Category Archives: old surfers

Silvana Lima, Sally Fitzgibbons, Substantial-ness: Surf Blogging/Riffing/Ranting

Posted on by under aggressive surfers, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, secret surf spots on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, SUP surfing, surf culture events, surf photos, surf satire, surf sessions, surfing in Washington State, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

I do spend some amount of time corresponding about surf sessions, mostly with longterm friend Ray Hicks, down in San Diego’s North County, and with surfing’s preeminent literary guru, Drew Kampion, now residing near the last reaches of Northwest swells. In both of these cases, partially because I can type very quickly, I blather on, words (it’s the same when I’m speaking, actually) often ahead of my brain, these missives (see how I try to sound sorta literate?) often eliciting a very terse and very clever response.

Okay, so there’s one thing. Another thing is that people keep referring to my ‘site’ as a ‘blog.’ Nooooo! Not what I intended.

Okay, sometimes, maybe, it is a blog. The following is something I wrote to Drew, also trying to get him committed to coming across the ferry to participate in the “Second Annual Surf Culture on the Straits of Juan de Fuca and the Salish Sea” in Port Townsend on July 11. He asked, in his response if I was going to put it, or a version of it, on my… yeah… blog. So, with a few additions (and, yes, I did come up with the title for the upcoming event, pretty proud of the ‘occasional’ part), here’s a BLOG POSTING:

I got home yesterday (worked more like a day shift, this time, so I could get help, closed down one of two stairwells- hey, there’s also an elevator) just after the last semi-final heat in Fiji. With Trish shopping in Sequim, I did get to see the final, though I was, at the same time, catching up on the latest DVRed “Penny Dreadful,” which Trish hates, and got to talk on the phone with our daughter Drucilla, walking home from work in downtown Chicago, for most of the heat. So, perfect, no sound on either screen. But, with the show over and me off the phone for the last five minutes or so, I was able to concentrate on the drama in Fiji (Sally Fitzgibbons, with a perforated eardrum, vs. Bianca Buitendag).

from WSL

from WSL

Maybe I pay too much attention to these contests and buy into the drama too much (some of it, no doubt, more hype than reality), but, after seeing Sally breaking down in the rental car with both her parents at Honolua Bay last year, I had to root for her.
AND, watching the last part of the DVRed TV version of the Rio contest (kind of a surf-related evening), I caught the little thing on Silvana Lima (which I’d missed in watching the event live- as I could), selling her apartment and car to support her contest habit/dream, and, because I buy into any sports related drama, from any sport, I’m hoping, with the enthusiasm for surfing in Brazil, that some sponsor steps in.

from pinterest

from pinterest


AND, My daughter, Dru, has moved up enough at the ad agency she works for that she currently has an intern. The big boss offered a seat in the luxury box for a game of the Stanley Cup (or the preliminaries, I’m not sure) to the intern who writes the best paragraph by the end of the day on why he or she should attend. After offering a few phrases (brutal ballet, ultra-padded gladiators), I just spent half an hour writhing (I mean writing. Maybe) a paragraph. Hopeful.
AND… I ran into a guy at a Poulsbo paint store who used to surf, so naturally…had to talk surfing. At some point he (he being tall, skinny, nearly seventy) mentioned localism, regular surfers vs. longboarders. I said I haven’t had any real problems. “Probably not,” he said, kind of giving me that look skinny people reserve for the rest of us. “What do you mean by that?” “Well,” he said, “you’re kind of… substantial.”
Okay; so now I may run the photo of me looking, not old and fat (as I thought, and continue to think); just substantial.
FIJI for men starting soon. Still rooting for Kelly, now representing… brief brain freeze with image of Felipe Toledo giving Gabriel Medina a bit of a shove… yeah, the drama, real and imagined, starts later today. If I quit writing and take off for work now… maybe I can catch more than the highlights.

originally saved under 'fatErwinripping,' now captioned 'substantialErwin(still)ripping.' Photo by Jeffrey Vaughan.

originally saved under ‘fatErwinripping,’ now captioned ‘substantialErwin(still)ripping.’ Photo by Jeffrey Vaughan.

Why Surfers Quit, Why I Won’t, and Why Ray Hicks (and others) Can’t

Posted on by under old surfers, surfing, surfing for life

It’s not that I haven’t felt (perhaps properly and rightly) old while surfing, it’s just that I haven’t felt that way lately.

Just started and I have to clarify. I may not feel my age (not quite 64) ‘while surfing,’ but aches and pains (nothing serious) and fatigue (of the very best kind) generally follow a session. Then again, my average time in the water is now somewhere over two hours, and I don’t bob and wait, meditate and chat (maybe a little chatting, just to seem friendly, between sets); I shark the lineup, with the goal of surfing until I can barely drag my board back up the beach.

This is usually my goal; to surf (as long as the waves are good), as long as I can, to surf to the best of my ability, and to possibly, maybe, improve my surfing a bit. Oh, and to have fun.

This is so different than sessions when I was younger; an hour or less at Oceanside Pier or the south jetty before work; forty-five minutes (on my half hour lunch break) in the water at Lower Trestles when I worked up the hill painting Marine Corps housing; hitting Swamis between classes at Palomar and work at Buddy’s Sign Service; even a couple of runs over the hill to Sunset Cliffs with Raphael Reda when we were working on submarines at Point Loma. Yeah, it’s a bit of name-dropping, even bragging. Those were all years ago.

The one time I do remember surfing three hours straight was at a little reef at Sunset Cliffs (just north of Luscombs) with Stephen Penn. I was twenty years old, surfed all the time, and I was totally exhausted.

SO, in my last surf session, earlier this week, after wasting too much energy punching through and trying to find a shoulder, kicking-out or straightening out on closeouts (wouldn’t say I sucked, considering), I drove elsewhere (in my wetsuit) took another hike to a grinding rivermouth/pointbreak. The only other surfer out was pulling in early, sliding down the line. I couldn’t get in early enough on my smaller (smaller than his, way smaller than the one I usually ride) board, couldn’t really handle the drop/turn, though I did get a nice but quick view of several tubes. Basically I sucked, took a thrashing, and couldn’t help but think, feeling every rock on the walk back through my booties, “Maybe I am too old for real waves.”

NOPE. By the time I reached my car, the negativity had changed to, “Next time I’ll go here first. I’ll have the right mindset. Maybe I’ll finish glassing that fish I cut down from my old nine-four. It’ll paddle better. Next time…” Scheming, planning, getting my mind ready to up the rhythm, up my game, drop the casualness, take off on an angle and streak.

I did a selfie, planning of calling it

I did a selfie, planning of calling it “Portrait of a Nineteen Year Old Surfer forty-five years later,” but, one, was horrified when I saw it, and, two, well, refer back to one.

HERE’S how most surfing careers end: You don’t go for a while, and there are a million reasons not to go, only a couple to go (“I WANT TO” and “I HAVE TO”); and when you do go, your surfing is not up to where you think it should be. So, you’re less eager to go next time. So you don’t. Hey, work is important. For most of us, work is necessary. Still evil, mostly. I wish it wasn’t, necessary, but my career was my main excuse for years.

NOW, I’ve already given credit for my old friend Ray Hicks for getting me motivated to get back into surfing, something I hadn’t thought I’d given up, just hadn’t gone in a while; until he and I went surfing and I truly, totally, in-arguably sucked. Not so bad if Ray hadn’t just glided into waves, turned and wailed. BUT, if that competition, based somewhat, I have to admit, on my thinking, “I was always better than Ray, and now….(both self-assessments)”  was an impetus to get back into more regular surfing over ten years ago now, my new motto rather quickly became, “If not now, when?”

The main impediment to my surfing more has become the unwillingness of waves to come down the Straits of Juan de Fuca and my unwillingness to drive to the coast; meaning, when the forecast starts looking good, I start the frothing/ scheming/planning/imaging process. If it looks like it might be good for three days, I HOPE to go twice. At least once. “I have to go, want to go, really need to go.” If I haven’t gone for a while, my wife, Trish, to whom surfing has always been the other woman, will ask, “When are the waves coming? You HAVE to go.”

RAY HICKS has not been surfing nearly enough lately. Yeah, he’s been busy; yeah, yeah, San Diego’s North County waves are crowded or crappy, or both; yeah, yeah, yeah…no. Ray HAS to go. I’m totally kicking his butt; on wave count if not on style points; and one of these days, I will go down south.  Ray and his wife, Carol, are going to Hawaii in June, so he says maybe he better get to surfing. Practicing. UM… YEAH. And I want some Hawaii action photos, if possible.

TIM NOLAN, of “Tim Nolan and the Wave of the Day” fame (google it), is a few years older than I am. He needs to keep surfing. Like, forever; as does the guy with the white beard whose name Adam Wipeout actually knows, and who, Adam claims ‘has Hobuck on lockdown’ (or some similar phrase,though I’ve never seen the guy really standout at the northwest version of Waikiki or San Onofre). I need surfers around who are older than I am, just to remind me I can keep going. I’ve got at least four years or so after Tim quits, and he shows no signs of quitting.

I KNOW I’LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS I WAS WHEN I WAS NINETEEN. If you’re nineteen and cocky, and want to remember yourself as a great surfer, QUIT NOW! Really. Otherwise…