If things are gonna go tits up it’s always ten times worse when they do so in Indo. This is probably why Indonesia is the number one destination for surfers. It’s nothing to do with the sublime quality of the waves, the legendary consistency of the perfectly groomed swells that have marched thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean for your pleasure, the great climate and the cheap as chips cost of living. Nah. It is purely cos shit goes down, and when shit goes down in Indo shit gets real.
Enough ghetto speak for now but you get my gist. The old Chinese proverb, or threat as it really is: may you live in interesting times could not apply better. An Indo trip without a mishap or meeting someone that’s had an incident is pretty rare. Things are just more loose there, more alive even, it’s not all PC this, health and safety that. Hard hats and hi-vis aren’t necessary.
If you want to ride a motorbike without a helmet that’s your look out, if you want to ride a moped and carry your wife, three children and several chickens on it as well that’s fine. If you want to drink drinks made with unspecified bootleg alcohol (arak: lethal stuff) and lord knows what chemical uppers (that are all conveniently legal there) then go for your life.
You can get into as much trouble as you like and still, maybe, bribe your way out of things if the police are on your side. Of course if the police don’t like your face you can still be paying a big bribe to not get arrested for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life is never boring in Indo.
Even just hanging around Kuta the ‘safe’ town in Bali that’s the base for more exotic missions and the place you return to for some good old fashioned civilisation when you’ve been on a feral mission somewhere else can be full of pitfalls. Literally.
Want to know what it’s like to fall into an open sewer? Kuta is the place. No red tape, barriers and warning signs around broken paving stones there, just a big hole in the pavement. Fine in the daytime when you can see it, lethal when you are pissed up on cheap booze at night and the street lights aren’t working. Equally the dogs look nasty and rabid during the day, at night to your drunk ass they are cute puppies that need stroking … still rabid though.
Want to know what it’s like getting chased by a gang of men with machetes? Then be a drunk asshole in Indo. No matter who you are, how clean living and decent your character you will get pulled into the Kuta vortex. I was travelling there with a certain other famous British photo-journo years ago (an upright sober fellow if there ever was one, almost nun like he is 😉 and after a particularly messy night I lost him for three days. No idea where he’d got to.
I saw Dan ‘Mole’ Joel on the third morning and he’d thought he’d seen him looking confused on the other side of the island. Turns out he had somehow wangled his way into a four star hotel in Sanur. Weird things happen over there. On the way back from G-Land I saw an overturned coach in a ditch with bleeding, injured people hanging out of smashed windows, our driver wouldn’t stop so we could help, I asked if the ambulances would be there soon, he replied simply: ambulances? Life is cheap there, that’s what happens when you believe in reincarnation.
Tales of keen young Brit surfers (particularly of the Plymouth persuasion) pulling local ladies and receiving enthusiastic oral pleasure only to discover their partner for the evening is actually a lady-boy with a full set of meat and two veg are legendary. That’s certainly crossing one off the bucket list.
As is the tale of one prominent British surfer -who shall remain nameless- who due to overdoing it on the Illusion Shaker cocktails or a possible unfortunate bout of Bali Belly returned home to his losmen (cheap hotel) feeling a bit green and passed out on the bed, carelessly leaving the door open.
He then proceeded to crap himself spectacularly in his sleep. His co-travellers returned later that night and being concerned friends popped their heads in through the ajar door to make sure all was okay.
Seeing the result of what happens when someone’s pooped themselves and rolled around in it on a white sheet is fairly traumatic (it was even, by all accounts, on the walls as well). But being of stern stuff our chaps went and grabbed a camera, got some happy snaps and retired to their rooms crying with laughter.
The next morning the victim woke, saw the situation, cleaned himself and his room and went for brekkie thinking he’d got away with it.
No one mentioned a word.
He knew nothing until he got home and saw the photocopies of the photos that everyone else had already seen thanks to them being pinned to lamp posts in his hometown.
The only plus side is this was pre social media… Now that would be a shitstorm.
Keeping The Crew Safe with Peter Conroy Interview by Steve England
There have been a couple of incidents in Ireland recently requiring coastguard assistance. Helicopters rescued a stranded surfer from the bottom of the Cliffs of Moher and Australian pro bodyboarder Ben Player was extracted from the reef at Rileys after he managed to rupture his own spleen. The former has led to a considered response. Safety guru Peter Conroy explains…
How many serious injuries have occurred at these waves over the years?
There have been a few injuries there over the past few years with a broken back and two dislocated shoulders, near drownings from boats being flipped and skis lost. But we’ve learnt from every mistake and this is why we’re working to pre-plan for any incidents that may occur again there in the future.
How did you break your back and what happened with the rescue?
I broke my back down at Rileys and was very lucky that there was a ski out there with a rescue sled on it. This allowed us to self rescue and maintain proper in line spinal precautions. And all we needed was a ambulance that met us at the slipway. Way better than a helicopter crew putting their lives in danger by coming and trying to winch me up. Saying that on the day that if it was a worse injury I would’ve had no hesitation in ringing for them if needed.
Did that give you a new perspective on surfing?
Yes. From that day onwards I always bring my ski out when surfing critical heavy waves and have it equipped with a rescue board.
Most of the Irish based tow teams and big wave surfers are pioneers and due to the lack of visitors mainly self taught. Yet you’ve reached a level of safety and rescue that is getting the thumbs up from surfers like Dorian. How have you got there? Is it just drill, drill, drill?
We’ve all trained under the same guidelines, Glyn Ovs from Water Safety International came over a few years back and showed us a lot of rescue procedures he had learnt in California. We adopted these into the big wave surfing we’d done already and just by everyone working off the same protocol we started developing action plans for most of the big waves spots. From working in the Fire Brigade and having a degree in disaster management I was able to draft up emergency action plans and get the training procedures set up for everyone.
Which of the big four waves: Rileys, Laurens, Aileens or Mullaghmore would you say is the heaviest to surf and why?
They are all very different waves in many ways. Be it location, access, extraction, injuries sustained there. But definitely the cliffs and Rileys are the most dangerous due to the lack of access for the emergency services. Laurens … not many people are stupid enough to surf there haha! That wave is crazy. Mully is safe enough due to its close proximity to the harbour and the deep channel after the wave. That and the fact all the lads are some of the best jet ski operators in the world up there. Dylan, Barry and Paul … the place is safe when they’re out there keeping an eye on you.
The level of camaraderie among the big wave crews seems to be growing every year. Are there still a few paddle versus tow clashes or is everyone singing from the same hymn sheet?
We’re all out to get waves by any means possible, some like to paddle, some like to tow. We all get along as we’re all out there to have fun and that’s how it is.
Anyone who has been the cliffs will know how immense and treacherous they are, how was the recent helicopter rescue there?
My voiceover kinda explains this one haha, I have seen plenty of real life rescues but this one I take my hats off to the heli’ lads. Take a bow lads, unreal job done that night.
What’s the plan with the safety box – why is it a necessity at Alieens and what make this wave heavier than most when the shit hits the fan?
The box that’s going down to the bottom of the cliffs will be there to help any stranded/injured surfer maintain his injury or situation and communicate with the emergency services. Also allowing tired surfers to rest with survival gear and warm clothing/energy bars/water to maybe recuperate from a nasty wipeout or maybe just to wait until the swell dies down a bit and they can get back out. It’s there so we do not have to put the emergency services in danger by doing unneccessary rescues.
What is the relationship with the Irish Coastguard like? Are they supportive of you guys pushing boundaries?
We’ve been working very closely with the helicopter service and the Irish Coastguard in insuring safe procedures are in place for all these spots now. Hard work by the Irish Tow Surf Rescue Club has insured that there is never bad blood between the surfers and the rescue services. A mutual respect is given to each other on the basis that we understand each other’s skills and appreciation for safety in our sport.
What is the general vibe like when you get a Long brother or a Dorian turn up? Ireland is not like any big wave destinations the will have experienced before?
When they come over we treat them like our own, which they are: surfers. They play the game and that’s how it is, mutual respect is what it’s all about. They always have good things to say about trips to Ireland with the one obvious downside: the cold. They’re all a bit soft really…
The older crew have been breaking the ground and showing the way to the younger Irish surfers. How stoked are you when Conor or Ollie pull into bombs … must be pretty special?
Who you calling old?! It’s pretty amazing to watch the younger lads come up behind us and be pushing the boundaries so hard. It makes me proud to be Irish and see the respect we get from the best surfers in the world when they come over here and surf with us. I don’t think the lads like Conor, Ollie, Gearoid, Dylan Noonan, etc, get enough help and support as they should for the things there doing in our sport. Things have got to change.
Do you think these waves have been surfed as big as possible or is there still potential for more?
Not even close. There’s always going to be a better day. I just hope I’m not working when I comes. We’ve only just scratched the surface.
I’d just like to add the Irish Tow Surf Rescue Club’s main aim is to safeguard all our big wave surf spots and to maintain a level of rescue training in and out of the water. We also really appreciate all the help given to us by sponsors: Patagonia, Peli Products Ireland, Northcore and most recently Brendan Quinn who donated a collapsable stretcher to the club.
It’s is only with support from like minded people like this that we can help change minds and the way people see surfing. Not as an individualistic sport but as a team one always looking after each other out there. Any other companies out there that are willing to help us out in our goal and test their gear in the harshest environment possible please don’t hesitate to contact me through the mag. We can save lives together.
Technology moves fast. We know this. In the twenty years the magazine has been in existence the way it’s produced has changed immeasurably.
Back in 1994 producing a magazine was a lengthy and expensive process. Hard to imagine now in the digital age but you couldn’t just produce a magazine in your bedroom on a laptop like you can these days.
The photos were all shot on film, slide film to be precise. Now slide film is not forgiving. If the exposure was wrong then the photo was ruined. That was why at the time every photographer lived with a light meter dangling around their neck.
A roll of film has 36 shots on it, a real issue especially when shooting in the water. So once a roll was finished, which if shooting with a 10 frames a second Canon 1V film body (£1400 for the best film camera Canon made, compare to £5000 for the equivalent digital body these days) was approximately six hook ups, you’d have to swim back to shore, dry off the housing and then delicately change the film roll without dripping nose drain in the camera. As you can imagine changing a roll of film on a sandy beach when you’ve just got out the sea is quite a challenge. Especially when the surf is pumping and you’re missing the gold. So it wasn’t uncommon for photographers to swim with two water-housings. Which had the added bonus in the changeable British weather of being able to have one housing with standard colour slide film and one with fast black and white slide film. From land it was equally challenging, whilst autofocus lenses had been around since 1987 many photographers were still using manual focus cameras and lenses until the mid to late nineties. Replacing an expensive camera system wholesale was obviously a big ask.
So with the double whammy of tricky slide exposure and manual focus nailing good surf photos was a real art twenty years ago. Good shots were worth their weight in gold.
Once shot the rolls of film were sent off or taken to the lab. In Honolulu, or London for example, the labs could do a two hour turn around so if on a real deadline you could get them same day. But to get them to the magazine was still done physically. If you were a photographer in the nineties you had a Fedex or DHL account; as couriers were your lifeline.
Sure the early Internet existed in a minimal way when the mag started, the first web browser was in 1993 (Google didn’t exist until 1998, carvemag.com launched in 2000) but photos were yet to be digitally revolutionised in shooting or transmission. The early digital camera projects Kodak did with Nikon and Canon were never commercial. The 1.3 megapixel Kodak/Canon in 1994 was £12,000 and of no use for magazines.
Once at the magazine the slides would go on a big light table and the pick for the issue was done, with often heated debates around the light table then at a slideshow. With the office staff haranguing each other until a consensus on which shots were best. Once the photos were decided upon the slides were sent off to the repro house. An industry that has since virtually disappeared. It was a dark art scanning. The slides were removed from their mounts, coated in oil and put into a ridiculously expensive drum scanner manned by a team of expert geeks. Every scan cost money. A drum scan was £25. So just to get the digital photo files ready for design in Quark Express cost a few thousand pounds.
The computers at the time couldn’t even cope with high resolution drum scan images so design was done with low-res then the repro house would package up the finished files for the printers.
It was expensive, time consuming and really difficult to make last minute changes. But back then surf magazines were the cultural glue in surfing. The magazines were the only source of what was happening in the surf world. Ad budgets and operating budgets were way bigger.
Twenty years later it is a whole new world.
The digital photography revolution at the start of the century killed off film and cut the repro house out the loop. You could now get print ready magazine image files without spending thousands on repro. Anyone can go out and shoot surf photos with a camera costing a few hundred pounds and get stunning results.
Making the magazine is a breeze as the computers are so powerful. No more asking the computer to do something then going and having a cup of tea while the processing ‘status bar’ wound its way down.
People like to whine about progress but the technology we use to shoot, write and produce the magazine has made a quantum leap in twenty years. It makes our lives easier and the camera technology means our photographers can bring you better images. It’s all good. The digital revolution has democratised the surf media. Anyone can shoot, write and publish to the world.
It’s hard to imagine 1994, the year Carve started, if you weren’t there. Twitter and Facebook were 12 years away. Nobody ‘went on the Internet’ for fun. Email was the only thing that people used the net for. The camera phone was still science fiction. Internet able phones didn’t arrive until 1999. The humble iPhone, brought to the world 2007, a device you can even read the magazine on in 2014, is a device so powerful it blows the Apple beige box computers used to design the magazine in 1994 out the water. They didn’t even have 1GB of memory. It has an 8MP camera, the same resolution as the top of the line Canon 1DMk2 camera body from 2004… And it shoots photos good enough for the magazine.
The times they are a changing. The surf thankfully doesn’t. The top pic is a recent digital image. The one below from the early 2000s shot on film…
What an incredible and succinct piece of writing. Absolutely awesome. I wish it could be sent to all phone and gadget autobots I see in our world everyday. Slaves to an imaginary world, desperately seeking answers with endless social network scrolling. Read Sharpy’s article I want to roar. Pick up a board, get wet, just do something. Quit your moaning. Start your mojo.
However.
I believe your article resonated with me particularly as I see surfing as my soul saviour, which came about the morning I paddled out at high tide at Putsborough two years ago, quite accidentally.
My journey to the sea started 18 months before that baptism paddle in Devon. It was winter in London and I had started working at a global media agency, a very sought after job of my generation apparently, my job was basically to ensure the public purchased our clients products that they didn’t need or want. From 9am to 5:30pm I would be sat in front of two computer screens, tapping keyboard keys and taking the odd phone call. I do not exaggerate here, no matter how well they tried to dress the job up, Barry the goldfish still could have done it. So, there I was, about three and a half minutes into my first day and I knew I was in the wrong place entirely. However. I had convinced myself at 24 years old that it was time to be sensible. Get a career that was stable, with a good pension plan, 21 days holiday a year, and burn my life away. The predictability of my future suddenly seemed terrifying. I was waking up in the morning and going to work purely out of obligation, not out of opportunity. I did not want to let anyone down and I was convincing myself every second that this was the right way to ‘live’.
Weekday evenings and weekends were my only meditation. I would go to the gym and run along the Thames five days a week. Then run the soles off my feet at weekends, exploring the country, re-finding my soul. Then it would all start again on Monday. Death by computer.
A year and a half in to the job, and coupled with some other unfortunate circumstances in my life, my brain went kaput. My alarm went off one morning and I could not for the life of me figure out why I was getting up. Every breath seemed like a conscious breath to me. I had no appetite, no lust for life. Everything had gone. I tell you, at that time, if I had been told I had just won the lottery and that the entire women’s Swedish Netball team coincidentally wanted to go for a beer with me; I would have not lifted a muscle. Not shown a spark of response. Something had reached into me and stole away my heart and soul. Several months later I was diagnosed with some form of manic depression and mild bi-polar. That had decided to brandish its knife at this particular time. Get in.
Medicine was prescribed. Taken. But I was always suspicious of the pills. How was I supposed to know if I was feeling better because of medication or because, maybe, I just felt good that day, that hour, I smiled.
Summer arrived. Myself, plus my two closest friends hired a campervan and headed to Croyde for the first time. “Could try some surfing?” they suggested.
Movement and travel always helped me, perhaps it was the unexpected destinations that lay ahead. Both physical and spiritual. The secret destinations within ourselves that seeing a new horizon can only light.
First day in Devon. I sat in the car park overlooking Putsborough, from dawn until dusk I watched surfers surf. ‘That truly is the closest thing to flying,’ I remember thinking. But, what struck me more, was the patience and purpose that existed between sets. As men, women, teenagers, kids, and everyone sat atop their boards all looking out to sea for the next set. To this day I cannot think of another past-time or scenario where humans come together and all face out the same way, together in patience, purpose and harmony. Waiting for the most reliable piece of pure joy. The wave.
The next day I hired a board, paddled out as the sun breached the horizon. And sat there on my board. One of the flock. Again I must tell you that I do not exaggerate here, but from that moment on everything changed for me. Purpose was found and damn it looked fun. I think it is the minimalism of surfing that grabbed me. That calmed the delicate mechanism of the mind. Out there, catching waves, waiting, nothing can get to me. Nothing. I smiled and laughed to myself for perhaps the first time in a year. I was back.
Since that day I have required no medicine and no treatment. I have a job that allows me to surf every weekend and I am heading off on my first surf trip abroad to Bali in September. Almost two years to the day when I first paddled out.
On the days that the darkness does tease my soul, I shut my eyes and imagine the day I will be able to ride my first barrel, completely surrounded by water. Laughing my backside off in joy. That’s my purpose, for me. To have fun. To surf. To live for opportunity. Not obligation. As you say in your article Sharpy, ‘No matter what, your love for surfing will always be there.’
Again, thanks if anything. Keep writing the way your write.
p.s – This honestly started off as a quick “Nice article” all the very best e-mail. And, well, as you can see, that escalated quickly.
Ten years ago London was rocked by the events of 7/7. I wrote this in response at the time…
***
Writing a column for a surf mag is a fun thing to do, surfing is fun, the whole deal is fun. Fun can be a bit selfish.
As surfers we can sometimes be accused of having our head in the sand when it comes to the rest of the world. Looking towards the oceans and skies all the time, shunning the real world and real issues, more intent on looking for our next fix of wave-sliding natural bliss. Sure, we have a proven environmental conscience we can be proud of but generally the rest of the world can carry on with its petty disputes, underhand politics and oil wars without ruffling our feathers.
That all changed with the bombing of the Sari Club.
9/11 was shocking, disgusting and an appalling event, but it was outside of our sphere, it seemed hyper-real, like some mad action movie, in a remote, cartoon version of New York. The Sari was a different ball game, sure it was no closer to home geographically than downtown Manhattan, but the Sari and the bright lights of Kuta were a place that many of us had been, or would have ended up at some point in our surfing lives.
Which is when it hits home.
All the carnage, the murder and mayhem could have happened to any of us, or any of our mates. When the smoke cleared most people that have surfed for a while and have a network of surfing buddies knew someone that was there, someone whose life unfortunately stopped or altered irrevocably that day.
Friends that even now are still haunted by unthinkable images which we can never hope to soothe or understand.
I knew two, one from Ireland and one from Cornwall, one got minor burns and survived the blast in Paddy’s Bar, the other was unscathed by the bombs but heroically pulled people out of the chaos in the Sari with no regard for his own safety.
Getting caught up in a conflict that was nothing to do with us, perpetrated by people with a horrifying disregard for human life and an elastic understanding of their own faith (a faith which condemns murder as a sin) is not something that you fit into your head easily.
The link between terrorism and surfing is a tenuous one, but it’s hard to write about an activity, which is in essence entirely frivolous when there are innocent people getting blown-up on trains and buses in London.
That really is our backyard.
As I sit here typing I’m still wondering if friends of mine, friends that live surfing, love life and have never uttered a harsh word about anybody are okay.
The mobile phone network cannot cope. The rolling news footage is still in disarray, no one knows how many people are dead or who the hell did it.
People are trapped in tube stations. There was no warning. But why should there be? It always seemed awfully polite, British even, of terrorists to warn the authorities of the impending terror.
As the terrorism game mutated (and it became about slaughter and media impact not getting a political message across) the new trick of warning the police the bomb was in one place so they’d herd the public nearer to the real bomb site (as used to horrific effect in Omagh) made any warning an impossible thing to trust.
Thursday the 7th of July, a day when most people were still glowing with joy about the previous day’s news London had won the Olympics in 2012, still revelling in the memory of the historic Live8 gig the weekend before, and for our subculture, rubbing their hands in anticipation of some small but sunny waves at the weekend.
The world, it seems, is going to hell in a hand basket and there’s not a lot we can do about it. Or can we?
The tsunami made a right royal mess in our extended Indian Ocean backyard and the response from the surfing world was immense, both in financial and personal terms.
Little people, that’s you and I, did something about it on an unprecedented scale, so much money was raised the charities had to say, ‘Stop! We’ve got too much cash!’
Aid, funds, supplies, clothes and love were sent, without condition, to affected areas. Christian, Muslim, Hindu or none of the above. An outpouring of love that says far more about humanity than the evil perpetrated by a tiny minority of mentalists.
Surfers are well travelled, we’ve been to Muslim countries: Morocco, Indo, the Maldives and the like, we know that the hype is wrong, there is no East v West religious war, this isn’t the eve of destruction.
Our Islamic brothers are just like us, they love their families, they love their lands and they have the same hopes and dreams for the future as we all do.
They like to have fun. They also love the waves. We have more in common than what sets us apart.
A handy raft of excuses to get out of work/school/family commitments to help you get your fix of saltwater gravy. Especially handy when we’ve got unseasonably fun summer swell around…
Here are some tried and tested excuses that should do the trick*. Remember that once you’ve dropped any of these you need to remember that you have and stick to the alibi. The key is to get day off without losing a day’s pay. With all excuse making to go surfing make sure you max the suncream on face/hands as you don’t want the farmer tan giving the game away.
Rum Bum
The classic. Hard to disprove and no boss or teacher wants your vomit-stained, bum-squirty face anywhere near them. Diarrhoea is, a twat to spell, but the key to days off at the drop of a hat. Food poisoning is always easy, just remember the dish at fault. Barbecue season is of course a golden time for the good old ‘undercooked chicken’; it is an excuse classic. The other end of the bum spectrum is constipation. Equally good as excuses go. Get the hint across that you’re a ticking time bomb primed to messily go off and enjoy your day in the waves.
Got Bit
We’re kinda unlucky in comparison to the rest of the world when it comes to excuse worthy critters. There’s not a lot out there to make you spend a few days in bed ‘at home’ being ‘ill’. So there’s only one real contender: the Adder. Yup the one poisonous snake in the British Isles. A bite from one of these elusive buggers can lead to nausea, vomiting and dizziness and a day or so in hospital for observation. Just so you know. Or invent a decent, but not throat closing, allergy … Like horse fly bites or something.
Blame The Sea
Odds on your boss or teacher knows you surf. So use it to your advantage. Chat to them about the good work of SAS and all the nasties that live in the sea so you can take a few days for the inevitable ear/nose/throat/lung infection or gastroblaster that claim us all a few times a year. Not bad enough to the see the Doctor but believable enough to get you a few days brine time.
Playing Golf
Now this one is a bit more tricky. It needs you to have a client that surfs as well. So you can then ‘have a board meeting’ instead of murdering lots of small white balls. Best thing is you both get to surf and can still have a bit of a chinwag between sets. Hell maybe even do some work at the same time. Win/win.
Doctor’s Appointment
A trip to the Doctors or hospital for a ‘scan’ are always a good one. Everyone knows in today’s hard pressed NHS you can be there all day waiting to get seen. Keep your ailment vague, hint that it’s of a very personal nature, point to the downstairs department and make an awkward embarrassed face. This should see you out the door for a day for sure.
Work From Home
Now this one is a bit more tricky but workable if you can catch up on the work you need to do at some point. But the whole point of free surf days is not making more work for yourself. Also tricky if anyone is emailing or ringing you when you’re in the sea. Unless you really want to get a waterproof case for your phone. On that front stay off social media if you’re excusing yourself from work. Don’t blow it.
Car Issues
Only workable if you live in the middle of nowhere with no public transport and no friends with cars. Best bet to go for ‘breaking down’ on way to work. This gives you the leeway to be ‘dealing with it’ all day with the nice Mr RAC man. Be sure to know what went wrong, something fixable but common like your carburettor falling off or the turbo injectors turning to cheese. A good one, that loses you man points, but does work is the good old: ‘I put petrol in me diesel car’, or vice versa.
Jury Duty
If it’s cooking for a week you could try this. Might need to falsify some paperwork but it’s totally doable. Only issue is if you really do get called up for jury duty then you’re toast. Prob won’t work if you’re in the legal profession. Or have already done it for real. You’re not allowed to discuss the case so there’s no need to invent a complex back story.
The Pet
Dogs and cats get suddenly sick and need taking to the vet. Which can take all day. It’s just one of those things. Make sure you actually own a pet if you’re going to use this one. One easy way is to buy a realistic plastic tortoise and leave it in your garden. Just give it a kick to move it once a fortnight.
Baby
The ‘wife/girlfriend’ having a baby can be used to your advantage. It just takes some forward thinking to make sure the due date is at some point when the swell is pumping. Then you can use ‘close calls’ and ‘false alarm’ hospital runs to score a few days in the water before the waters really do break. Face it, once the kid drops you ain’t going surfing ever again anyway.
Wedding
A wedding, preferably at the other end of the country, is a good way of wangling a day or two. No boss can get peeved with the sound of wedding bells. And it’s a real arse of a boss that docks you a few days for such happy times. It’s worth getting some stock wedding portraits done just for this excuse. If you know anyone good with Photoshop this might help; they can just slot your head on a pic from Mr Google.
Kids Ill
If you are lucky (or unlucky enough, depending on your point of view) to have kids they’re a motherlode of excuse gold. They need to go to the doctors frequently for inoculations and that. Then there are the days spent in A&E when they jam their head in a pan, railings or similar. They have mystery ailments all the time so use them to your advantage. Similarly it’s a stern boss that will get snippy about time off for your dear offspring. Like the pets one this kinda falls down if you don’t actually have children. It might involve some bribery on your children’s part if they ever actually meet the boss at a function. You best keep a list of all the afflictions they’ve had just in case. Best avoid, ‘Little Tommy lost his arm in the threshing machine on the farm’ or similar for this very reason. Also good for getting out early if the surf picks up unexpectedly. Just get a friend to ring pretending to be school and say your kid’s sick.
Migraine
Always make sure everyone knows you are prone to migraines. It’s a get out of jail free card for a few days off each month. While the boss thinks you’re lying in a quiet, dark room you can be slotted in the green room.
Lightning
This has a one time use. The story goes you got hit by lightning while out hiking and spent two days unconscious in a field. Far fetched but believable. Maybe use some make-up to make appropriate ‘in and out’ burn marks. Remember never to use this twice. Odds of ‘actually’ getting hit are low so you should be fine.
Alien Abduction
You need a real hippy, or perhaps drunk, for a boss to pull this one off. Obvs you can’t ring in advance for this but if you happen to miss a few days from work for the swell of the year you could try the ‘I was abducted by aliens’ routine. Make it convincing, work on your scenario with how the aliens looked, the interior of the their craft and just how worrisome the anal probe was. Kind of a last resort but worth a shot if you think you’re getting fired soon for being a useless surf bum anyhoose.
So there you go. Use with care. You’re welcome.
*If your boss surfs then you are completely and utterly stuffed. Unlucky buddy. Oh and don’t blame us when you get fired for using all of these back to back.
