The water was cold, as it always is in Portugal, but the sun was hot and the beer was cold. We surfed, we drank, we danced, we partied into the night. Now they’re back in lockdown too. It seems so long ago, but we’ll do it again one day. In the meantime, thanks for the memories, Sam Crookshank.
