Where did all the people come from?

Today I surfed a south coast break which was blessed with very nice, clean head high waves. Unfortunately the place was so rammed that I only got one wave, got fed up after an hour and came in.

Where did everyone come from? I mean, it was a Monday afternoon! Haven't they got jobs they should be doing?

I know that, with a more aggressive approach, I could have had a few more waves. But I don't like being aggressive in the water, and except on rare occasions, like when I forget, I respect the drop-in rule. So today, where some surfers would have thought 'Who cares whether there's someone on the wave, I haven't had one for 25 minutes so I'm taking off too, may the best man win' I constantly paddled, looked, saw that someone had priority and backed off.

As I said afterwards to a couple of surfers from my neck of the woods, I'd rather surf average or rubbish surf with hardly anyone in the water than good surf which is packed. They both agreed.

So, here's a resolution to add to those for 2009 already made: I will get up early, I will walk that extra mile, I will climb down cliffs and paddle out at sketchy and perilous breaks, if it means I can keep the crowd count to 10 and less. It's got to be worth it. Hasn't it?

The photo, of Manley, is courtesy of Travelling Surfers. I'm not joking when I say that a certain place beginning with 'P' looked very similar today, in January, on a work day. Honestly, you'd think that the UK had an embedded, hardcore surf culture or something.

Comments

[Chris]

Rammed with you and everyone else who surfblogs, gets flexi hours or home works. Its why everyone moves to Cornwall eh? Still at least we are all living the dream together.
However lets not forget many cornish spots have been rammed with self employed builders/plumbers/electricans for bleddy years now. Trouble is they have to find parking between all the students and surf schools now.
Oh and don't forget the internet...

[shin dig]

nobody checks the internet for surf, everyone knows that, tenner says they were all locals, defo

[msefton@sydneysurfdiary.com]

I looked at the photo above and thought that was Manly yesterday...it was packed due to the school holidays and the Australia Day long weekend. Decided to give it a big miss - who needs the agro! There's probably some scientific law which relates to crowd size, wave frequency and aggression. Don't know what it's called, but sure know when it's in operation.

[Sean]

"Haven't they got jobs they should be doing?"

Unfortunately with the current climate, the answer to this question is, "probably not".

[matt]

bollocks, im off to manly in a week's time. oh well, i cant really complain when i've just had a couple of solo sessions in indo :-D