where/when was your introduction to mother ocean

My family made a yearly trip to cape may from Jersey City NJ back in the sixties. When my parents got divorced (I was 3) my mom moved us to Port Monmouth NJ. From there the only thing to do was play in the marsh or go to Sandy Hook in the summer. 6 TV channels, no AC in a poorly ventilated beach bungalow made spending the day on the beach the only option. We would arrive at 7am and leave at 7pm daily from mid June to late August. Then hike, bike or hitch a ride everyday after school until it got too cold for our homemade wetsuits.

 

4 y.o. Myrtle Beach SC. My dad and I had matching USA flag trunks. Just trying to paint a picture. I had been before then, but this is the earliest memory.

Caught a few waist high rollers on the boogie board, waist high on a 3 year old that is. I was hooked. Went to North Shore Surf Shop and scored a bad a$$ Rusty rash guard. I'm a Barefoot Campground and Myrtle Beach Travel Park local

 

10 yo, Perdido beach, FL. Borrowed a neighbors board (sweet airbrushed Hobie stinger/swallowtail twin). They had to come look for me to get it back...like three weeks later.

Then spent all my money (brother had a car wash business) on a pos single pin at a pawn shop.

 

like 6 or so took lessons with a local surf old timer guru. its funny i used to look up to him and now hes gettin old and i paddle and surf right by him lol. still will always be the local guy who got me stoked on surfing though

 

first time in the ocean chadwick memorial day weekend 1963 at 2 1/2 weeks old. bodysurfing/inflatable raft white Styrofoam finless on my belly some years later. standing up not until like 12. all in chadwick

 

Realistically my first real memory of having fun at the beach was when I was 4. If its a contest, I was in the ocean while I was a tiny, cell dividing, fetus, living in a placenta inside my mom.

I'm 99% sure that the swell in my avatar is Earl from 2010. Irene went a little further south and a little further west. I only know because I poured over http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/atlantic/2010/Major-Hurricane-Earl? until I found it haha. I had completely forgot.

 

Grew up on the beach in South West Wales, UK.

Yeah - this Wales...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqVzUMDy4wg

So many points, the occasional reef and now a Wave Garden (http://www.surfsnowdonia.co.uk/).

Firmly relocated to beach-slop NJ 20 years ago...hmmmm

 

Dad was in Coast Guard so I always lived near the ocean or Gulf. Picked up surfing when I was 13

 

NJ shore visiting my grandparents as a kid.

 

I was in diapers still, my Mom and Dad took me to Clearwater Beach, I sh*t all over myself and covered the inside of the playpen, they washed me and the playpen off in the water, remember it like it was yesterday, sh*tty day lmao

 

I was 5, no 3, and passing through coastal Jerz.

And, yep, there was a dood who was teaching all the kids to shot the pier. He would cruise up to the boardwalk in his BMW 900-series, shouting at Hindus on the sidewalks & flexing his fake Rolex on his spray-tanned wrist.

After he'd make a few dozen high-intensity stock trades via his early brick phone, he'd strip down to his Speedos & show all the kids how to surf on his 12' yellow & blue foamie. 'Shred machine, shred machine' was the refrain from the cheering 13-year old girls on the boards.

Ah, but, like summer, it was fleeting....we all lost a lot of surf soul when the shred machine departed to raise his illegitimate bastardo offspring in a Maine barn.

 

they kicked you out of wales because of that video?

 

^I agree, some of the worst surfing I've seen in a while...and that was a contest!? Looks like everyone in that vid learned to surf from the same dude...all flat turns.

 

so nj beach slop compared to the swell in your video. are you even Welsh?

I am, and my nj beach slop blows that crap away. welcome to America. if nj beach slop sucks compared to your Wales, then what are you doing here?

why do the surfers all keep falling in the video you posted to show how much we in nj suck? oh, because it was so closed out and totally mushy.

I hope my Welsh heritage isn't as pussified as your post makes it look, but I fear the worst. too many surfers are really wusses these days.

 

When I was 46(last year) my son started taking surf lessons at "the wall" NH. I was so impressed by the ease he showed in popping up and riding a wave that first session that I had to try it myself. 14 months later I am now able to pop up consistently and trim down the line....

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER! I want to be 70 and trade my walker for a surfboard at the waters edge!!

 

My grandparents had a beach house on NH coast since before my conception. I was in the ocean before I have memory at age 3. Moved to the EMass coast 3 years ago. Been surfing that same length of time. Coastal life is indispensable to me. Mountains and lakes only cure inland monotony for a couple days tops. I've explored all 5 coastal corners of this nation and caught waves at all 5. We are fortunate to have it in our lives.

 

Ma dukes introduced me to the ocean before I could remember...one of my earliest memories is getting thrashed by chop in the sound then catching eels. We used to make "mussel stew" for the pirates and I really thought they might come in and eat it.

Then around 4th grade I caught my first wave on a boog. Downward spiral ever since but she would haul me up every weekend spring through fall, and facilitated my wave problemme...bought me all my first boards, etc. Thanks Mom.

I'm currently developing a theory about how which parent who introduced you determines what type of 'surfer' you are...