By PHIL JARRATT
IN THE love fest that follows a successful festival of surfing, you tend to forget that not everyone loves the “eight days of pure stoke” as much as we do. I know a few long-time locals who used to be involved with the festival and no longer are, for various reasons, and who actually leave town to avoid it.
Anyway, horses for courses. Until members of my family started participating, I used to try to avoid the lead-in week to the triathlon for fear of copping a mouthful from scowly-faced Lycra-clad jocks doing their early morning speed trials, so I understand the sentiment, even though I know that cyclists, like surfers, come in all shapes, sizes and temperaments.
The main issue with the surf festival seems to be that it brings hordes of surfers to town from all over the world. There is no doubt that festival week in March is one of the most crowded of the year, particularly if the surf is good. While four or six surfers at a time revel in the best longboard contest conditions of their lives at First Point, the outer bays are teeming with competitors getting in practice sessions alongside recreational surfers. Or so I’m told: I’m always too busy to get out there. But Noosa’s five point breaks are crowded whenever we enjoy a run of good swell, particularly when a Coral Sea low feeds us from slightly north of due east and our points offer groomed perfection while the rest of South East Queensland is out of control. This has been a fact of life for many years. (If you watch Paul Witzig’s Hot Generation, you will see that even half a century ago, a good swell brought quite a crew to town.) It is something we share with all the great surf breaks of the world. Try surfing Malibu on the one great south swell of the summer, or anywhere on the North Shore of Oahu between November and February. Or closer to home, look at the madness of the Snapper Rocks “Super Bank”.
Compared to these places, Noosa remains relatively relaxed, most of the time.
In the past week, surfers have reached out to us, through the letters page of Noosa Today and via email, about “so-called professional surfers” allegedly making a meal of it at National Park on that near-perfect day, Monday, 16 March. Local surfer James Geitz wrote to NT after being dropped in on repeatedly during a two-hour session: “Maybe Phil Jarratt and the festival organisers need to remind these guys and girls to show respect to other surfers … Just because they are professionals photographed for magazines or have been in surf movies does not exempt them from surfing etiquette … ”
Visiting surfer Peter Coleman emailed the festival office: “I am forced to send you this after my experience at National Park this morning. I was surfing with a mate who is a local and we were repeatedly dropped in on by a bunch of young blokes who were having photos taken. They were blokes who had surfed in the contest and should have displayed a little more of the spirit of surfing than they did. Not only did they drop in, they waited until we were well involved in sections and still went, thus spoiling the wave. This is just disrespect.”
Peter continued: “I watched your comp and it does not seem to engender or promote the qualities I witnessed this morning, but these blokes were simply elitist and thought they were better than everyone else, so should have all the waves.”
While I’m glad Peter doesn’t seem to hold us personally responsible for the sins of others, James apparently thinks a quiet word from an old bloke wearing a lanyard and a sponsor’s cap might do the trick, which I somehow doubt. However, the side issue that both surfers raise is that the offenders were being photographed and filmed and therefore seemed to assume that others should vacate their “studio” or suffer the consequences. This is an unfortunate and growing problem.
Since the new hipsters began to roam the shores with their bushranger beards and stovepipes, Noosa has been targeted as a make-believe Nirvana where lithe girls and hirsute chaps frolic in a bucolic wonderland between sessions riding their logs at perfect point breaks no-one else knows about. This was a fairy tale in Paul Witzig’s day and it is a fairy tale today. Only the drugs have changed.
But if you check out any of the last half dozen or so “cool” and “alternative” surf movies, you will see the same story (and many of the same faces) in all. These little fantasies are made on the smell of an oily rag, so not surprisingly the filmers come to Noosa at festival time to take advantage of the fact that all of the best traditional surfers in the world are already here.
In my experience, most filming crews are polite and genial, but there are exceptions. And as James and Peter have found, there are no bit parts for old fart recreational surfers. The best policy, I’ve found, is to keep surfing and keep smiling. Do unto others, and play the old guy card when you have to – couldn’t see you, couldn’t hear you, and if you punch me and I die, you’ll go to jail for a very long time.
