Carve Magazine Issue 189

Carve Surfing Magazine

Carve Magazine Issue 189

New issue is in stores this week and available on the app now for you iPad folk. For next time how about letting the postie take the strain and subscribe?!

CRAZY TAXI.

We make this mag by going out and doing stuff. There’s not a lot of surfing insight to be gained sitting behind a desk.
Working for a mag is about getting out in the world, hanging with the surfers, suffering the same travel slings and arrows they do. The painful hours lost to airport layovers. The suspect food which may or may not be viande de blaireau*. The long sea crossings where everyone looks like they’re about to spew. The 36-hour bus rides when your guts are tying themselves in knots and the toilet is strictly pee-pee only. The early hours near boat sinkings that leave you sat on deck, with swim fins on, with a waterproof camera case in one hand and a beer in the other. These things we endure to bring you the good gravy. Sometimes it gets a bit close to the knuckle…
One thing that never changes in Indo, no matter which island you’re on, and that is being in a taxi is flipping terrifying. The drivers get a kick out of intentionally trying to make their passengers shite themselves. The horn is used to defy molecular physics it seems.
Our wannabe F1 driver, who had the easy gig of taking Jem, Markie and I from Sibolga to the dinky little airport, seemed to read every nervous laugh as us willing him to go faster. To overtake on even blinder bends, to squeeze in to even narrower gaps between approaching lorries. To make our white knuckles grip even tighter.
We made it to within sight of the airfield control tower without actually soiling ourselves, even though sphincters were definitely puckering, and let out a sigh of relief. As it was literally a long straight with a T-junction at the end to go. We were nearly there … less than a mile to endure.
So, of course, he jabbed the Bowel Loosening Turbo Bastard 3000 button and his little Toyota was hitting about a 100mph down this narrow straight. He of course had forgotten about the big old tree root growing out under the road halfway down…
It was one of those bullet time moments where everything slows down. We hit the ramp. Launched into the air, I remember looking at the driver, he looked at Jem wide-eyed in the passenger seat and managed to do a 90 degree spin of the steering wheel and back again as we flew. Seemingly confused that the tyres weren't touching the tarmac. I looked at Markie, his eyes couldn’t have been wider. This wasn’t intentional. It was very much like the bit in Inception where a second lasts for a minute as the van plunges from the bridge.
I just thought a few times mid-flight: I don’t want to die.
Gravity took charge, we came down with a bump, time sped up painfully, the wheels were a bit squint and he just managed to correct the looming two wheel action. If his fast twitch reflex hadn’t corrected we’d have either beaten the car rolling record set by the stunt team on Casino Royale (seven rolls) or exploded spectacularly into a million very pissed off pieces on a tree.

Suffice to say we were glad to be alive. Even though we all felt like crying. The driver at least actually scared himself. As we got out  at the airport, shaking with adrenal overload, the high five he gave us each was his way of saying: ‘Sorry for making your lives flash in front of your eyes guys! I am not liable for any underwear laundry bills.’

Being British we, of course, still gave him a tip.

Sharpy

Editor

 

 

 

Carve Magazine Issue 188

Carve Surfing Magazine

Carve Magazine Issue 188

New issue is in stores this week and available on the app now for you iPad folk. For next time how about letting the postie take the strain and subscribe?!

A ROAD LESS TRAVELLED.

It’s easy to get jaded with surfing, with life, with anything. The constant pile-on pressure of the modern world doesn’t give you a second to breathe. No time to really smell that expensive coffee you’re too busy Instagramming. Our sanctuary is the ocean. Our happy place. Hell, it IS The Good Place.
Being in the brine is the closest a lot of us get to spirituality. A communion with nature that washes off the stresses of the day. Our beatific worship in Neptune’s salty dominion.
Unless it’s busy.
At which point you daydream unpleasant thoughts. Stare daggers at greedy SUP riders. Mentally flip off the ‘oh, sorry I seem to keep catching all these waves just that bit further out than you’ longboarders. Making do with just plain loathing for other shortboarders. As for the folks who you aren’t sure are retro fashionistas who ‘are all about the glide’, or just beginners on kook barges, them you just dodge.
Much as the surf industry is contracting, like all retail, it doesn’t seem to be making a dent in numbers in the water. That graph is only going one way. Indeed it seems that all 1,600 people watching the WSL live webcasts on FB seem to be out most days.
At your local there’s not a lot you can do but surf early or late. At this time of year you can dawny the shit out of it. Being in the water at 5am is no bother. Well. Apart from the whole dragging your sorry sleepy-assed carcass out of bed scenario, but it’s always worth it. A duck dive is the best wake up call in the world. Instant zing on those synapses. Suddenly you’re back in the room.
The other option is take a break. Go seek less crowded shores. Before the Russians and Chinese get fully into surfing, at which point it really will all be over… I jest. But there are still empty places with great waves even on our own shores. You’ve just got to put in the effort. Striving for stuff makes the rewards greater. Most folks would rather surf an average wave alone or with their mates, than an insane one with 100 people. There’s only so much time in your life you can allot to surfing. You should enjoy it, not be frustrated by it.
On that note there’s a few joints in this issue which you can go to and surf without crowd stress. We’ve done the hard yards, sweated in tropical airports and seen sights in tropical airport toilets that have scarred us for life to bring you this reportage. Enjoy it, get inspired and emulate it.
The other option is of course to give up on the ocean and pay for your freshwater waves. It’s all going a bit mental on that front with the new American Wave Machines lake breaking the internet just as everyone was ripping the repetitive nature of the Kelly Water Feature comp. The Cove is coming to Edinburgh and Bristol, will it scale up? Then the other pool style Occy is backing is digging in Queensland. Mad old times. Of course Slater’s tub might as well be on the moon as it’s not for the likes of you and I.
It’s a strange old time in surf land but the waves keep breaking and statistically world wide the bulk of ‘em go unridden…

Sharpy
Editor