More surfing jobs innit…
Pro Surfer
Getting there: There are two routes to becoming a professional surfer. One involves being born with a natural ability. Get some good genes and this surfing lark is a doddle (see Dane, JJF, Kelly). The other is working damn hard at it, training your ass off, working with coaches and becoming the best you can be (see everyone else).
Skill set required: Helps if you have an innate sense of balance, unbridled athleticism, keen proprioception and aren’t too tall (pro surfers tend to be 5’8″ and south, it’s not generally a game for lanky fellas. Unless you’re Jordy). Having massive titanium coated balls also helps if you want to be a big wave pro like Cotty. Growing up near the ocean is also a big and very obvious advantage.
Cash: Small time pro’s in the UK may only get product, which is still awesome in the big scheme of things, then there’s the mid-level crew on a couple of grand a year which helps, big league Brit pro’s can earn five figures. Hit the world tour and have a global profile and six figures is possible. Be world title potential then seven figure contracts will be waved under your nose.
Good bits: Surfing for a living, travel, free stuff, groupies.
Bad bits: Sunburn, surf comps in 1ft mush, travel, groupies, not a long-term career (that said if you’re top level til you’re nearly 40 like Slater then I’m sure pensions won’t be an issue). Surfing with all the best hasslers in the world every session.
Ambitions: For a British surfer getting on the world tour is the ultimate goal. What are you waiting for?
Shaper
Getting there: Shaping your own board is something everyone that’s not a total muppet at DIY should try at least once. If you have the hands of an angel and an eye for curves then it could be a career. Anyone can do it. Parental guidance maybe needed for power tools for the under twelves. Like in Blue Peter: always ask an adult for help with the scissors…
Skill set required: Steady, functional hands, keen eyesight, an aptitude for woodwork to GCSE level, high tolerance to toxins plus degrees in hydrodynamics and resin chemistry would be handy. All that and owning a shaping shed. Your Ma might be a bit distraught if you do it in the lounge. Unless you’ve got a really good hoover.
Cash: There’s a whole spectrum of shapers from guys that just build their own boards, the local hero building boards at cost for his buddies up through the national hero Harty/JP level all the way up to the JS/DHD/Merrick mega global factory level. In the main most shapers are, like most in surfing, doing it for the love.
Good bits: The satisfaction of a job well done. Your handiwork under someone’s feet will give them pleasure for years (depending on your glassing standards). Making stuff with your hands is a blast. As is having a shaping machine do the hard yards.
Bad bits: Everything about shaping is toxic. Foam dust is nasty, fibreglass is evil and resin is explosive. Then there’s the mind-bending physics of boards, fins and how they interact with water in four dimensions. It’s enough to make Stephen Hawkings do wheelies in his wheelchair just trying to comprehend the mathematics of surfing. Shapers need to know what works, if you don’t your boards will be glorified ironing boards.
Ambitions: Shaping for the big league pro’s is the recipe for riches, women and more… or maybe not. As you have to give the buggers loads of free boards every season. Any shapers ambition is to make the perfect board. Which like beauty, can only be judged in the eye of the beholder…
Contest Judge
Getting there: No one’s quite sure at what point and why someone would actually want to be a judge. It’s a totally thankless task. You do a good job and no one mentions it, do a bad job and the whole world showers you with shit.
Skill set required: The patience of a saint, eyesight that would put a peregrine falcon to shame, a bladder made of reinforced titanium, a hide thicker than a bison so all the insults and occasional projectiles bounce off… Also a stomach sturdy enough to handle dodgy comp food, liking cold fish and chips and lukewarm instant coffee is essential.
Cash: Being a judge, even on the World Tour is not going to make you rich. It’s one of those ‘do it for the love of the job’ jobs (you getting the gist now ;). In England you might get paid enough to cover your petrol.
Good bits: Watching your nations or the world’s best surfers do what they do on a regular basis. World travel (which is all covered) so lots of nice hotels and free meals. Occasional chance to surf without being dropped in on by the whole top 34.
Bad bits: Judging surfing all day. With the entire world double guessing what you’re up to. Blowing a heat. Eye strain. Mind strain. Violence from pro surfers who disagree. Being booed by the crowd. Never getting a thank you. Being dropped in on by the whole top 34.
Ambitions: Being on the international panel that judges the ASP World Tour and Prime events is the top of the profession. If you like travelling a third of the year and sitting in portacabins staring into the sun while people flip you the bird then this could be the job for you!
See part I here.
Words & Photos: Sharpy
A short series looking at jobs in surfing innit…
Surf Photographer
Every since the digital revolution everyone wants to be a surf photographer. Huey knows why as the pay is minimal, conditions awful and you’ll miss the best surf you’ll ever witness in your life.
Getting there: No formal training is required, many big name professional surf photog’s are self taught, although many of the legendary water guys come from a bodyboarding background: Mickey Smith, Tim Jones, Jeff Flindt, Scott Aichner, etc. Used to the swim fins and being in heavy situations see.
Skill set required: Rich parents, fat credit card limit or a monk like zeal to work your nuts off at any job to get the cash together for equipment. Because much as you can take an amazing photo with any camera surf photography is all about the gear. You cannot be a pro surf photog just fannying around with hipster film and old cheap cameras. These days a Canon 7DMk2, water housing, plus all the lenses, tripod and other stuff is a minimum of £10,000. And that’s without one of the mega huge long lenses which are pushing £10Gs alone.
Cash: A double page spread in a surf mag will pay you £100. Now do the math on how long it will take you to pay for the equipment (not to mention live/eat/pay rent). Surf photography is something best started and done for the love, not for the reward, because apart from the elite handful of guys worldwide most are living on crumbs and all the mags have staff photogs. But if you have the eye you can certainly pay for your gear with it if nothing else. And if you’re double awesome you could go far. Especially now that self promotion is a whole heap easier.
Good bits: Worldwide travel, ultimate job satisfaction, year round perma-tan, hanging out with seriously good people, days off when it rains.
Bad bits: Missing good surf, being expected to lug 30kgs of gear around like a pack horse, never pulling (pro surfers always bag the attractive others), poor pay and conditions, no job security, danger of death.
Ambitions: Getting a cover shot is the big ambition. Once you’ve done that in the UK then an international cover (Surfer/Surfing/ASL, etc) is the Holy Grail. That and actually making some money.
Surf Mag Editor
Getting there: How do you get to be an editor of a surf mag? That’s a good question. On current form it would seem going to university in Aberystwyth is the statistically relevant answer. As Tim Nunn and Sharpy went there. Also having an Earth Science degree also seems to help (Nunn, Sharpy, Chris Power, Steve England, etc). Random but true.
Skill set required: Being a whizz with words, knowing surfing inside out, having the world’s best surf photog’s on speed dial and being intimate with the riders is essential. To be a good editor you also need to be funny, dashing, witty, erudite and basically James Bond without the fighting. It’s a mixture of managing your team (contributors, designers, printers, ad managers) and having a vision for the magazine. Starting each new issue with 132 blank pages is pretty terrifying. Not to mention being an online whizz. As being an editor is now half magazine and half online/social work.
Cash: Big league editors in the real world, mainstream magazines earn serious coin. The surf media, as usual lags a tad. In Europe a salary of £20Gs+ is possible if yer really good but you could earn more as a entry level manager in Maccas and they get free food.
Good bits: Editing a surf mag is one of the funnest jobs you can do when it’s going well. Occasional free travel and the odd bit of free product from the surf co’s.
Bad bits: Deadline stress, AWOL photographers and writers, corrupted hard drives, lack of internet and basically having to rely on other people. If they aren’t on their game it makes your life very hard. Like we said it’s about good people management. Editors normally last about three years in most mags before they get that far away look in their eyes and suffer burn out. So it’s not a job for a life. Media shit storms are also a potential issue.
Ambitions: Editing a national title is a job that doesn’t come up that often but it does happen. Or you can of course start your own. That’s how all mags come to pass. Just one guy with an idea.
Photo: Willy Aliotti by Sharpy
A voyage off the map into a feck off big storm and a week of remote adventure…
Seemed like a simple task— to rendezvous at a Glasgow retail park to receive instructions, Top Gear style, as to what our mission was. Except it’s not so simple when there are three surfers, two photographers, three vehicles and bodies strewn across the land from Kernow to the Vale of Glamorgan via the Big Smoke.
Somehow it came together (a good few hours behind schedule) and as we settled in to a few bevvies and slap up pub feed in the Premier Inn Rent-A-Tavern Sam Lam’ hit us with the plan.
Being modern times he simply fired up Google Maps on his battered iPhone and pointed to an island, zoomed in to the satellite image and took us on a birds eye tour, “See that, there, and there, hmm, interesting huh?” Four heads nodded in agreement at an array of river mouths, sandbars and likely looking reef set ups. He continued, “We’ve got four metres of swell, good winds and odds on not another surfer for a few hundred miles.”
We raised our glasses to that.
Booze, mates, food, open fire (the early spring surge hadn’t quite made it this far north yet) and a promising adventure brewing puts a grin on yer face.
The grin sagged a tad when Stu Campbell pointed at the muted TV set glowing in the corner of the bar, “That big green blob, the massive, ugly, violent rain storm that they are issuing ‘wave your hands in the air’ weather warnings for tomorrow is pretty much covering our whole six hour drive through the Highlands tomorrow then?”
Ah. Bugger.
Now I like a bit of extreme weather. Heavy rain and strong winds make you feel alive. When Mama Nature gets her knickers in a twist it’s fun to be twanging the elastic. Unless you’ve just driven the length of the country, shared a room with two Olympic standard snorers who made sleep impossible and are then expected to do another all day drive on progressively deteriorating mountain roads.
We breakfasted dejectedly staring out into the first salvos of the approaching maelstrom.
Down south the tweets and FB updates were flying thick and fast regarding the rather spiffing weather. Pretty much everyone we knew was busting out the flip-flops, bikinis, suncream and 3mm wetties as the burning ball of fire in the sky I like to call ‘The Sun’ had come back off it’s winter hol’s.
The irony was not lost on us.
The weather was being racist against Scottish people.
The next day was hell.
Rainy, stormy, flooded, scary wildness. All day.
Every dry stream bed was a raging torrent, every waterfall a thundering cataract. It was impressive but I yearned for a Land Cruiser as opposed to a cheap and cheerful Astra that was burying itself to the axles in each deepening flood. I was just waiting for it to flood the electrics and the call to the AA to not go well, as there’s no reception in the wilds. I was going to be left to the elements, like a Greek bastard of myth, to die at the hands of exposure.
As we neared the coast a cheerful sign blinked that the ferry we were aiming for was cancelled and wouldn’t be running until the day after at the earliest cos it had blown away— buggery arse. That added three hours on to the drive to make the next ferry up the coast.
Suffice to say it wasn’t a barrel of laughs. But we got to a ferry which got us where we wanted to go and as the weather-shocked crew regrouped on the ferry deck the sunset popped out from under the clouds and the storm faded to the east.
We’d survived the green blob of doom.
Our destination island was odd, Wicker Man odd, the only word to describe it is ‘sparse’. The main town wouldn’t even be considered a hamlet on the mainland and we were staying way out in the sticks. An hour on single track but stunningly empty roads lead us to our gaff, the landlady greeted us as we pulled in and her chirpy chat sounded like Norwegian. Come to think of it she looked like a Viking, her horned hat must have been down the dry cleaners. The Norse influence in these parts was obviously deep rooted.
So there we were. In a comfy little house with a rather overboard swag of mainland ASDA groceries to see us through the week (for our surfer based Come Dine With Me homage). All was good. Until we hit the hay. I was sharing with staff photog Will, turns out Stu and Sam are proper shit at snoring compared to Will … and he sleeps deep. A meteor could strike the earth just outside the front door unleashing firey armageddon and he would sleep through it.
I, as a light sleeper, was doomed, ear plugs were no use as they’d get shaken out by Bailey’s somnambulistic sonic assault. Luckily I left my car on the mainland so could sit, sleep-deprived-zombie-trance like, in the back of Stu’s van as we explored the island in the coming days.
And boy did we explore…
Every nook and cranny that looked likely got sniffed, scoped and perused. Which is all well and good but the surf was bum. The four metre swell was nowhere to be seen. Odd as we had the whole Atlantic on our doorstep. So we drove, we walked, we explored.
We said things like, “With swell that could be good.” Which is a dumb thing to say.
As it was the first day we weren’t too stressed about scoring, the weather was sunny but freezing, and the swell had to be turning up any minute. So we got our bearings and figured out the lay of the land.
We woke up the next morning, for another supposedly sunny day, to find someone had painted all the houses windows with grey paint. Or it might’ve just been insanely foggy. Which it was. So foggy we couldn’t see the waves from the waters edge. Which is spooky when you’re on the edge of Europe and the currents are fierce. Didn’t stop us looking though.
We popped back down one of the few lanes that went to the coast passed an abandoned farm house we scoped the day before, there was a potential slab that had got Micah and Sam quite jazzed. Or we tried too. As we pulled off the single track main road onto the dirt track a 4×4’s lights came out of the gloom, drove to the bridge between us and parked squarely on it blocking our path. Sam and Micah wandered over to chat. The simple message was, “Farmhouse not abandoned, get the firk off my land, now do one.” All delivered from a scarred face farmer straight out of a low-budget horror film. If we’d been up on Scottish access laws we could have parked on the road and walked in exercising our ‘right to roam’ but we didn’t know that, so we created wildly slanderous scenarios as to what happened in the spooky farmhouse that even DIY SOS couldn’t fix and fantasised about the slab we’d been denied.
Heavy fog in unknown waters is a bit of a sod. We lost days to it’s damp, soggy blanket. We got the odd surf in here and there but nothing to write home about. Not that we could as we had no phone reception and the interweb hadn’t reached these parts as yet. Which to be honest, was quite refreshing, not being at the constant beck and call of emails, texts and the deep claws of social media was as fresh a breath of air as the clean goodness blowing in from the North Atlantic.
Our time on Wicker Island was coming to an end. We’d not scored. Will was tamping as his track record with these kind of trips is pretty stellar. A couple of two foot beachy sessions were not what he’d signed up for. We’d explored as much as we could but it just wasn’t happening.
So we gambled. Another little island, another ferry, a quick hit on our last day to try and save the trip. Which kinda worked. The fog remained clung like an overly clingy girlfriend to Wicker Island and as we cleared the sound to the next island the sun returned to our vitamin D deprived lives (little did we know it was ACTUALLY summer now down south). We rounded the bend to the first exposed beach, it was clean, there was swell, we could be on. We found a beach that had an epic little bar at one end and got stuck in, on cue the wind kicked up from zephyrs of offshore to gale force offshore but it was still barrelling.
Fun was had. Blood contracts made to visit again such was the potential. Chatting to local old fellas revealed they’d hardly ever seen surfers there. In fact in the whole week we’d met one other surfer. A local on Wicker Island who’d been out the water for a few years with a bad back. Think about that. Being the only surfer on your island, an island with more waves than you could surf in a lifetime. A bit spooky really. No wonder he was keen to surf with us.
Oh and for those of a culinary bent I reckon Sam won the cooking contest…
Words & Photos Sharpy
In life’s lottery some people get a fear of heights, some are terrified of custard, an odd few have to line up their cutlery just so and others snore like badly tuned Russian tractors. In the gene pool sweepstakes your correspondent got ‘sensitive’ sleepy time. As in when a dormouse lets off a barely perceptible nutty parp I wake up. So snoring, crickets, ticking clocks, dripping taps, distant club music, cars passing, drunk people, rain, lounge destroying sex and -as well evidenced recently- roof shattering hail. These all tend to keep me awake into the small hours* Hell, even the glow from street lights disturbs me. There is the obvious solution of ear plugs but then you also can’t hear your alarm go off after that 45 minutes kip… It’s a life skill that’s as useful as a waterproof teabag. Still. Being awake all night lets you ruminate on other things that aren’t right.
FROZEN WETSUITS…
Nothing more mentally traumatising than having to put on a winter wetsuit that’s been steadily hurtling towards -273˚ Kelvin overnight. It hurts physically and mentally. They say divorce, moving house and bereavement are the worst things you can go through. That ain’t diddly squat compared to a 6mm winter suit with a nice ice glaze on it. Our advice: have a minimum of two winter suits. That way one of them is always gonna be vaguely dry… Also don’t leave wet ones in the motor. Obvs.
WINTER STORMAGE…
Nothing wrong with plenty of swell, storms and all that but calm it down with the wind will ya and make it not westerly 24/7. NW or SW is fine, that gives us sheltered spot options, but straight west is well bum. Now it’s spring (metrological I know, not astronomical, which does make far more sense for deciding the seasons but is a bugger for statistics and records hence the Met bods inventing their own seasons) hopefully things might calm down a tad.
TEMPERAMENTAL ELECTRONICS…
The digital photography thing was meant to make life easier. Saying goodbye to easily damaged slide film that was readily lost in the post was supposed to be a good thing. It gave us control. No more relying on a lab to process it correctly and a repro house to scan things right. Photographers could now be master of their own destiny, you shoot it and your pics are ready to roll… Unless, of course, the external hard drive or phone you are storing the pics on decides to eat its self and your shots and chews them into the digital equivalent of what happens when a badger has a one sided fight with a heavy goods vehicle. Not good. Double back up everything kids, unless you really want to know what despair is. Especially those phone shots. They’re only one software update away from vaporising.
BAD FLIGHT DECORUM…
If you are flying internationally then please have the good manners to shower and deodorise before you do so. If you don’t fancy that and want to travel with apocalyptic body odour then either a) don’t sit next to me or b) wear a hermetically sealed biohazard suit so you can keep your noxious fug to yourself. If filling my olfactory sense with eye watering man stink wasn’t enough falling asleep with your elbow akimbo in a ‘I’m a little teapot stance’ so I can’t even sit upright on my seat without getting a pointy elbow to the ribs is just the icing on the cake. Airline travel it’s glamorous right? Jeeeez. Also arm rest etiquette: hogging the thing for the whole flight is not way cool, not at all.
T-REX ARMS…
After not surfing for a few weeks due to injury that first surf back is supposed to be a magical moment… ‘Just like riding a bike,’ they say. They forget to mention the paddling muscles have withered and died. Leaving you with arms akin to a T-Rex’s feeble twig efforts. The net result is the will is there but the body is lacking.
There. That’s better. Lack of sleep makes me write if nothing else…
*This could be why I’m grumpy… Yes. That’ll be it. 😉
1. It used to be called Ceylon.
So you knew that already? Well, aren’t you clever? Did you know it should have been called Sinhela? But the colonial Brits couldn’t pronounce it easily so it became Ceylon and way back when the island was called Serendip from whence we get the word serendipity. As for the reason that the name changed from Ceylon to Sri Lanka? Well, with all the thorough and exhaustive research I’ve done it seems to have been changed because they could. Much like the Marathon to Snickers debacle it seems the idea was to take a world renowned and recognised brand name like Ceylon (read it and you immediately think: tea) and change it to something which means nothing to anyone. Good marketing skills!
2. A Scotsman started the tea trade.
Yup. Read it and weep. Coffee was the main product of Ceylon until a disease wiped out the plants in 1860s. Sensing diversification was needed an estate owner called in a Scot, James Taylor, to start a tea crop in 1867. His first tea made it to London in 1873 and production rose from 23lbs that year to 22,000 tons in 1890.
The best Ceylon teas (which retain the Ceylon name) come from bushes grown above 4,000 feet and are considered to be some of the finest in the world. Bizarrely tea snobs reckon Ceylon teas should be served with a dash of milk.
3. Cinnamon on your coffee sir?
Sri Lanka is the world’s leading exporter of Cinnamon spice, producing 80 percent of the world’s output as well as knocking out the choicest grade uberfine gear. It actually comes from the inner bark of a tree.
4. Elephant milk? No thanks.
Sri Lanka is big on elephants. Weird as it sounds you can, if you are very, very hard, milk elephants. Not that you’d want to, as their titty-dribble is so rich that it’s unpalatable. To recreate elephant milk at home here’s the recipe: 6 bottles of fresh cow milk, half a bottle of ghee, 27 eggs minus the yolk and 2 measures of boiled rice. Yumm!
5. The civil war is over.
Yup. Supposedly. In a deal brokered by the Norwegians (How the Scandies, with all their experience of civil strife got involved is another mystery) the dominant Sinhalese and minority Tamils downed arms and hugged each other a few years ago.
6. U.F.Os, astral portals and other crazy shit abounds.
If you do your research it becomes apparent that Sri Lanka is one crazy place. Some ‘scientists’ believe there are portals to parallel universes, Einstein-Rosen Bridges and lord knows what else there. U.F.Os are common. This is all either a) true or b) the jazz cigarettes are bloody strong.
7. Carom or Carrom is dangerously addictive.
Whatever the spelling this infernal game, a weird mix of pool, draughts and Subbuteo is annoyingly addictive and may ruin any trip to Sri Lanka. Word on the street is the Indian players have the edge over Sri Lankans and the bi-annual test series is a nail biter. Just don’t bring a board home, eh?
8. There was a man made bridge between Sri Lanka and India.
No word of a lie. Adams Bridge is visible on NASA satellite images and according to boffins was built over a million years ago. If you believe the crap some people write. The sandy shoal is actually a natural feature that may have been dry enough to cross when sea levels were much lower thousands of years ago.
9. The legend of Cyril.
Sometime ago, in the not so recent past, when there weren’t too many local surfers, some travellers would take the piss a bit and drop in a lot. Story goes that an English surfer dropped in on the wrong guy too many times. The offended local, known to everyone as Cyril, calmly paddled back to the beach, trotted back to his pad, grabbed a knife and paddled back out with the blade between his teeth ‘pirate’ style.
He calmly paddled up to the drop-in-king and stabbed him square in the shoulder. Teaching him a lesson in manners he’ll never forget. No one ever dropped in on Cyril again.
10. Thanks, I think?
Hard to explain or believe but the tsunami that caused such horror, carnage and made such a royal mess of Sri Lanka and caused so much strife across the Indian Ocean actually improved the quality of the wave in Arugam Bay?!
See other 10 things: Maldives | Hawaii | Yorkshire | Norse Shore
I’m going to let you in to a little surf magazine secret: we don’t like hoods, boots and gloves.
Sure they are a hypothermia avoiding essential living in the latitude we do in our winter months, and help keep the surf companies buoyant, but like all of you we’d rather not surf in them.
They are in incumbrance, an awkwardness, a pain in the derriere. Hoods, built in or otherwise, no matter how comfy and tech, limit your senses. Even the best fitted gloves and boots remove that vital direct skin to resin contact betwixt you and your sled. They are surfing versions of condoms. Something you can’t do without but it’s far, far more pleasurable to not use.
Aside from the surfing aspect we don’t like them as mag folk simply because they look odd in photos. There. We said it. Hoods and gloves make people look silly. No one can pull off a hood without getting a squashed face. Even Brad Pitt would like a marshmallow faced buffoon in a 6mm. Angelina Jolie would be reduced to a pair of lips sticking out of her wetsuit face hole.
Gloves just add that air of ‘biohazard’ to the proceedings. Wetsuit boots are okay in photos. They’re passable. But the rest. Ppppffffttt.
We, of course, have a brilliant solution. A solution so obvious it’s kind of baffling that no one has done it already: flesh toned accessories.
Yes. You read that right. We can get round our aesthetic problem with unsightly gloves by the wetsuit companies making a range of realistic skin toned coloured wetty gloves. They can range from proper British ‘Casper the Ghost’ white, Northern European skin, through every other conceivable tone. Sure you’d notice the surfers overly large, somewhat cartoony hands but it’s still better than the current standard black gloves.
The hood/twat cap conundrum is equally easily solved. Flesh toned hoods for bald people like Kelly Slater. The same but with built in wigs for those lucky sorts that actually have hair. It’s an endorsementfest waiting to happen. You could get a Taj style mop, John John locks or Kolohe’s stylish crew cut. Wilko’s do would obviously be a popular choice. The options are endless. Celeb endorsements are welcome. Keith from the Prodigy spikes. A Van Damme style mullet. It would be hairlarious (sorry).
So there you go. Surf industry. We gift this idea to you. Run with it. Make it happen. And yes we would like some Van Damme mullet hoods for next winter size large and some English Oak flesh tone gloves and boots thanks. You’re welcome.
Words and photo (of Chris Clarke at home) by Sharpy
