Casting Back

It's been a while since I last posted and there's a good rationale for this, I'll explain in a post when I feel ready to cover it. In the meantime, for various reasons, I've been trawling through old photos and came across one taken the first time I tried surfing. It's kind of difficult to see but that's me standing up for the first time. I was pretty pleased with myself getting to my feet within an hour and riding the white water and thought I had it mastered but it was a long time before I really got the hang of it. Still learning in fact and don't think I will ever stop.

The odd thing is that I stumbled across this, completely by accident almost 25 years to the day that it was taken (on 25th July, 1988). Which means I've hit the quarter centenary of loving this sport. And it got me thinking about what it is I love about surfing and why it's such a magnetic pastime. Lots of people have tried to capture in words and many far more eloquent people than myself have failed, so I'm not expecting I will nail it in this list.

• It drives you to travel and explore places that you might not visit. If you look at many of the popular beach destinations of the world it was surfers who discovered it first, breaking the ground for those that followed. Bali, Maldives, Mexico, Fiji. Not always a good thing but it's surfers that forged the path.
• You have fun even when it's average. A mate of mine once said that he gave up windsurfing because the combination of conditions needed to make it enjoyable for him got so precise that he only really went out a few times a year. Eventually, as other commitments built up, he wasn't able to go on those days. As a sociable sport I've had fun with a bunch of mates even in 1 - 2ft surf.
• Enjoying it is generally free. You might have to drive but you can rock up at almost any beach and simply jump into the ocean. No court fees, no club memberships.

On reflection I think it's a deeply personal thing but at the end of it all, when you sum it up, it shapes our lives and the life decisions we make in ways that are common to other sports that share the same combination of skill and nature. It has for the past 25 years and no doubt will continue to do so for the next 25.