How To Lose Your Spot In The Line-up 101


We’re sitting on our boards in the surf, lining up, waiting for a wave. It’s very early morning and there’s not many people around. I’m at the front, first line, first row seat, next to go. The rocks of the point where the waves break are just off to our right, and I’m on the inside, meaning I’ll be first to go if and when a decent wave presents itself.

I am joined by an Unknown Person, part of the holiday crowd presumably, a denizen of somewhere outside of Cape Byron Territory, and therefore, by definition and by default, a Foreign Bastard. I nod at him politely, because, Foreign Bastard or not, we here at the Cape Byron Territory Popular Attraction Site like to pride ourselves on our all-inclusive non-discriminatory basic decent humanity. That is, we’ll be nice to everyone as long as they behave themselves like human beings and don’t try to steal our waves.

He nods back politely. One up for humanity.

We are joined by The Shredder, him of the tooth-pick board who is known far and wide for his aptitude for demolishing even the most remotely surfable wave down to the molecular level, and then going around complaining that it was too slow, too small, or, occasionally, too wet.

The Shredder nods. We nod back, politely. Nod, nod, nod. One more nod and someone’s head will fall off. We’re all getting on famously, and humanity is rubbing its hands in glee. A few more minutes of this and the war in Syria will be cancelled out.

Then it’s action all stations. A wave rises up in front of us, having rolled in gently all the way from across the mighty Pacific, running away from a cyclone blowing at it, and it looks like it might decide to stand up and give us a ride. I look at it with careful calculating cunning and think “hmmm”, all the while mentally stroking my imaginary beard and plotting devious strategy. Upon closer assessment the wave looks like it’s going to decide to stay flat after all and not do any services to humanity today. It’s gonna be a dud.

Foreign Bastard hasn’t realised this, and gets all excited. He thrashes wildly in the water, spins around, ready to go, then checks himself and looks me squarely, truthfully, honestly and sincerely in the beedy piggy eye and, obviously keen and anxious to do the right thing and wait for his turn, says:

“You going?”

So I, magnanimously and generously, with the open-handed free-giving spirit our Rainbow Region is renowned for world-wide, reply:

“Nah mate, you’re right, you go.”

He nods and smiles in gratitude, then bends himself over his board and starts paddling his guts out. The wave swells a bit behind him, drags him along for about thirty metres or so, then deflates like a balloon the day after a kids’ birthday party, folds itself harmlessly and ineffectively underneath him and leaves him stranded in a trail of useless whitewash well down the line. Poor old Foreign Bastard has fallen for the cunning and devious plan and has lost his spot in the line-up.

Back at the front The Shredder and me are in stitches.

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!” roars The Shredder.

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!” roar I.

“That’s How To Lose Your Spot In The Line-up 101”, laughs The Shredder, wiping tears of mirth and gratuitous pleasure at someone else’s misfortune from his eyes.

“Haha, yeah I reckon”, says I, holding my guts and slapping my thighs with cruel and sadistic merriment.

“Hey”, says The Shredder, pointing into the direction of the sun which is just now starting to rise up out of the ocean on my other side, “is that Mars over there?”

“Where?” I turn my head towards the sun, keen for an early morning glimpse of The Red Planet, where, so urban legend has it, people eat Earth Bars.

And with that The Shredder spins around, pulls out in front of the perfect wave that has turned up out of the blue while I was blinking into the sun, drops into it, jumps up and disappears on it heading into the far distance, cackling and shrieking maniacally with satisfaction at his clever ruse.

The Bastard.

Clearly that’s The Next Level, 102.

He got me there fair and square. The best man wins, and no hard feelings. Jolly good sport, what. Cop it on the chin, and grin and bear it. Good game mate.


Inexplicably, when The Shredder returned to his car an hour later he found it sitting in the carpark, looking sad, saggy and sorrowful, with two flat tyres.

No idea what happened there.

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