A Morning With Jake

An early start. Jake had commitments later in the day, so it was a morning session. Just up at home from London, Jake didn’t have his board, so he borrowed one of mine.

The waves were fun. Mellow, a few good ones, and lots of friendly faces.

It was a typical session being an average Scottish surfer.

What we see online isn’t the reality for most of us. It’s not big barrels, boardshorts, handshaped quivers, boat trips and beers on the beach.

Most of the time it’s early mornings, instant coffee, muddy car parks, damp wetsuits, borrowed boards and mediocre waves. But you know, I love every second of it.

Jake is off to NYC for a big boy job in video editing, so it was the last time I would see him for a while. It was great to catch up in the van. Old school friends we had bumped into, stories from past surf trips, plans for future surf missions were all up for discussion. Ireland, Barra, Portugal.

Jake is one of those friends that I hope I’ll see soon, but I’ll also be happy if I don’t. I know he’ll be doing something exciting, meeting new people, getting some waves - and I love the thought of that.

Surfing is like an old friend, it always there for you when you need it. A lot of us would like to dedicate our lives to riding waves, but it isn’t the reality for most of us. That time that we spend away from the water doing “normal life” just makes those sessions where it all comes together all the more special. Our turns might not be as tight as the used to be, our style as polished as we would like - but that feeling of trimming down the line on that first good wave of the day never fades away.

Enjoy what you got.

I asked Jake to send me a wee note about the session - this is what he had to say...

I was far more excited than the forecast deserved but I hadn’t surfed in two months and wasn’t feeling fussy. 

Ru was picking me up at six so my alarm woke me up at 5.45am. I checked my phone. 

Ru: I’ll be there at seven. 

After another hour of interrupted sleep I stumbled down the road and piled into Ru's van. He pointed to a flask of coffee on the dashboard; I raised my left hand to show him the one I had brought from home. 

Ru had dislocated his knee a couple of months ago so wouldn’t be surfing but had still got up at 6am to taxi me down to the beach. Ru's the best kind of frother: the idea that other people will score is almost as exciting as the idea that he will. 

We got to the car park and it looked nice – small but clean. I borrowed Ru's board and ran down the beach. It was a great session. Friends I hadn’t seen in ages kept appearing from behind a set or emerging from a duck dive. The vibe in the water was friendly and encouraging, the best I’d experienced in a long time – exactly what you want when you haven’t surfed in a while. The waves themselves were fun, nothing special but you don’t always need special. 

As someone who, unfortunately, no longer lives on the East Coast but comes back every couple of months, it feels to me like things are changing – more surfers, better surfing. But for me everything was familiar: the frustration when getting bogged down in my turns; passing up a beautiful right to wait for that perfect left that isn’t right behind it; and the shiny ecstasy of being back in water I know.