HumanCartoon said...This is all eerily familiar.
Substitute "Cyclist" or "Lycra Menace" for "SUPer" and substitute "Beach Road" for "Currumbin Alley" and you could be reading the Melbourne Age, Herald-Sun or Bayside Leader.
Take:
A sport with low barriers to entry and fast growing participation rates;
A finite resource;
Gung-ho newcomers;
A lack of education about etiquette and "the rules" (and ready ways to get it);
Hubris and a disproportionate sense of entitlement (among a noisy and visible few on all sides);
An absence of mutuality and common sense (among a noisy and visible few on all sides);
Add a pinch each of "Slow News Week" and "Lazy Media", stir liberally..and Voila!
If everyone just behaved 10% better we wouldn't be having the discussion.
Humans...can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
Your spot on Mr Toon.
. Though I must admit I no longer ride a bike because of 'Kook' car drivers. The laminectony I just had is probably directly attributable to being hit a number of times by car drivers that weren't concentrating. (I've nearly done it my self
.)
My whole complaint about this SUP thing being an issue is that down here we have the opposite, I go out by myself, catch a couple of reasonable waves because of the increased volume of the board and within minutes, I'll have ten longboarders and five shortboarders as company all taking off on the shoulder. They all usually go for the first wave of the set and get cleaned up, so then you have all these obstacles in the water that very rarely paddle to the inside after being cleaned up. They paddle to the face
. Most of them then get angry that you are getting waves because they can't either make the sections or the wave is too slow. Fortunately (touch wood) I haven't hit anyone so far in the 3 years I've been out in the water (scared a few though.
)
Everybody has their gripes. The suppers on the GC should use their Go Pro's to document the idiots on shortboards and mals and present the evidence to that rag that passes itself off as a newspaper on a slow news day. I really do feel sorry for you guys.
. By the way I'm pretty sure that the clip itself is of Malibu, I remember seeing it a couple of months ago somewhere when a shortboarder was having a big glass of
whine.
As for the break known as "Ours". It doesn't really matter where it is. You gotta pay your dues to ride a place like that!
It is no place for a SUP!
I don't know why I keep on getting sucked into these exchanges, probably because people like, Piros, Wazza, Lacey and a whole heap of other crew are clearly good enough to Sup surf anywhere they want to, at anytime they want to on the GC (all points included) they have the water safety and surfing ability/knowledge required. Maybe if all the hot guys up there in all surfing disciplines got full face Moko tattoos then the 95% of wannabes would be clear on who you don't drop in on!!
Hopefully I'm still here in twenty years time, and I betcha there will still be the same arguments going on about something new. Good luck and don't forget to have fun!!
