Hey!
I thought we’d move away from work for this post and write a little bit about hobbies. Mine is surfing!
I was introduced to the sport of surfing in my teen years and I am extremely thankful to the person who introduced me to it, it completely changed my life and almost instantaneously became a crucial part for me. I see it as a big definition of who I am, an expression of my personality, and a balancer of my wellbeing.
It’s the one activity where I can completely zone out of the world, where I find myself not thinking about anything else. Even if I try. It is just me enjoying nature, dealing with all its moods.
Even after all these years I am still discovering new things about the art of surfing, and I have just recently started to shape surfboards, diving into the world that is the interaction between geometry and water flow.
When I moved to London, I knew that continuing to surf was going to be a big challenge, but not an insurmountable one. I was extremely lucky to have incredible people in my life that showed me the ropes, shared their tricks, and made the whole adaptation to the “London Surfer” way of living super easy.
Surfing in the UK led me to discover the country’s beautiful coastline and meet amazing people. Almost every weekend I would travel west or south in search of the best waves. I used to drive for hours to North Devon, the Gower in South West Wales, and multiple locations in Cornwall. I had no idea that the UK had such an amazing wave quality and I ended up having some of the best surf sessions of my life. Even considering the cold!
It has also mainly been surfing that’s driven me to explore the world. The search for different waves has taken me from Portugal to Indonesia, Australia, Africa, and most recently to Central America. During my travels I have learned a lot, but the biggest outcome relates to dealing with expectations and balancing the bad with the good. Good waves are a commodity in the sense that they only come around so often as there are a lot of factors that influence their shape, and there are often a lot of people trying to surf them at the same time! Plus when booking a surfing trip in advance, particularly to somewhere further afield, predicting what the waves will be like is very difficult and it can become frustrating when you arrive at your destination only to find the conditions are not surfable. However, when you do arrive and the perfect waves meet you, all the effort makes sense and it is a truly unique sensation.
What are your hobbies? How important do you think it is to have something in your life as important as surfing is for me?