This morning I was having coffee and watching the surf from the deck of a café on the beach at my local surf spot.
As I was sitting there, two guys came out of the water and started screaming at each other over an issue that had happened in the water. It seemed that one of the guys had paddled right in the way of the other who was riding a wave. I had to laugh, as this has always been one of my pet peeves. People think it’s more important for them to make it over the shoulder of the wave than it is to let you go by so you can make the wave.
This reminded me of a story I wrote maybe 10 years ago about this very situation that I think is still worth a read. So, I dug it up and thought I would re-share.
This is a little story about my pal Larry. Larry is an older lifelong Orange County surfer, a “local” if you will. To say that Larry might have gotten a tad crusty in recent years would be putting it mildly, he has kind of turned into a grouch.
So, one day Larry decided to go surfing down at Trestles, just south of San Clemente. Unfortunately for Larry, he timed it kinda bad as it was about 4 p.m. when he pulled onto the 405 freeway heading south. Eight lanes of bumper to bumper gridlock. When one dude in a Honda Civic tried to change lanes to go for an upcoming exit, Larry gunned it so the guy couldn’t make the change. They both traded one finger salutes.
It went like that all the way to San Clemente where it finally let up a little bit. By then, Larry was not in the best of moods. But he knew there was a good south swell running, and the winds were good, so the surf was obviously gonna be worth the horror drive down there to get it. There was a tiny bit of optimism in his gate as he made his way down the trail to get to the beach.
Finally on the beach and looking out to the surf, things took a turn for the worse. The surf was excellent, but there were probably close to 80 people already out there. Looked like ants on a leftover peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Larry’s mood went from bad to bitterly bad. Nonetheless, he was already there so he was determined to paddle out and try to snag a few sets.
After about five waves, where he was dropped in on a couple of times, Larry finally caught a good set wave all to himself. As he was screaming down the line and gaining speed to make a fast section, he noticed a guy paddling his brains out to try and make it over the shoulder in front of him. Right in the path that Larry had to take to make the wave.
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Of course, after all the ranting and raving over this mishap, it left Larry himself right in the middle of the lineup. He jumped on his board and started to scramble as fast as he could to make it over the shoulder of the oncoming wave. On that wave was one of the better surfers in the area, and he was coming down fast and hard. Larry saw him and paddled as fast as he could to get around the wave.
All of his years of surfing were telling him to stop and let the guy go by, that was the right move in this situation. But he was committed to trying to paddle around the wave and that’s what he did. The surfer on the wave was yelling and trying to wave him off, but to no avail.
Luckily for Larry the guy was a good enough surfer to see that he was not going to make it past him and did a big cutback just before running Larry down.
Larry went home, took a long look in the mirror and pondered the meaning of life.
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