Crowded House

November 7, 2007 on 4:37 pm | In Surfing |

 As it should be - one man and his board

CROWDED HOUSE

Alf Alderson offers a few tips on how to deal with crowded breaks. 

It was half term last week, which means my local break was almost summer-busy – yes, the surfer’s pet hate, the crowd, was back in town.

How to deal with this scourge of the waves that is the question…

Well, I’ll happily admit to dealing with it a few years ago by being a right grumpy not-so-old man, glowering and scowling at anyone I didn’t recognise, yelling “My wave!” far too loudly whenever I took off, and giving any miscreant who was foolish enough to drop in a loud and sweary piece of my mind (all this was at my local break, I hasten to add – I’d never have done this anywhere else for the quite justifiable fear of getting a thorough drubbing from angry locals…).

Surprisingly I never got beaten up at home either, but in the end I realised that getting wound up about the hordes in the water would achieve nothing other than raising my blood pressure, so now that I actually have become a grumpy old man ironically enough I take a much more mellow approach.

Here’s why…

I’m down at Whitesands as a half-decent autumn swell rolls in, wind offshore (ish), sun shining and too many people in the surf. But look at them – 80 per cent don’t have a clue what they’re doing and can’t even get out past the white water so good luck to ‘em, the only way they’re gonna get in my way is if I have to slalom around them towards the end of a ride (and thereby impress them with my supreme wave riding skills – erm, yes…).

Indeed, it’s quite a laugh watching their bumblings and fumblings in the surf and reminding myself that, yes, I too was once a beginner…

So that leaves the other twenty per cent who do know what they’re doing to worry about, which is about ten surfers in total. Most of these I know, and we tend to show each other a bit of respect (not in all cases though, Ashley the Julian Cleary lookalike of Fishguard, hey, mate…? Sorry, getting grumpy again…). We take our turn and most sets provide enough waves for everyone to get a decent ride, so what’s to worry about?

Sure, a beach packed with surfers will never be as appealing as one with a total population of you and couple of mates, but if you actually take time to assess the situation it’s often nowhere near as bad as it first looks.

Especially in
Scotland, where with a few exceptions crowds in the surf are still quite scarce. In fact maybe that’s the obvious answer for those surfers allergic to the huddled masses of humanity – move to
Scotland.

Or there again, maybe not. Cos then it will be crowded in
Scotland too…

Alf Alderson
http://www.alfalderson.co.uk
Multi-award-winning freelance journalist and author of Surf UK - the definitive guide to surfing in Britain.