Endless Bummer

Surfing’s been in the news. I know this because I received an exorbitant number of links and texts in group chats to “surf stories” this week. There were gnarly local otters eating soft tops and biting kooks, ELO’s still falling from grace behind locked WSL doors, Jonah Hill’s relationship status is somehow impacting global lineups and there always seems to be a shark biting someone in the body. Especially in New York. All that and we tragically lost Mikala Jones, one of the kindest and most talented and humble people surfing has ever known. It hurts to even type that. The worst kind of newsflash.

We’re locked into the center of summer now, and I should be writing to you about these news items from a park bench between sessions at San O with a sunburn and sand on my toes like a real John Severson disciple but it’s just not true and I feel like a fraud. My wife has resorted to abusing me until I get back in the water.

And fucking go surf idiot is currently my last text from her.

I have never surfed less in my life. And I could make you a really long list of reasons why I haven’t surfed. All involve various forms of “adulting”, but it’s all bullshit because no matter how adult life gets, I should surf. It’s never let me down. Every single thing on my “why I haven’t surfed” list would find relief if I just surfed. Hence the thrashings from my wife. She knows. Perhaps I’m the abuser?

Most of my life I have been on the other end of people telling me why they haven’t surfed and I have always prided myself on being able to find ways into the water. I would surf at dawn. Lunchtime. Gentleman’s hour. PM posse sessions. Or just before dark dashes. I would make at least three waves a day happen, and no amount of stress, hangover, jetlag, paperwork, life or death could keep me out of the water. It always helped whatever might have kept me from it.

So what the hell’s wrong with me? Fucking go surf idiot. Well, and I hate to say this, but it’s summer. I hate summer. I like to joke that Endless Summer is Bruce Brown clowning us all by running around chasing winter under the illusion that it’s an endless summer. He just bounced hemispheres enough to trick us. Now everyone thinks the living’s easy in the summer, but really this is torture time. Crowds. Fog. Flat spells. Lulls. Onshore wind. No parking. Stress. Anxiety. Sunburn. Going to the beach with the dreaded general public becomes a chore.

I’ve decided I must take summer back and I must fucking go surf idiot. Due to my fraudulent surf behavior, I’ve decided to punish myself through surfing. Tomorrow morning I’ll be putting my boardshorts on — Ola Canvas if you’d like to know my brand of choice —  and I will wax up with extra aromatic FU Wax and make my comeback. In the middle of summer. I’m paddling straight to the peak and facing my fears and putting an end to this abuse by surfing. No otters, ex girlfriends or sharks will stop me.—Travis Ferré

[Above photo: John Severson, San Onofre, circa 1959]