Can it be true?

Posted on July 25, 2007 @ 2:25 PM

Can it be true? Can this really be Issue 60? That would mean we’ve been on this trip for 10 years. Stone me, it really is.

If you were there for Issue 1 and you’re still here now: thanks a million! If you’ve just arrived and this is your first issue, welcome to our longish-standing institution. We’ve done 10 years of wandering down random surfing paths, often not knowing where the hell we were going. It’s been a radical journey, and we absolutely appreciate your support, in all its forms.

When we started 10 years ago:

• Tow-ins were still mainly done by people with peculiar names like Laird or Buzzy or Darrick. Tom, Dick and Harry didn’t go there.

• Longboards were enjoying a resurgence. We thought this was quaint, and slightly annoying.

• Fish, hybrids and eggs hadn’t yet been re-spawned. Mass retro was the future.

• Forecasting swells using the isobar chart in the newspaper was how we nailed it.

• Europe was a chocolate box of assorted sweet waves, and the lid had only just been lifted. [Now it’s an open crate, with more crunch than most of us dreamed of.]

• Surf photographers were a rare, special breed, small in number, big in attitude.

• Surf photographers used something called ‘film’. They had to swim back to the beach pretty often. Getting shots back from the lab was a thrill/ terror moment for them.

• 99% of our photographs arrived as original slide transparencies. [Now, just 10% of our shots come like this; the rest appear via file transfer protocol or DVD.]

• The pro tour was boring. [Less so, now. The best surfers on big, perfect waves? Gotta be good. Maybe see you online.]

• Other surf magazines weren’t outraged about global warming, pollution and unsustainable mass consumption. Eco wasn’t that cool, and the surf industry had yet to see the light/profit margins. [The good news: something’s happening.]

• We went on as many surf trips as we could and didn’t think about the pollution costs of our air travel. [Bummer, dudes, the Earth’s getting bigger again.]

• Surfing was just really, really good fun, on one level, and somehow seriously profoundly meaningful on another. It was tough to explain then, and still is.

Here’s a final one: 10 years ago blogs didn’t really exist, but nowadays, if I was to tell you that we have a brand new, revamped website awaiting your surfing blogs – be they in text, Jpeg or Quicktime formats – you’d know exactly what I meant. Wouldn’t you? It’s still http://www.surferspath.com, but it’s new and revitalized. Loads better. Send blogs. Blogs are the future. The future is now (see above).

By the way (and feel free to respond in blog form), how has the surfing path affected your life? That’s a small, apparently simple question, but one that cuts deep to the core. As an Issue 60 indulgence, we asked 60 people – some core, some kook, some old, some new – and got a wonderful slice of responses from across time and space, which you’ll see snaking through this issue.

Many of these 60 wondered where they might be now had they not become surfers … and trembled. Others contemplated what surfing has brought to their existence … and got all heavy. For some, surfing is just a quick, get-fit workout; for others it’s a ‘lifestyle’. Some describe surfing as literally their whole defining life force, and for some it has been a life saver. There’s apparently no limit to how important surfing can be.

And yet … it’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it?

Well, twentysomething years on my own surfing path, 10 of them being lucky enough to look really deeply into this surfing thing, and I’m suspicious. I’m beginning to think there’s something to it.

I plan to continue my investigations, just as soon as the swell comes up and the wind blows offshore and the deadline’s done and the kid’s cool and the lady’s happy and all the rest of the curls of this marvellous maze are navigated … and I can find myself a perfect peak of pulsing universe to ride on for a while.

See you out there, or on the path. Go well. – ADR

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