"Honestly, some of the biggest kooks I've ever seen happened to be surfing today."
It’s been a terrible two days for the learner surfer, a long protected species, ocean is there to be shared etc, who has suddenly been thrust under the klieg lights and told to beat it.
Yesterday, learner surfers were officially banned from surfing at Cloud 9, a popular reef break on the Philippine island of Siargao and made popular by prolific BeachGrit commenter Johnny Callahan and his toy boys Evan Slater and Taylor Knox.
You’ll recall local photographer Bryan Waverider, again, not real sure he was born thus, writing:
NEW SURFING RULES IN SIARGAO
1. Beginners Surf Lessons are NOT ALLOWED at Cloud 9 Surf Spot.
2. Surf shops are NOT ALLOWED to rent out surfboards to beginner surfers without instructor.
The new rules were universally hailed by longtime surfers as overdue and necessary, many pointing out the dysfunction of that most mythical of tropical surf spots, Uluwatu.
Uluwatu in Bali is horrendous for this. Instructors taking over the line up, pushing low level surfers that are struggling to paddle let alone catch a wave. This scenario takes away everything that makes these locations so special when you finally do become good enough to surf them.
Today it is Nathan Florence, a surfer of the year and brother of John John Florence, and Koa Rothman, scion of North Shore philanthropist Fast Eddie Rothman, lamenting the explosive growth of kooks in the lineup.
The clip is below with both men describing various learner horrors.
As much as I enjoy the brotherhood of surfing, and I definitely believe the more the merrier, I have qualms regarding certain behaviours.
- Calling a better surfer off a wave. There is no greater lesson than being given a chance to examine, closely, the lines of a good or great surfer.
- Wearing surf hats unless pale-skinned and, or, bald.
- Leashless longboards in a pack.
- A lower intermediate surfer on a seventy-litre board snatching every chip shot on the tip of the bank and veering both ways thereby clearing the left and the right.
- Not splitting peaks.
- Getting heated up over a drop-in unless wave, barrel, of a lifetime or deliberately provocative.
