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My Blue Coolite – Where The Trouble Started
By Col Bernasconi | 27 January 2012 |
 Eyes transfixed on the horizon I plunged my palms and forearms into the warm salty water and in an attempt to position myself for another magical body mover. At the doughy age of eight every unbroken green back wave ridden feels like a God given magical carpet ride. I need another one so bad I butterflies are loose in my gizzards. The shift from shallow white water push offs to the outer banks over the summer has been a revelation. S-turning across a silky smooth canvas of seawater for the first time has awakened my minds eye. Like a new undiscovered mini galaxy it moves silently inside me. Swirling from head to toe it warms. The give away to the magic happening inside of a person in my position is always stupid smile planted on their face. Happy strike after happy strike keeps that ‘stupid’ grin permanently on lock...
"A multi-finned surfboard! Goodbye safe seventies, hello eighties..."
The head of a salty old local I recognise, like I do cartoon characters on cereal boxes, looks at me knowingly. I’d been floundering on the inside of this rip bowl right for weeks and he’s been present every time. Without saying a word I get the feeling he’s speaking to me on another level, “It’s the magic young pup, remember this moment.” He may have been actually been wishing us “grommets” would clear out – but being older now myself I know that not to be true. No surfer begrudges a young grommets oceanic awakening. It’s a period in their lives as fragile and fraught with danger as any they’ll face in their remaining years on earth. It can go either way. One magical free ride and they’re hooked for life. One bad turn involving a skinny neck, one leg rope and a run away long board – and the doorway to a wonderful life wasted on water can close as quickly as it opened. It’s later on when grommets step up to trying to sneak set waves of us we tighten their brakes.
The red and gold hue of the sinking sun is being bled dry by the near empty car park to the northwest – a stark reminder that my mother would be expecting me in and waiting like a good little boy for my ride home – the five week old blue coolite surfboard I’m riding and I have other ideas however. The board was a grand surprise Christmas present from my father. There was no gift of equal value under the tree for my sister in 1980. I suppose a pony would have hit the spot, but that was not happening. “The bloke in the shop said ‘what ever you do – don’t get it wet.”’ Announced Dad, from beside the ornately decorated (yet spindly) Aussie pine. Humour a handy tool he expertly used to avoid too much emotion creeping into a situation such as this – but it didn’t work. This time. I was beyond happy. Tears of joy welled in my eyes. The stubby square tailed bulky railed space shuttle nosed board with its tight stretched outer blue skin was a huge step up in equipment from the rash-inducing heap-a foam (literally) I’d been on for the past two years. Unlike that single fin foamie (even the fin was foam), this new beauty was a, wait for it, twinny! Can you imagine? A multi-finned surfboard! Goodbye safe seventies, hello eighties. Unbeknown to me at the time, the thing, this radiant blue space ship, was also light years ahead of future surfboard developments with its amazingly removable rubber fins… I was in heaven. Though I never did find a reason to remove the fins. Not once. It was a euphoric moment for all that glorious day. Dad was as proud as punch he’d hit the mark, mum was happy for her overly sensitive son (and no doubt a little relieved to see my Dad had put in the effort). Surprisingly, even my sister seemed happy? Perhaps there was a feeling she too would one day get that one thing she so desperately wanted. As long as it’s not a Shetland I’m sure she’d do fine. This euphoria wasn’t to last however – before long Old Bluey and I had begun to cause some family problems. This day I speak of, a day not too long after Jesus’ big day in fact, is a prime example. You see, with the sun close to becoming all but a distant memory, I caught a glimpse of my hot-tempered Scottish mother incessantly waving. A frantic silhouette in the car park sending signals of, “hurry up!” “Come in now!” “Don’t make me wait!” But much to to her frustration I couldn’t paddle in. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Sorry Mum. |
you lucky lucky man. I didn't fall in love with surfing until well into my twenties, the product of an inland upbringing.
Your article captures what I imagine it would be like to be a grom - somthing I missed out on in age and parental involvement but certainly not in my attitude and excitement.
Great story.