Hello everyone, maybe i have written about this before but in the context of my and Blackies surfing adventure we are on I think its an appropriate subject and do you surf ? that’s a question that I have been asked countless times over the years.
I think with the hair I have I must look the part of the surfer with the dreadlocks.

The real answer is no and theres a pretty good reason that , thats explained in the following answer.

When i was in primary school there was only one ,
Skeg Head, Surfer Surfie  Grommet at my school , so they weren’t actually that common at that age group, and with him besides the punch in the eye , we were prety good mates .

When it comes to the  older Surfies in the area they stuck completely to themselves in their own group in contrast with the Wonthaggi petrol heads group who were exactly the same.

They were often seen fighting each other at the old Wonthaggi pizza parlour on a Friday and Saturday night after the Caledonian hotel had closed.

So by the time I hit secondary school the amount of surfers at school had increased a lot with kids attending the tech school from all over the district that surfed .
It was such a popular sport that the school I think was one of the first to offer surfing as a sporting activity a available  to students on a Friday afternoon .

I wasn’t that keen on the thought of of surfing at the time but at some stage  I had a visit  with a surfie mate to the local Sundance surfboad makers factory on White Rd Wonthaggi , it sort of changed things, a little I met the owner and his name was Greg Hogan and he is an absolute legend in the local surfing fraternity.
Greg was the coolest dude he let me look at the inner workings of the factory and all of the new boards in the different stages of the  manufacturing process.
And in the repairs section ,
Ii noted that all of the new boards were  all staged special works of art and so skilfully made.

I liked the T stands they were mounted on , and I remember all the drips of resin over the years on the brackets they had built up and drooped down like an odd deformed shaped saggy fat candle ,

Of course new surfboards actually start as a foam inner board blank ,
This importantly is shaped to the surfers specs or as a stock shop board this gives the board its individual handling characteristics so its a learned craft and the blanks are lovingly shaped by the shaper with great care and skill ,

And then fins are added mostly three as a thruster , then decals applied and then fibreglass woven matt cloth  is layed  on the blank and finally its  completely coated with polyester resin and hey presto a brand new board is born , materials are kept yo a minimum, thus keeping thicknesses to a minimum and as to give the lightest  strongest weight practicable to the final product.

So while at at school I was friends with all the Skeg heads but I was also friends with all the Petrol  heads .
I could never see the problem but it certainly existed.

At thd age of 15 ,I was a member of Wonthaggi lifesaving club and I got my first surfing experiences there, riding the club plank which was about  a 9.5 ft long heavy fibreglass board ,
I would spend hours  riding that board on the Cape Patterson left hand reef shore break at high tide , it was easy to ride and lots of fun ,
I sometimes would ride right up until the  tide was too low and I would whilst riding then I would accidentally hit a rock while i was standing up on a wave and it would result in taking a chunk out of the fin and having me launched foward off the board as it abruptly stops dead into the water  in the process.

So when I was sixteen I then started my apprenticeship as a motor panel beater ,
in front of the panel shop was a local hardware shop.  There was a man working there named, Stewie ,
who was a surfer and one day he invited me to come out surfing with him in the mornings
I thought why the hell not ,
so I set off to see Hoges at his shop and to pick a secondhand board off his rack , a new leg rope some surf wax and im set .
Stewie sold me an old
Rip Curl spring suit , with short arm , short legs ,

Now most surfboards have their specs written on their underside in pencil , under the laminate to make it easy yo identify the board’s dimensions.

So I knew absolutely nothing about surfboards boards so I just picked the one I liked .
I can remember
Some of the writing it was named jack it was fairly plain and it was a gun shape surfboard made to surf big waves it was around 7ft long and it had a big red single fin on it.

So there you go I was wrapped and ready for a few trips with Stu
So I found out that with my new surfing life is something that I loathe  and that is get out of bed at ungodly hours early at daybreak , and head to a break and he took me to a fair few different local areas depending on the prevailing wind and tide .

I think the first time that I couldn’t even paddle out through the breakers to where the swell breaks and you catch a wave as paddling your weight laying on a surfboard while you are half underwater is a skill you develop over time.

So I slowly learned the tricks to the trade except to use the rip at the side to tear you out there . I took the hard way .
So when it came to standing up on a wave I had no trouble getting up on my feet and apparently im a goofy foot and the thrill of standing up and the ride didn’t ever last long because as soon as I stood up I would nose dive the board into the bottom of the wave and get totally smashed.

That is the part of surfing that iI disliked the most and I’m probably not the lone ranger here but sometimesI was  getting smashed so bad you don’t know where the surface is and your lungs are bursting and  when you  surface you see another wave about to swallow you  up and crunch down on your head and you only have enough time to suck in another lung full of air , and into the washing machine again .

But because I didnt get a decent ride and I didn’t get to  experience the adrenaline rush that makes surfing nearly a drug and I continually got smashed my enthusiasm wained and I eventually stopped going.

So many years later I discovered what i was actually doing wrong and what had caused all of the nosedives .
You see everytime I stood up I looked at my feet to see where they were changing my centre of gravity and causing the board nose to drop and to spear into the water. .

Hmm
In hindsight It would have been nice to know that back then , but thems the breaks .
Apparently you actually just simply look at where you want to go.
Thats the big secret.

As far as what happened to my old Jack board my nephew Jayke snavled it im not sure if he still has it but it would look good on my wall as single fins are fairly rare nowadays days .

The wetsuit lasted thirty years ,
But everything is gone now but the memories.

Ps with the local war going on between the local Skeg Heads and the Wonnie Petrol Heads  strangely came to an abrupt end with the introduction to the area of
Thai Buddha
That sure changed things .
Nearly everyone became friends.

And that’s what surfing is about

Cheers xxx
Curlyg

Cheers xxx
Curlyg