This latest incident of surf violence sure has stirred things up.
I have always surfed a variety of spots regardless of where I have lived. Since I have never lived right on the beach I have always felt like a "visiting surfer," even when I surf a spot several times a week.
In my experience, both at my home breaks and when I travel further, is it the so-called "locals" who show no "respect" for anyone else and purposefully start conflicts.
Case in point, a few of weeks ago I was in SC. It was a small under-OH day so there were fewer peaks breaking at this spot than normal. Everyone was having a great time with plenty of waves to go around, until El Doosh showed up.
El Doosh looked like he was barely out of high school (maybe he wasn't yet), definitely not taller than 6' and maybe 150 lbs maximum (it's hard to tell in the water). No sooner had he paddled out than he immediately began harassing a longboarder, shouting at him to go surf another peak. The thing was, the longboarder hadn't been on anybody else's wave. He hadn't been trying to take off on a wave either, he'd just been sitting there on the shoulder as someone else took off
The guy took it well and had some good comebacks that got a few laughs out of the lineup after El Doosh blew a wave, but El Doosh wasn't deterred. Every wave that a longboarder rode, even one that was legitimately theirs, was an intolerable affront to El Doosh, who would begin another loud public critique of having longboarders in "his" ocean (he actually kept using the words "us" and "them" during his tirades).
This peak is not reserved for longboarders or unsuitable for them. If my shortboard had been dinged and I'd been on my longboard then I too would have been harassed. It turned out that shortboarders weren't entirely immune, as El Doosh also had words for one of us non-locals.
I couldn't wrap my head around how a guy so physically unimposing could be behaving like this. He was obviously counting on his buddies to back him up, but I also couldn't wrap my head around how they could stand him. His negative energy stunk up my session.
I hold the rest of them just as much responsible for tolerating and condoning his behavior. The last thing anyone can tell me is that "locals" are the celestial caretakers of sacred surf spots, who only act that way to protect the sanctity of their spot against dirty invaders who have come to rape their waves. The locals themselves are the problem.
What makes more sense: a bunch of screw ups with gang mentality picking on outsider who has wandered into their territory, or a guy who paddles out at a place where he doesn't know anybody and just wants to get a few waves and hopefully someday surf this spot again, repeatedly burning everybody else in the lineup, who obviously all know each other.
The whole thing about localism being a necessary evil is a self-serving myth. For all the times I've seen the advice written in books or online not to "suddenly show up at a break with 10 of your buddies and start taking all the set waves," I've never seen a group of 10 guys suddenly show up at a break and start taking all the set waves. What I have seen is lots and lots of rednecks wearing wetsuits, wherever I have gone, throughout the world.
