WHAT KIND OF A TRIPPER ARE YOU?

There are five principal types of surf tripper. You are probably one, or possibly an emulsion of two…

T h e L o n e W o l f

The Lone Wolf goes alone. His favourite line from a war movie is Sgt Elias’s, “Nah, I move faster alone” hiss under fire in the ‘Nam jungle. He gets up earlier than everyone else and sits on average 11m further outside for the sets. He knows the biggest sets come every 40 minutes. At the airport, when surfers are waiting by the door for board bags, he stands apart and avoids eye contact, with a knowing sneer. If you sit next to him on a flight and read a surf mag he will do precious little to betray his secret inner contempt, save pull that face you pull when in a smelly public toilet and are holding your breath. He has seven pintails in a board bag made for three.

T h e H o n e y m o o n e r

He likes to go on surf trips with his gal. He likes to travel, to surf, to feel warm, foreign sun on his face and warm foreign food on his tongue, but he does not like to gamble. He does not want to go to bars and maybe get lucky. He wants his bed warm and accompanied, guaranteed. He has two JS’s in his quiver, a trendy short fat wide one and a 6’2”. He surfs OK but never above 4ft. His girlfriend bronzes while he surfs, mainly on her front. In the hire care they listen to The Vaccines. He is 29.

T h e C r o w d S u r f e r

He only wants to go where the boys are going. The boys, the boys. He is 19, but when he is 25 he will still be 19. He loves France, the campsite, best. He likes to go six ways on a bottle of whisky, vodka or rum. He doesn’t mind which. Which do you prefer? He asks when you ask him. He dyed his hair, he had his eyebrow shaved. He will not choose the spot to surf voluntarily, but when pushed, will ask why not go where we went yesterday? He does not like change. He likes music festivals, but you will not put your ticket on his (mum’s) credit card. You will put his on yours and he will (eventually) give you the money.

T h e I n s t a l o c a l


If he is English, he hates Eastenders, The Premier League and tea with milk. He only drinks green tea. He prefers rugby, and feels affinity with South Africans or Kiwis. All his favourite beers are Southern Hemisphere, probably Castle, Steinlager or Crown. He knows who has arrived after him at the spot, and feels that he is higher in the order than they. Politically, he is anti-big oil and anti-capitalist, although he thinks that £500 to fly to the other side of the world is a rip-off. If he is French, he feels that he really belongs on the islands, or perhaps somewhere in West Africa. Somewhere where they speak French but with an accent. He has never stayed at a surf camp, probably not a hotel. He likes Marley but prefers Tosh. He loves fish. He will tell girls that he ‘never eats red meat’. He wears those Bali fishing pants, and smokes roll-ups. He hates the sinister shadow of the colonialist exploiters, yet has the same last name as the cruelest of them and the hereditary remnants of their plunder paid for his private school education. He wants to shape boards for local kids from shantytown and plans to one day, for sure.

T h e B e a s t

The Beast is quiet, polite, charming. But something, somewhere deep inside is broken. Drunken, he puts his penis in another man’s pocket. He swings from lights. He punches faces. He loves tequila. Loves. In the morning, when he wakes, he has cuts on his cheeks, lip, knees and knuckles. He loves tequila. He has a slow, leaning bottom turn but snaps hard off the top. He has curly hair, tight curls, bushy, and an above average sized dong when floppy, average when erect. Nobody wants to go on surfs trips with The Beast, and those that do are always ones who recently broke up with their girlfriends and made plans in a hurry, in desperation. All of the best memories of the best surf trips involve The Beast. All of them.

‘Illustrations’ by Hucknall