JP Currie on Mason Ho’s wild month-long Scottish romp, “What value there is in talented, personable surfers willing to seek waves both murderous and beautiful!”

You can’t help but admire his aesthetic. It’s like a dog chasing its own tail. Even if it ends in success it’s going to hurt.

Is there a more marketable freesurfer than Mason Ho?

Perhaps Torren Martyn, but the two are so different they can happily co-exist. As consumers of surfing we’re lucky to have them, just as their respective wetsuit sponsors are.

What value there is in talented, personable surfers willing to seek waves both murderous and beautiful.

Both have made recent trips to savour the delights of a Scottish winter in the interests of content creation and to test the extremities of rubber.

(BY THE WAY, WETSUIT COMPANIES: HELLLLOOOOO…SCOTTISH WRITER FOR HIRE!)

Mason and filmer Rory Pringle scored a solid period of waves whilst they were here.

This part-time surf scribe was aware of their presence in his beloved homeland but stuck some miles away, baw-deep (to use a local colloquialism) in covid-afflicted pedagogy.

The first offering was eighteen minutes of more-or-less raw footage (complete with car radio soundtrack) of Ho surfing a “wee slab” as he calls it (in another nod to local colloquialism) and it is compelling in its lunacy.

The “wave” is on the north coast, and the inverted commas are to designate that no-one but Mason Ho might consider it as such. There are other options in the vicinity, but perhaps none quite so aligned with Ho’s masochistic talents.

You might call it a novelty wave, but the connotations are far too light-hearted and belie the seriousness of what it might feel like to have your face or neck or elbow joint driven into unerring Caithness flagstone.

Bodyboarder Ben Player made an overly dramatic Red Bull produced film about the same wave. In his clip, he named it “The Bull”.

It seems a bit presumptuous to claim naming rights for a wave on the other side of the world, but actually it’s probably fair enough since he and Mason are the only people I know to surf it.

In Ben Player’s film he pitches it like he’s about to confront a Tyrannosaurus Rex on a football field, wears motocross armour and a full-face helmet, and says several times that he might die.

Mason simply paddles out with a GoPro in his mouth, goes chip-in to barrel to ragdoll, over and over again, trashes some boards and fins, then posts the raw footage.

You can’t help but admire his aesthetic.

It’s a bit like a dog chasing its own tail.

He’s clearly having a lot of fun but even if it ends in success it’s going to hurt.

And, now, part second in the seven-part series.

Bring on the next.