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Cool stories, 757. When is Wesleyan going to get a football team? You can take W&L's spot or Macon's spot. Those dudes are pansies!

A few weeks ago, I was in Chicago for business. One of the nights, we went to some hipster restaurant near Fenway called Gather. It was a really nice place with a cool atmosphere and a killer beer menu. One of the waitresses, Stephanie, overheard our table talking about surfing. Turns out, she used to live in Carolina Beach and actually surfed a few blocks down from my favorite break. She even showed me a few pictures from her CB visit a few weeks prior. One of the pictures was even taken at Fatty P's! It was one of those "small world" moments and I still can't believe there's a CB transplant living in Chicago!

 

I almost went to Virginia Wesleyan for lacrosse 4 years ago. Do you like it their? Sometimes I regret my decision...

Stories... I don't have many stories, but like you, I love meeting people who are stoked on surfing. The other day I was checking the surf (it was pretty good), and a guy rolls up who looks like he is 50 or 60. Immediately, when I saw his face light up at the sight of the ocean I could tell he was a surfer. That grin is a dead give away. I'm sure each and every one of us gets that bubbling excitement when you roll up to the beach and it looks just like the wave you've been mind surfing all day in your cubicle. He picked up his phone, and called up another dude to share the stoke with.

I love people getting stoked up about surfing, whether it is a 70 year old logger, or a 7 year old grommet, nothing beats an ear to ear grin bobbing in the ocean.

 

The other day I saw a guy while I was out getting a burrito after my morning surf. Saw a guy in a old guys rule shirt with a guy surfing on it so I took the chance and asked if he had paddled out this morning. He did and we discussed our morning session.
This morning there was a guy metal detecting on the beach as I was giving the waves a look. We got to talking about how much that beach has changed in the past few years. Turns out the guy lives a block away from me

 

Cool thread - keep'em coming. I surf in Margate, NJ almost always by myself. I've met one dude who is out most weekends but I'm always trying to network and meet other surfers in the area. I was in Orange County, CA last fall for some classic longboarding at Doheny and San Onofre. It was packed shoulder to shoulder for 2-3ft surf. Better waves but too much competition. I think I'll stay east coast, deal with the solitude, and hopefully meet some friends along the way.

 

This isn't a personal story, but I just came across it on yahoo. Just when I thought I lost all faith in humanity, I see something like this...

http://news.yahoo.com/stranger-diner-note-family-epilepsy-131659087.html

 

I was in Omaha, Nebraska right in the center of the States wearing a "surf shirt" my wife got for me. The shirt is comfortable and fits well but it say something like Rincon World Championship 19** and I always get attention for being a surf guy which I really don't like. I mean I've never surfed the west coast so I don't like being recognized for a west coast spot (I've surfed Rincon, PR but that's another story).

So I'm at the Embassy Suites taking advantage of the free happy hour and this guy looks at my shirt and starts talking surfing. I give my same shirt disclaimer as above and carry on with the conversation. Anyway, turns out he used to surf with Tom Curren and drops a couple other names too. I mention that I know of Tom Curren but don't know a lot of the older west coast surfers. He kinda winces and I realize I inadvertantly called him old too. The conversation faded and I kicked myself for insulting the only other surfer in Nebraska.

 

A friend and I were heading to Rodanthe in OBX for what was expected to be good surf. I can't remember the month but we had boots/gloves/hoods with us. A nor'easter was sitting on top of us but expected to move offshore later that day.

We are just about to enter the refuge when we see this guy hitchhiking with his board. It was around 7-8am and I was driving my pickup (no cab), it was winter, raining and the wind was howling. Just cold and nasty. Not many rides to be found. Couldn't leave the guy beside the road so offered him a lift. Me: "Where ya headed?" Him: "I dunno, lighthouse maybe." I gave the option to wait for a better ride but he was stoked to get in the water so he hopped in the back.

We check it out in Rodanthe and ask him where he was coming from expecting to hear somewhere relatively close but he said he'd been hitching since the previous night all the way from Baltimore. He had to bum around rest stops until he found rides heading in the right direction.

Waves were good so we start suiting up but he still wants to check out the lighthouse. So he heads back to the main road for a lift further south. We see him out in Rodanthe an hour or so later and the guy is killing it. I saw him later that day back in town spending his last $6 at McDonalds.

I don't know what ever happened to the guy but he had more stoke than I could ever imagine. I mean, who hitchhikes from Baltimore to the OBX in winter, in freezing stormy conditions for a day trip. Then does the whole check the surf everywhere before you go out thing all while bumming rides the entire way.

 

I was down in the OBX a year or so ago, went to check on the waves and there was another guy looking to see what was doing....started BS'ing, brought up SI and turned out it was MasterJason from here.

It's a small world and always cool to run into a fellow SI'er.

 

Yo, 757, did you have intercourse with that dude? Aww come on, I'm just joking........

Johnny Ravert, I've been waiting for you my whole life. Though I'm not a fan of the Margate Pier or even the Ventnor Pier.

And dudes who don't know or can't handle how old they are got issues. So Clemson, F that dude. He winced, what a sis. You did nothing wrong, Clemson........nothing.

 

I probably had the best possible introduction to surfing. I was in the San Diego area for work and I had an afternoon off. I was driving through Encinitas and I saw Hansen's Surf Shop and decided to stop in. I walked up to the counter with full-on douchy work attire (slacks, button-up shirt, loafers, etc.) and asked the very nice looking 40-ish blond woman if there was anyone who could take me out. Going into this trip I had decided I wanted to attempt surfing so it wasn't 100% spur of the moment, but close. Anyway, this awesome, quintessential surf shop chick called like 10 different local instructors before she found one willing to drop everything and get me in the water. She even gave me free chap stick when she saw how pale I was (it was May and I'm from New England). I spent the next 90 minutes on cloud nine riding perfect beginner waves at Swami's. From that day forward surfing has been a big part of my life.

As a thank-you to the wonderful blond woman at Hansen's I sent her boss (Mr. Hansen) a long email explaining my amazing experience. I went back the next evening and took her out for dinner. We were married the next year. We now have a little boy.

Ok ok, everything is true except I didn't take her to dinner, we didn't get married and didn't have a kid together. I actually never saw her again, but she visits me in my dreams from time to time. She's a true surfing goddess.

 

A few years back im surfing south side of Casino, late December. It wasn't supposed to clean up until after dark, but around 3 ish, peaky bombs start rolling in that could not be passed upon. So me and a friend paddle out while all the "real surfers" stand on the boardwalk making phone calls or crossing their arms like they're just waiting for their heat. After I get crushed on first ride ( almost always do in winter) two other guys come sprinting to the water and proceed to rip, taking bombs and calling me into waves I probably wouldn't have paddled for. I wound up seeing some of the best surfing I've ever seen from a lineup and in turn elevated my own game. I caught one of the best barrels of my life that day...so far.

We left feet numb, water logged and stoked wondering who the **** those guys were, up until then we had surfed the pier probably a dozen times and far between.

Couple years later I'm sitting down to watch Dark Fall and am like , that's them mother*****s from the pier that were calling me into bombs probably laughing when I got worked! But one or two wound up paying off and I never got the chance to thank em. Pollioni brothers. After watching the movie I realized some one from that movie is always out their killing it.

If that's not a cool story then my best friends mom is Ralph Macchios cousin....really!

 

Stories .... so it's my first time in Costa Rica surfing a more local break near Tamarindo and I'm surfing with this older guy (well older than me). He looks to be about 50ish and he is surfing with his teenage son and another teen. Maybe they were 16 or so. Anyway, he's on a log and it's HH with some OH sets on a nice June day. I realize that he's definitely not a Tico so I ask him where he's from. He say's he is from NY-Long Island and used to live about 2 towns from where I'm from. Small world. Not only that, he's a retired NY fireman and decided after 9/11 to move down here and retire with his wife and kids. States he surf's this break daily and just loves it. I didn't ask, but I can imagine he saw some pretty hororific **** on 9/11 and decided .... who needs this **** ... I'm moving to paradise to surf. Anyway .... small world ... you never know who ur gonna meet.

 

you probably see me more often than you think...

 

ok I'll play...

I am 20 minutes off the plane in Amsterdam and I stumble into the first cafe I can find. It's a "Bull dog", one of the bigger names, but what the heck do I know. So anyways, my lady and I are gluing our eyelids shut with the best smoke ever and this guy next to us at the bar falls out of his chair and onto the floor like a dead fish. So this crazy looking old guy comes up to him, puckers his lips, rips open a packet of sugar, pours it in the guy's mouth, and he hops up like it never happened. It was WILLIE MOTHER ****ING NELSON in that cafe with a classic stoner trick to save some tourist. The rest of the trip was absolutely "whatever" after that and I will tell that tale until I'm in a box, regardless of who believes it.

Also, February in the outer banks, at the motels break in Buxton. My buddy and I are checking the surf and I sh*t you not we saw a single penguin frolicking around in the shore break like it's the south f*cking pole or something. Nobody to this day has believed that story but my best friend and I know damn well what we say and it was a sure a **** one geographically confused penguin.

 

Oh man, Johnny Utah, that touches skin. A few years back, and then add a bunch more, I had a similiar episode. It was mid-March, still kind of chilly and I was at Casino for an ESA contest. It was sizeable and had plenty of morning sickness on it. So far the contest was a go, but everybody started complaining that it was too cold out, and the waves were still too chopped. So bowing to pressure they cancelled it.

So I went out. Had a wave break two feet in front of em and just worked me. I had no idea which way was "up," when I was turbulence free. Never had that happen before. But I scratch outside and the great Brian Kelly was out with some other dude. We were the only takers that morning. He was hootin' me in to waves, also. Pretty cool when one of the "stars" at that time, like your Pollioni dudes, does that.

STUDLEE: I believe you. I too have seen non-native species in areas that they don't exist. I saw, I think, a kangaroo in a park off of RT 30 in Egg Harbor City, NJ. It was early in the morning and I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I'm not positive but I think I did.

I would love to see a penguin.

 

Awesome stories all around. Now I know this story doesn't have anything to do with meeting another surfer (or stoner) but....

My brother is studying abroad in Costa Rica (the lucky sh!t). He's not a surfer but I took him out with me once in waist high waves last year. He got the sh!t kicked out of him but loved it. I've been meaning to take him out again but our schedules don't seem to coincide.

So anyways he took a trip to Jaco this weekend. He tells me the waves were twice the size of anything he had ever seen here, like DOH, and clean. I'm taking the DOH claim with a grain of salt but that's beside the point. He paddles out on a rental and goes for the first wave that comes to him. He paddles, catches the wave, stands up and gets a ride, all on his first attempt! He surfed for another hour without a shirt then realized why you wear a rash guard. He threw a t-shirt on and surfed for another four hours.

He told me he's planning to take the hour bus ride every weekend for the rest of the semester. He’s hooked and I’m so pumped for him! Not that exciting of a story but I felt I had to share .