But who could have ever guessed, who could have
ever possibly imagined, what toll the Covid-19 pandemic would have
upon our little ol’ surfing? Less than a year ago we were happily
plying a trade that had been forgotten, more or less, by the
mainstream. One-time World Surf League CEO Paul Speaker’s
pronouncement that The Sport of Kings would soon eclipse the
National Football League as laughable as any Louis C.K. comedy
sketch.
The surf industry apocalypse stretched far into the past and
farther into the future.
Then came the lockdown orders, the quarantining, the social
distancing, the no traveling, working or leaving and those who
lived near a coast decided to paddle.
Soon, surf shops couldn’t keep wetsuits in stock, Costco
couldn’t keep Wavestorms, and lineups swelled with new faces.
On the east coast, where freezing cold winter waters long kept
vulnerable adult learners out, they now looked at better waves
peeling, bought thicker wetsuits and kept paddling.
In a just-published The Philadelphia Inquirer piece titled
“More brave souls
try winter surfing during the pandemic, with sales and traffic
going up,” the real troubles are exposed.
After 35 years of surfing, Chris Konicki particularly loves
winter surfing — for the intense waves, often bigger than at other
times of the year, and the solitude. Yet this season, he’s not
quite alone.
“I was out in early December …,” said Konicki, a Strathmere,
N.J., resident. “There were maybe 25 people out. Last year or the
year before, you’d maybe see one or two.”
He’s not thrilled about that, preferring the tranquility of
solo surfing or with just a buddy when, in the winter, he hits the
waves about once a week, the water temperatures as low as the 30s
and the air as cold as 20 degrees.
On it goes, detailing horror story after horror story. VALs
wonderfully impressed by the bracing chill, the feeling of
aliveness, the wonders of modern wetsuit technology. How surfing is
naturally socially distanced and close, or close enough, to
millions upon millions of Jersey-ites, New Yorkers, Philadelphians
etc.
And who could have predicted that a general surf apocalypse
would follow the surf industry apocalypse?
Not me.
Not in one-million years.
