People

The swell has finally come in.

After four months or more of predominantly south swells that bypassed our bay or just no swell at all, waves have arrived on our doorstep. A massive low turned up in front of our coastline, hammered us with howling gale-force winds, lashed us with stinging curtains of driving rain, entertained us with thunder and lightening, and smashed beaches and dunes between the eyes.

The tempest raged for four days and then buggered off, back to where it came from, to mind its own business. In its wake we found ourselves with several days of messy, rowdy, all-over-the-place storm swell, with rough untidy waves that ran in five different directions at the same time and couldn’t decide whether to break or not. We paddled out, braved the fury and got a few waves out of it, but it was hard yakka for returns that were, at best, mixed and average.

Until this morning.

Seven days after the storm broke the madness has leaked out of the water, and what was left was perfect lines of peeling pearlers, rolling in steamily from across the open expanse of the ocean, lining up happily one after the other, quick and fast, and unfolding themselves in clean walls of translucent green, blue and white.

I paddled out in a hurry to join my mates at the front of the action, right out on the very nose of the rocks, First Rock, the first point of contact between the ocean and the land, there where our world famous pointbreak rises up and forms into long galleries of vertical running water. The point where all the action starts is keenly desired and hotly contested territory, prime real estate location for anyone keen to get a master-class wave. We amongst ourselves refer to it as Singapore, since a battle is perpetually raging over it, and the Fall Of Singapore usually happens within a quarter of an hour after first light, a defeat and loss as devastating as the one that befell the city of that name in World War Two, an event at the time particularly keenly felt by us here in Australia. As soon as there’s more than ten people in the water it’s on for young and old, and all notions of respect, courtesy and consideration for other people fly right out of the window.

Courtesy and consideration are the foundation stones of surfing etiquette: respect other people, wait for your turn, and don’t be greedy. Surf today like you want to surf again tomorrow, as one local columnist, surf reporter and commentator is fond of saying. It is enshrined and codified in easily understandable language on colourful, nice-looking and user-friendly signs that are erected at most every beach access track by our right-minded and well-meaning local council. It is also widely and universally ignored by large numbers of people hell-bent on pleasing only themselves. Arguments with wave-snatchers occur, and punches have been known to have been thrown, most memorably a few weeks ago when a grown man violently verbally abused an eight year old for getting in his way, and uttered threats that made the mind reel. On that occasion several other non-involved bystanders stepped into the breach, rose to the child’s defense and, confronted with ongoing and unabating abusive behaviour on the part of the offender, found themselves with no option but to punch his lights out.

It’s ugly, and it shows humanity’s worst side.

But what do you do?

What do you do when you witness a bully harassing someone?

Placed in the context of a schoolyard, favourite stomping ground for bullies of all description, and, somehow, a place where shameful acts against common decency can habitually be gotten away with, if you see a big bully go up to a little victim and beat seven shades of shite out of them, just because they can, what do you do?

Do you stand and watch, and do nothing, becoming a tacit accomplice by default?

Do you turn and walk away, pretending it’s not happening and you can’t see it, becoming a tacit accomplice by default?

Or do you wade into the fray and provide assistance to the victim, to do what’s right and fair?

I sat at First Rock with my mates and other acquaintances, and waited for my turn. Set waves came through at a steady regular pace. One bloke, a kneeboarder, took off on the first one. My mate pulled into the second one. Five minutes later mine announced itself, and I turned my back on the bulge of water that started to rise up behind me, looked over my shoulder, locked my eyes onto its developing slope, paddled as hard as I could and at exactly the right moment, as my nose tipped low and my tail lifted up high, I jumped up and slid into the wide open mouth of the cave: a green wall right next to me, shoulder to head high, moving and wobbling along, and behind me the roar of the waterfall of white foam, driving me onwards. I skidded to the bottom, turned up and rose high again, then found the perfect sweet spot and sat there.

In times past at this point I would often open my big mouth and scream and yell and holler with delight, and, as a result, would often lose my balance and fall off my perch, and be left to drink salty water with a side serving of sand and seagull shit while watching the arse end of a beautiful wave disappear into the never-never. Therefore now in a bid to actually stay on for a bit and get to ride waves properly I shut up and concentrate, and so I focussed on the wall of water next to me, transfixed by its effervescent movement, its unpredictable motion, its incalculable momentum. I watched for every rise in its level, I banked and turned back towards the white when the wall felt like becoming too flat, I moved forwards towards the nose to shift my weight and balance and to coax the board over a sudden lull and resultant lack of drive, I shuffled back again after it pitched forward again, and, eventually, at long last, I rose up to its crescent of cascading white foam as it started to close out. I turned and pushed against the top, my knees jelly-wobbled and buckled, I went too far up and as the white heads came down to signal the end of the wave I slipped down the backside of it and the ride was over.

I looked around to see where I was.

All the way across the bay.

I had heard fabled and not-quite-to-be-believed accounts of unrealistically sounding incredibly long rides, from people who swore high and low that they had experienced them. One of my mates had calculated on Google Maps that it’s possible to ride a full 747 metres from the extreme point at First Rock all the way down to the far beach.

I had always nodded appreciatively and shelved it under “Unlikely Story, And Never Going To Happen To Me”.

I looked back to where I had come from. In the far distance I could see the silhouette of First Rock, aka Singapore. Right next to me and in front was the main beach. I had just done it. While I didn’t think it was going to be the full 747 metres, after measuring it on Google Maps, of course, where else, it turned out to be over 500 m. Not a bad stretch at all. What an amazing, sensational run. I couldn’t believe it.

I lunged back onto my board and launched myself back into the oncoming breakers, eager to paddle up to the point and do it all again.

I pushed though the rollers and paddled onwards ecstatically, unable to believe what I had just achieved. I smiled and ducked into the omcoming waves and came up smiling some more; rolled underneath a particularly nasty looking big bugger of a thing, and came up smiling even more.

Eventually I reached a spot somewhere a bit past the halfway point. There’s another set of rocks there, set about a hundred metres back from First Rock, where often the surf will rise up and break again, or, on a quiet day, where it will break if Singapore is not in business. Coming towards it from First Rock is tricky, and navigating your way around it while staying on your wave is a challenge, and not one that is always met successfully. The rock is covered in scratches, shards of fibreglass, shreds of wetsuit, patches of hair and bits of brain as ongoing reminders of those unfortunate enough in the past to have misjudged the trajectory of their wave and, as a result, to not quite have gotten around it in one piece.

I stopped there for a bit of a breather, and to catch up with a mate. Then, as I sat there, a wave turned up from around the corner, and right smack bang in prime position on it was the kneeboarder I had previously shared First Rock with. He came hooning along in great style, as is his wont, carving left and carving right, going a hundred miles an hour, enjoying the ride of a lifetime, when all of a sudden a stray bloke on a board about halfway between Kneeboarder Neill O’Neill and myself spun around, and turned his back to the oncoming wave. Being about three metres away from me I could see his every move. And I saw him turn his head, look at the wave, then turn his head more, look squarely at Neill O’Neill coming right at him in position of right-of-way, and then, very deliberately, and clearly knowing full well what he was doing, paddled hard, shot down, and in one fluid movement jumped up and dropped in right in front of Neill O’Neill.

The momentum of his drop-in caused the face of the wave to collapse in front of poor old Neill, who not only found himself dropped in on but also closed out, and was left with no choice but to pull the pin and abandon ship, face down into the foam. I watched him stick his head out again seconds later, mystified and well and truly pissed off. Meanwhile the drop-in careered onwards into the wild blue yonder, satisfied, no doubt, at a dirty trick well pulled off.

In the carpark later my mates told more stories of similar stunts performed by the same Drop-In Fella that I had not witnessed. Then, going through the description of Mr Drop-In, it finally dawned on us that we knew who he was. Not some blow-in punter from out of town, but someone who lives here, and who, therefore, should know better. We had at times in the past had previous run-ins with him about his behaviour, but hadn’t seen him for a while, fortunately.

Mr Drop-In is also a Friend Of A Friend of us.

Or, rather, a Friend Of An Ex-Friend of us.

We used to be excellent, good close friends with a person, who we shall refer to as Bambi for the sake of the argument. At some point in the quite recent past some random turned up in the surf and proceeded to display pertinently inappropriate and selfish behaviour, i.e. blatantly ignoring the surf code, and dropping in, snaking, snatching and stealing waves like it was going out of fashion. Several of us, including myself, took action, and positioned ourselves in such a way that this person’s anti-social behaviour could not continue. Drop-ins and snakes were handed out and executed, words were had, discussions were engaged in and insults were exchanged.

Our friend Bambi, complete unknown to Random, opted to take Random’s side and as a consequence now no longer chooses to associate with us. We have been surprised and taken aback by Bambi’s reaction, and have been sad at losing a friend in such a way. No explanations were offered, instead relations changed from being close intimate friends to being passingly cordial acquaintances, with distinct frostiness present in casual encounters.

So, that leads us to wonder:

When we see displays of anti-social behaviour, what do we do?

If we were in the school yard, would we ignore the bully?

Would we, worse luck, choose to side with the bully for the sake of keeping the peace?

Should we laugh it all off as a joke and join in the general merriment, and engage in the same anti-social behaviour ourselves?

Or, conversely and perversely, if we don’t but instead try to counteract this anti-social behaviour, do we then become the bully instead?

If a bully in a schoolyard beats up another child, usually a smaller one, just because they can, and a third person steps in and beats up the bully, is this third person then going to be guilty of and charged with assault?  

Or are we all going to sit back and pretend it’s not happening, and be tacit accomplices by default?

If as parents we see our children behave badly and don’t do anything about it, they will continue to behave in the same way. They will grow up spoiled and unpleasant, and will go on to engage in anti-social behaviour further down the track. It is our responsibility as parents to take action and intervene so this doesn’t happen. Is public behaviour displayed by grown adults any different? But, if by reacting against bad behaviour, we will lose friends because they don’t approve of this action being taken, and instead appear to approve of the anti-social behaviour being displayed, would we then choose to not intervene for the sake of keeping the peace?

It’s impossible to please all the people all the time, as someone with great insight into human nature and a profound sense of realism once said.

They weren’t wrong there.

In the words of an old song, People Are Strange.