As a 4-6 yr old in the early 60's Sundays in summer consisted of the family putting on the Sunday best, piling into a Taxi and off to Church. After church it was a short walk to the beach, Waikane in Gisborne, where we were soon devoid of the Sunday best and into swimmers, (no boardies in those days). Mum would spread out a picnic lunch with the best Bacon & Egg pie ever. Then it was wait an hour for lunch to settle before going into the surf. Dad had my younger sister trained notify him of any girls passing by in bikinnis, a rare sight in those days, as I waited the obligatory hour. Then it was off to the Kiosk where there was a rack of big yellow boards for hire. Dad would pay the hire and both of us would carry the board back to the beach and into the surf.
Most waves we caught tandem and most we surfed while still in the prone position. But man it was fun.

Great memories Big Sean, your dad had the right idea making sure he got full value from those 60s bikinis. Somehow they seem far more arousing to me than any modern ones but then, that’s only natural considering my age back then. Not to mention my modern day age/alcohol induced erectile dysfunction problems.


Despite my antiquity, many of my earliest surfing memories are quite recent because apart from a few half-hearted attempts on very inappropriate equipment for the 2 years before 1995, it was only in 95, after a near 30 year absence from surfing, that I put a real effort into it.

The reason I put a bit of effort into it in 95 was because I went and spent a lot of money on a real mal and my dear wife would have had my scrotum for a tea pot cosy if I had left it in the shed to rot. I don’t remember the brand but I do recall it went to god in 2 pieces some years later when I was caught under a close out at South Palmy.

Since the entire incident took no more than 5 seconds I’m going to pad it out a bit, but essentially it revolves around the fact that for months I was trying as hard as possible to surf and apart from a few shaky rides, everything else was just nose dives, missed waves, premature standing up, inelegant wipeouts and general incompetence.

I only have one recollection of my learning to surf back in 65-66 and that’s my friend telling me that I looked really funny with my legs so far apart. I believe his analogy related to one of the local Woolgoolga girls who had a similar difficulty when in the company of young gentlemen. So for that matter, I knew that it was probably not a good thing to stand too erect when first learning however, little else was helping me.

So against this background of profound ineptitude, there I sat out the back in 95 at a break near south Narrabeen just in front of the car park, across the road from the BBC hardware. And as usual, it was a day when I should not have been there with my non-existent skill level, the sets were over 6ft and closing out. I believe my toes were beginning to wrinkle because I had been sitting there doing SFA for so long.

I had to grow a pair of gonads and I had to grow them quickly or simply take up origami. With a great deal of trepidation I began my 5 second memorable moment paddling into, what for me was a big’n and much to my surprise, I got hold of it.

I sprang to my feet and for once I was in the right position with the correct stance and dropping down a face that I thought would never end at a speed that I could not comprehend. At the bottom I somehow managed to execute a standard bottom turn from the middle of the board which took me back up to the lip and over the top at roughly the equivalent speed as the drop. All this just before a disastrous close out. I even managed to land back on the board after flying out over the lip.

I know full well that it was probably all a fluke or a bit of luck and I know I was driven as much by fear as I was by any sort of skill. This was evidenced by the fact that despite the roar of the wave I do recall as I was going down the face hearing my sphincter snapping shut after first sucking a load of neoprene into my lower colon.

The one thing that wave did say to me was, “keep trying, you’ll get there” . I did keep trying and I did get to a skill level that, at the very least, meant that I was no longer a danger to myself or anyone else.

And I just love being out there.

Hopefully a few more punters might add their experiences/stories to this blog. We need to keep the interest level out there to ensure we keep the blog going.
Any way heres another tale.

My first really big surf amd I mean seriously big.
Roll on ten years from when I had started my love affair with our mother ocean and there was the usual gang of motleys hanging at the front of the Piha SLSC. The bar was 12-15ft plus with a strong offshore wind and with a handful of older guys on it when the call was made to hit it. You had to be kidding, it was like twice as big as anything I had been in before. But with Robman, Dru, Pretty Paul and a couple of others it was into the wetties and the long walk to the Pakati rocks and into the rip to paddle out. With head down and paddling furiously we were soon all seperated but still trying to get out the back.
Suddenly I found myself out the back while all the others were still trying. So I sat there in the safety zone and waited for my mates to join me. Every now & then a monster set would push through which kept me petrified but I knew I would be OK when the others joined me. And so I waited. I watched some of the older crew score some heavy drops and I waited. I certainly didn't want to get caught out here by some of these monsters so I made sure I was well away from the impact zone while I continued waiting for my mates to join me.
After an hour or so reality hit me, apart from the older crew who didn't acknowledge my presence, I was all alone. I might have had a relitively easy paddle out but how the hell was I going to get in. The waves were to big to catch and to consistent to try to paddle in with out catching one. All I could think of was getting a fin through the eye.
A smaller wave came through so I paddled for it got to my feet and slipped right at the top of the wave. Luckily the offshore blew me over the back of it and I quickly paddled out of the drop zone to figure out some other way to get in and not get a fin in the eye. There was no choice the tide was getting lower, the waves heavier, and the longer I stayed the more trouble I was in.
My second attempt was a bigger wave than before, but unlike the first I made the drop, swung a bottom turn and made a run along the face until it shut down on me. After the obligatory thumping from the wave it was regather myself and board to catch the white water from the next wave to wash up on the beach.
I had survived