What's your longest break from surfing?

[purple pyramids]

think i might be heading into an extended break. my last few surfs at the local were so appaling with drop-ins and people abusing each other that i don't have much desire for it.

[foot-e]

yeah i got similar story to ajohnsen..loooong break and its funny was going to make a post about it here and then saw this thread. will post the details when I am not at work.

great thread.

[RickyG]

think i might be heading into an extended break. my last few surfs at the local were so appaling with drop-ins and people abusing each other that i don't have much desire for it.

You weren't out at Collaroy on the ANZAC Monday holiday were you

This question of whether you still call yourself a surfer came up here years ago, in fact it might have been the first thread I started as it loomed large in my mind having recently become a parent. The responses varied (I think Fong argued that, technically, as soon as you exit the water you're no longer a surfer) but most seemed to think that once it's in your blood you're a surfer for life.
I tend to agree with that, taking up surfing - and being comitted to it - is a lot different to playing golf or tennis for a few years then stopping. If I'm away from the water for a while I still 'mind-surf' when I see a ripple peel down a river bank, or a boat's wake, or even a tree overgrowing a pathway like a breaking wave. If I moved t othe desert tomorrow and never saw the coastline again I'd still think aboutit all the time I reckon.

[RickyG]

Here's the link to the thread I mentioned if you're interested:

http://forum.realsurf.com/forum/viewtop ... =4&t=10241

[_cant_touch_this]

im currently in the middle of my longest absense from the brine in, well, ever.

i made the decision around this time last year that i wanted to get away from the northern beaches to clear my head, meet some new people and do something other than get retard-drunk at mona pub with the same crew week in, week out.

in the end i quit my job, packed my bags and less than 2 months later was living in vancouver, canada. now i know there is surf out on vancouver island, but i havent been out there, nor do i think il get an opportunity to do so before i come home (which will be in early june im pretty sure).

its been 10 months, and the last 2 months have been the hardest yet, as far as being away from what i love is concerned. i still get ASL delivered to me over here, and today i sat down with the latest issue and read it cover to cover. im not sure whether its just my hunger to get back in the water, but its been a long time since iv read an issue that was so jam-packed with mouth-watering images as ASL#261. im not kidding, that issue is practically porn for somebody who hasnt surfed in almost a year.

one thing that has become clear to me in these last few weeks though, is that id taken it for granted just how accessible surfing was for me. iv grown up in newport, and never been further than a 10 minute walk from the sand (and at one point even lived in a beachfront appartment, where i could practically dive off of the balcony and be in the lineup). i started working full-time, and it totally killed not only my daylight surfing hours, but my surfing passion in general. i went from surfing 4-5 days a week, and often multiple times a day when it was good, to surfing once or twice a month, which was awful, as id turned into a total kook! this was the biggest shock, and it made me not want to surf - i went from being a very competent surfer, comfortable in all waves and pretty much all crowds, to feeling like a fish out of water - not fun!

this time 'round, im looking forward to getting home and getting back into bartending - leaving me with my days free to surf, just like the good ol' days. i want to be back in the same mindset i was in back in highschool - id surf just for the love of it, it didnt have to be even remotely good. i remember one week during summer, it was FLAT - barely a knee high ripple to be found, however i found a sneaky little wave at my local. one of the rocks had no sand on it, and on low tide it was about knee-deep, and produced the most grovelly, piece of shit knee-high righthander iv ever surfed. it was great, i literally surfed in the sun, on my own twice a day for a week straight, on one of the worst 'waves' iv ever surfed. i was riding a little 5'10 quad, and by mid-week, i was managing 2-3 turns, and the occasional little punt on most of the 'bigger' ones - i was like a pig in shit! all i wanted to do was surf, and so thats all i did. every low tide id be on it, and then by the time we did get some swell, i was surfing better than iv ever surfed in my entire life. thats where i want to be when i get home, i feel like that fire is burning again, and i dont want to let it go out, and i think that this long absence is just the fuel i needed to do that.

booking a flight home on june 10th from LA, and doing the west coast of the US for a week beforehand, so hopefully i can get in the water at least once - im still sorting s**t out, but i should be stopping in seattle, oregon, san fran, santa cruz and santa barbara before 2 nights in LA and home. bring it on!

anyway, good luck to you if you got through all of that - sorry to ramble, but im just frothing!!!

[ajohnsen]

sorry to ramble, but im just frothing!!!

A good ramble!

Kinda sounds like my story a bit. Especially the fact that once your time in the water drops and you start kooking, ego/pride won't let you continue. Still not sure where I stand on that one. If, for whatever reason, you can't surf as well as you know you can, and you don't have the means to rectify the situation, should you keep on surfing without the enjoyment that comes from doing something well, or do you chuck it in? Or, do you find a way of accepting that what you're currently capable of is okay?

Dunno.

[chrisb]

There are similarities in what I was doing, too. Although you have a navigator in the car, most of the time it's just you and the car against the elements (trees, banks, ditches, cliffs and so on ). The thrill of four wheel drifting on garvel, over a blind crest at night is pretty much akin to a seriously late take-off in overhead stuff.
But surfing is a hell of a lot cheaper.

OK, I may have been drawing a long bow with my comparisons

[Trev]

There are similarities in what I was doing, too. Although you have a navigator in the car, most of the time it's just you and the car against the elements (trees, banks, ditches, cliffs and so on ). The thrill of four wheel drifting on garvel, over a blind crest at night is pretty much akin to a seriously late take-off in overhead stuff.
But surfing is a hell of a lot cheaper.

OK, I may have been drawing a long bow with my comparisons

No. No. I thought you did quite well and it was your thoughts which set me off.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[localbogan]

Surfing has been pretty well at the forefront of all my plans until a couple of years ago when I suddenly realised I was not really enjoying it that much any more. I live very close to the beach in Manly and up until about 6 weeks ago I had a panoramic view of the surf and a 2 second walk out the front door to Queenscliff below me...but could barely muster the motivation to go out.
The reason is that in Sydney it requires quite a big psychological gee up to get the motivation to get out there amongst all the other surfers and take them on. Certainly you can take the attitude that you will simply go out there and just chill out, sit in one spot and take a wave if and only if it happens to come exactly your way. The reality is however that you will get very few waves (if any) if you adopt this strategy. The reality is that you have to actively hunt waves down and concentrate significantly if you want to get a few. This is usually represented by the dead silence out in the water, even when it is crowded. I had 3 surfs in a row during the big winter swells of 2007 and did not get a single wave. Paddled left and right, gave it my all and always there was somebody on my inside calling me out. In other words, the incredibly frustrating surf started to greatly outnumber the moderately satisfying surf.
At around the same time, I started to play golf again. Joined a private club and really started to enjoy it. Especially the fact that when you tee off there is nobody getting in your way from there on in, although this is different on public courses.
I still surf, and will get back into it again one day but for the time being just can seem to justify it from a passivity point of view. It certainly doesn't provide me with relaxation.
I do not want to get a long board and be one of those guys who sits further out than the short boarders and gets wave after wave without a care in the world, although that is a quick fix.
The long term plan is to get out of Sydney somewhere north or south and get back into it again.
If any one has some suggestions how to remain calm and passive in the surf (in Sydney) and still get waves then I am very keen to hear it

[dUg]

I do not want to get a long board and be one of those guys who sits further out than the short boarders and gets wave after wave without a care in the world, although that is a quick fix.

I had such an anti-mal stance for soooo long, all stemming from one day in 1989 when they just suddenly "appeared" and took over a break I frequented. Prior to this, I'd seen them jeered from the water... and a few years later, I realised that was a pivotal moment.

Where I live it never gets big... absolute max for clean waves is about 4 foot... but there are a lot of days around 1'. That all gets a bit ho-hum on a shorty and I finally caved in 2 years ago and got one of those M8R8 8'2's off ebay, delivered to my door for $255. I was shocked to find I had a ball on it... but even more shocked to find instead of retarding my surfing as I had expected, it actually improved it. Suddenly I had all this new stuff to learn, and getting it to do stuff I'm used to doing on a 5'11 fish became quite addictive. Most of the time I surf it on my own, or with very few other people around... I don't use it to be a wavehog. As soon as it's half decent one of the shortboard quiver comes out, and in good waves I would far rather be on a shortboard.

Having the mal really helped me get back into it after injury / surgery, and at times I'd just paddle it up and down the beach on flat days to get strength back.

I still can't stand longboard wave-hogging kooks, but by christ it's fun paddling out at one of their haunts and just blowing them away and taking EVERYthing on a small day.

But aside from that, it might actually make you surf your shortboard differently. IMHO mixing up boards and surfing Mals, quads, twin fish's and anything else you can lay your hands on makes you a better surfer... but there's already a thread covering that.

Sorry for the tangent... back to the topic.

Returning to you guys who have taken long breaks ( or are considering it ), surely you must have mates that packed it in and never returned to surfing? Do you call B/S if they ever refer to themselves as surfers? After, say 15 years?

[Trev]

Returning to you guys who have taken long breaks ( or are considering it ), surely you must have mates that packed it in and never returned to surfing? Do you call B/S if they ever refer to themselves as surfers? After, say 15 years?

Good point Dug. To expand on it I don't think I'd acknowledge someone as a surfer if they talked about it but didn't do it any more.
In my case, I was still a surfer "in my mind" and I would never have dared to suggest it out loud. Just a quiet acknowledgement that I understood it and would do it again one day.