I think surfing is like playing rock and roll.
From my limited time mucking about with a few ‘studio’ bands, someone once said that playing in band basically consists of a lot of sitting around and fiddling with stuff, punctuated by a few moments of ‘ecstasy’ that is when you are actually playing live when it all comes together.
I was reminded of that up at Noosa at Easter. A work colleague of a friend who lives there is a mad surfer and does a few private lessons so I was fortunate to have my own personal surf coach for two sessions. After a short surfing stint in Byron last year (stay tuned for song in upcoming album) I knew some surf basics so was keen to get back into it.
Unlike Byron which had had a strong current making the walk/paddle out to the waves an ordeal in itself, the surf at Little Cove, Noosa was a relative breeze. I mostly got to the standing up stage and starting to steer, though was still wary of any surfers/swimmers in my rather unpredictable path.
But having progressed this far I soon became aware of the waiting game ritual of surfing. Sitting there on the board, waiting, waiting….. not for the perfect wave in my case, but any wave, then suddenly without warning, my coach tells me to start paddling, but a second early or late or a foot wrong and it’s starting all over again...and then the tide starts to come in which kind of dampens the waves…so it’s probably over for the day.
I even read the surf report that morning and surf coach said that I can now say that I “surfed the point break at Noosa”. Sounds good to me!
