You've got the best waves in the world, it's 80 fucking degrees and you want to complain about haole boys and closeouts?
There’s a fundamental difference in outlook from those of us who grew up surfing in the North Pacific, and those even in places like Maine who surf. In order to learn to surf anywhere north of San Francisco you’re going to deal with shitty weather, rough and closeout breaks, and even getting into the lineup often requires forcing your way through six to ten separate breaks.
Hawaiians like to talk about how dangerous their waves are, how brutal the reefs are, and so forth. The reality of the situation, however, is that anyone who’s learned to surf in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, etc, has dealt with far more adversity in the pursuit of stoke than anything you will face in Hawaii. The one true difficulty that Hawaii has over somewhere like Oregon or Alaska is the rampant localism and the wicked crowded lineups. In exchange, however, you have the lifeguards, easy access to medical care and a distinct lack of Great Whites.
The most important aspect is that it’s easy to be a person who surfs somewhere like Southern California, Hawaii, Florida, etc, but in order to deal with all the bullshit it takes to surf the North Pacific you have to be a surfer.
No one else will put in the time, the effort, the physical toll, in order to catch a few shitty closeout waves by themselves, day after day. I’m obviously being biased here. I spent my youth in Alaska and my summers with my grandparents in San Diego so I had a rather unique exposure to the two different extremes of surf culture, if you will.
In Alaska just the logistics of getting to the part of the state where there are consistent breaks, mainly the southeastern part of the state, are challenging in and of themselves. In San Diego you’re within two hours of something like 250 individually named breaks. About the only place that’s difficult to get to are the breaks along the coastline that Camp Pendleton controls, and honestly it’s not that hard to get on the base, legally or otherwise.
The point of this article isn’t to pit people against each other, although the tone might lead you think otherwise, the point is to make people who are blessed to live somewhere like Hawaii, Orange County, or San Diego, realize how lucky they are and how much effort people elsewhere have to put in to catch waves that, for the most part, pale in comparison to what y’all find in your backyards.
Instead of focusing on all the stupid bullshit that we focus on, the assholes snaking waves, the kooks cracking boards or the standup paddleboards just fucking everything up, we need to focus on that thing that unites us all, the search for that endorphin rush that we all get from a decent wave, a good ride, and a woman to impress.
Give me stoke over the weak shit that is cocaine any day of the week.