Are intermediate surfers the most stoked?

It's that time of the year when one's mind turns to Nicola McLean and whether she'd like to go surfing.

Afterwards, one's mind returns to sensible topics. Such as, are intermediate surfers the ones who are the most stoked?

This view was hypothesized by esteemed surf writer Matt Warshaw when I met up with him a few weeks ago in California. I explained to Matt how, having had a lifelong love affair with surfing but one which was too often of the Same Time, Next Year variety, I was now obsessed with it and loathed ever missing even a hint of swell. Needless to say, researching Surf Nation proferred plenty of surf-time, but the real difference came in moving back to the sea, here in the far west of Cornwall, over two years ago. My surfing has gone, in that time, from Kooksville UK to half-decent and even, especially when no one is looking, reasonably fluent and almost quite good. In short, as I told Matt, I'm in the intermediate category, with plenty of flaws and capability for ineptitude, but just as much room for optimism, too (even at the age of 42 and a half).

To this, Matt eyed the hefty surf at Ocean Beach and smiled wryly. He said he had plenty of friends in the same boat - those who'd surfed when young, say in their teens or early 20s, but who had then largely left it behind owing to careers taking them away from the sea. "But now they're coming back to it, they're stoked all the time," he said. He even confessed to envying intermediate surfers because of their condition of perma-stoke.

The idea of Matt Warshaw, once a competitor on the World Tour, envying intermediate surfers like me is a curious one - and it may well owe as much to gallantry as to factual accuracy - but could he be right? Are intermediate surfers the most stoked?

Meanwhile, room for improvement has been curtailed by a hideous chest infection. There's nothing for it but to watch I'm a Celebrity. I wonder if Nicola McLean has ever surfed?

Comments

[allie]

As you know i'm a firm beliver in if you don't feel the stoke (regardless of level, abbility, age, lenght of time youv'e been at it) you SHOULDN'T be doing it. whats the point in doing something as freeing and soulfull as surfing and not getting a buzz, give it up and start playing canaster or something. NB.. the odd day when youv'e spent 3 hours paddling and caught one wave and you don't feel it don't count , but as that wise man Charles Williams once said "you should ALWAYS find something good in each surf" ie good paddle practice and exercise, or just not being at work and able to even try to surf. We're a long time dead so get out there and enjoy it !!!

[penfold]

I think there is a certain truth in that. I see a lot of surfers that really rip but don't quite rip enough to turn pro putting huge pressure on themselves. If they realised that they were destined to be a middle aged intermediate (such as myself) they might relax enough to crack a smile outback every now and then...