“Happiness is a boat that is easily capsized and the waves are always there. If your philosophy is one of impulsive happiness, then you are not prepared when all hell breaks loose. And all hell will break through at some point in your life. So if what floats your boat is happiness, you are going to be capsized by the first decent wave. You might ask yourself what you have instead of happiness that might be even more reliable, and I do think that adventure is more reliable than happiness” — Jordan B Peterson.
This last weekend I went to watch the Rip Curl Grom Search contest at Nahoon Reef. The waves stood up and roared and a shoal of sardines came through on Saturday afternoon to postpone some of the finals to Sunday. What an adventure.
Jack Johnson, in the movie 180 Degrees South, says though that real adventure only begins when stuff starts to go wrong. This he coined when the mast of their yacht snapped and their trip became a salvage operation at sea.
Personally I am OK when my adventure plans run smoothly and in this regard this weekend’s surfing competition was fine.
No toothy critters and no bumps or bites (amen), but yes, there was some winter risk in the wings.
Why surf in winter then? Sardine season? For much the same reason as John baptised early Christians at Aenon “because there was much water there”.
Similarly we surf in winter because there is much good surf in winter and our summer just past was one of the worst for waves in living memory.
In the words of the late Dean Gierke, who passed away from cancer: “You are only going to surf so many winter seasons at Nahoon Reef and then it is going to be over.” He did not know how prophetic his words were.
This weekend’s grom search was blessed with some spectacular pre-winter waves.
Perchance as a sign of my age I looked at those waves and the incoming wash and said to myself “I am glad I do not have to surf in that”, and yet the groms were making a jolly good go of it.
I was impressed with their fierce determination against some formidable odds and some of them were out and out ripping. The waves were big, chunky and powerful.
Young Matt Canning from KZN took a tumble and connected with the nose of his board to his head, and opened himself up for a few stitches.
He was unfazed and in good humour, but his coach Quintin Jones suggested he give the rest of the contest a miss.
Quintin is national junior coach to the SA team just returned from the world championships in El Salvador.
“Now there is a place,” he tells me. “Never in my life have I seen such a consistent contest wave. It was firing all the time.”
This writer knows ex-Grey High School Quintin very well from years spent surfing with him when I lived in Gqeberha.
I am cheeky enough to hope that some of what I taught him those years ago is being carried over to young groms today.
Quintin has excellent credentials to coach from. He earned green and gold as a junior in 91 and 92, and as an open surfer in 94.
He owns three South African titles and a fourth in the world championships in Brazil 1994.
He has coached youngsters such as Bianca Buitendag, Mikey February, the Brand Brothers, Matt Bromley, Louise and Luke le Pront and a host of SA top surfers, too many to mention all.
Phillip Colepeper, dad to 16-year-old son Ry from KZN, says: “QJ deserves more accolades than I can give him. He treats kids with individualism.
“He knows his athletes well and he understands them. You can rely on QJ to help your kid to keep his head on his shoulders.
“This is above and beyond his technical surfing skill and coaching. He is a special person. Kids need to know that the good life does not get handed to you.
“You need to go out and work for it. Contest surfing is a good platform to learn this.”
Quintin said at the end of the day hard work paid off.
“Get fitter, get stronger, get mentally stronger, but enjoy it,” he said.
“A coach can only offer so much at junior level but the main attitude comes from the parents. I encourage parents not to put too much pressure on the juniors and keep the fun.”
As for Nahoon Reef on the weekend, Clay Turrell took the boys U18 and our fabulous Lily Heny from Port Alfred won the girls U18.
It was pleasing to see locals such as Camilla Heuer and Taylor Emslie also strongly in the mix.
For the winners, happiness for sure, but for the rest I do hope the adventure as per Jordan B Peterson is counted as worthwhile.
I am sure it is.
Weekender
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