I just got back form vacation in Portugal witnessing some really great surfing in Cascais and Sarges. The World Champion Surfing Competition was just over but many of the surfers remained to ride the waves. It was very interesting to see surfers, and surfing families whose lives revolve around the next big wave and the next surfing location. Living in trailers, vans, station wagons, with all of their worldly possessions, eating on the fly, drying clothes and wet suits in the sun, constantly either surfing or studying the wave patters, the prevailing winds, the tides, the storm activity, the seasonal variations, sharing stories and secrets about propitious beaches...fascinating. Many of the surfers sported long dreadlocks, and a clear addiction for the waves.
For the truly dedicated there is no other life, but it is a lifestyle for the young, who realize that their wanderlust will end, as they fall in love and have families. They will live with the wives and husbands and young children in vans and trailers scraping by as long as possible, but the clock is ticking; the children will have to go to school. The gift these parents give to their children is a love of the ocean and the freedom of the surfing life, challenging the waves... each wave a unique monster with the potential to crush you to the shore, to smash you into your board, to throw you into the rocks, but the adrenaline rush and feeling of conquering the waves is too great to abandon. You will spend all day on the waves until it is too dark to see then sit but the sea with the rest of the addicted, transfixed by the limitless pull of the sea, eating soups and bread, trail mix and energy bars, like mountain climbers of the shores, the focus not on food but on the sea...just enough sustenance to keep going. Tomorrow you will get up very early and head south or north or whatever direction is necessary to catch that next wave.
