"Some guys will just paddle straight past you to the inside and catch the next wave even if you’re right there in the spot waiting."
Two weeks ago, the VAL surfing world was rocked after an almost-violent episode at The Pass in Byron Bay with insult added to injury when “older white men” made fun of the surfer’s plight on the Instagram account @lordsofbyronbay, which described the event as “tragic” and “emotional.”
Now, it can be revealed that the incident wasn’t isolated and that hell-raisers are terrorising Byron Bay surf spots, including popular beginner waves The Pass and Wategos.
In a story that appeared in the Byron shire’s Echo Net Daily yesterday and headlined “When the Endless Dream Turns Sour”, the surfer reported in our previous story, Ben Mallinson, is interviewed on the near-fight that left him “shocked and confused”.
For Mr Mallinson, and a significant number of other local surfers, the issue has a deeper cause – an unhealthy surf culture in which aggression and abuse are deemed acceptable behaviours by men.
‘Somehow, we’ve arrived at this point in coastal culture where it’s totally justifiable and okay for men to abuse other men,’ Mr Mallinson says. ‘We seem to be stuck in this loop that comes from these old legacies of behaviour.’
Ominously, reports the Echo, “It was an ugly incident, but far from an isolated one.”
The region’s most popular surf spots such as The Pass, Wategos and Tallows regularly feature acts of aggression, anger and abuse, including a number of serious assaults.
One particular surfer at Wategoes is infamous within the local surf community for his aggressive and violent behaviour towards both men and women.
‘I was paddling out over the white wash as he was riding in on the wave,’ said one surfer who asked to remain anonymous. ‘He targeted me by coming as close as he could with a cut back… even though he had no need to. [Then] I get my foot squished [by his board]. You can’t say anything to him. He’ll fight you – man, woman, paddle boarder, dog, whoever.’
And,
Fellow local surfer, Ellen, believes it’s time for surfers to have ‘a calm conversation with their mates’ when they behave aggressively. She said the unhealthy side of local surf-culture included men not respecting women in the line-up.
‘Some guys will just paddle straight past you to the inside and catch the next wave even if you’re right there in the spot waiting,’ she said.
Which side do you fall, calm conversations over fair trade coffee, or beach justice?
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Beach justice certainly sounds more entertaining, but my fave is – as ever – not surfing with cunts. Here in Valinor, the utmost of the western lands, a place so far west it’s practically east, this kind of behaviour is relegated to breaks where the young & impetuous feel the need to claim and the middleaged longboard overcompensators desperately try to work out the stress of failing at life.
Shit happens, apparently, but I had to go across the ditch to Maroubra to see it.
Was it Jason Bourne causing all the aggro?
These days the Peking order is the Peking order.
There’s so many good surfing girls pulling rank over me, it’s nothing to do with sexism.
A Gumby is a Gumby irrespective of gender
I’m such a kook that I’m constantly getting in my own way and then threaten myself with violence but can’t even punch my way out of a wet paper bag, so end up rolling around looking stupid.
And that’s before I even get into the water.
VALs just can’t handle the fact some 12 year old kids have more power in the lineup than they do.
Hahaha pretty classic scenario. Dumb old cunt taking off on straight hander and then berating kid 5km away for dropping in.
It’s gotten ridiculous. Next thing you know they’ll be wearing helmets, and life vest…..
Sounds like Bryon is basically over for real surfers
Byron was over for real surfers since the shortboard revolution. It’s mal heaven though.
Not so many at Tallows.
Surfing is not equal. If you don’t like it don’t surf with other people.
There’s a pecking order because that’s how life works.
They’re just bitching since they’re at the bottom below the groms.
The best example to ask these people is if they think all employees should be paid the same or if the better ones with better reputations should be paid more.
Well, perhaps we should ask you a similarly analogous question: Who should be paid more & given a promotion: (a) The guy who has been working there for ten years and does his job really well but mostly keeps to himself, or (b) The boss’s delinquent nephew who’s been there for six months.
I’m fine with a pecking order based on ability, time spent in the water, and earned respect, so long as it also perpetuates and an individualist approach in which the lowest possible act is aggressively backing up a mate who is actually in the wrong. However most localism is based on nepetism and rabid-dog pack mentality these days.
It’s a hard lesson in the fact that relationships matter.
You call localism rabid pack mentality, I call it a community of surfers with high levels of mutual trust and respect. I don’t see localism as a per se prohibition that outsiders are not allowed. I’ve surfed too many localized waves as an outsider without issue for this to be true. Those places do exist but they’re exceptions.
At crowded and good waves you have to compete to get waves. If you take that approach to localized waves you’re going to get shit because you’re directly threatening the communal and collaborative nature of the spot.
Being able to surf also really helps. If you show that you will make good use of the wave the locals will have less of an issue with you getting a few. But if you don’t have a solid bottom turn that projects you down the line yeah you’re probably gonna get shit if it’s a good and fickle wave.
Beach justice, do your time, increase your ability, rise up the pecking order, just like it’s always been.
Perhaps these “surfers” would be more comfortable in a wave pool where everyone takes a turn and nobody ever has to feel unhappy or unsafe ever again.
$17 dollar a cup fair trade beans aside.. the locals may as well just run clueless fuckers over. Those logs could probably thin the herd pretty fast. And the ones that want it – shoeless deathmatches on Johnson St as the evening entertainment! Beats fire twirling and maintaining blonde dreads or whatever the hippies do these days when not being social media stars.
I bet the interviewer wanted smash this guy too, fuck that fucken guy.
Peace.
Ellen: “Degenerates!”
Ellen has probably been surfing for 5 mins and likely is one of those VAL’s who paddles for waves then pulls back at the last minute. Yet still entitled.
Would definitely burn Ellen…and also Oprah.
1) Who paddles over the white wash?
2) Who is doing cutbacks IN the white wash?
Cancel culture and the PC brigade weren’t triggered by the tortured plight of the entitled sea changing fuckwit Val on Facebook so the genius has taken it to mainstream ‘media’. Local news outlets serve only to the elderly that don’t know what a Facebook is but need to be angry about something. People are just so fucking dumb!
its a kook double down!
1) Longboarders
2) That’s the point the original quote was making – he was doing a non-functional cutback just for the sake of running the guy over.
How can anyone paddle past you if you’re waiting in the right spot?
The right spot for a VAL is right in your fucking way
only if you’re a dude into “abusing older men” like the homie clearly states
I would pay money to see a little man fight a very large dog.
Cue footage of Bugs
Hiding in the bushes while
Fast Eddie pounces!
Which of you surfs Wategoes? Don’t you know you cutback into their board, not next to it, and then after you beat them, have them pay for the ding repair?
Why do you think Derek Hynd started going finless in the first place?