PLAYA HERMOSA, Costa Rica — To my knowledge, I’ve been called a “kook” only once. At least to my face. It was the day I peaked as a surfer.
There really is no way to put a positive spin on such a slur. It’s a derisive term applied to the clueless of the surfing world, be they naive beginners or oblivious wannabes. And I could not have been more proud.
That’s because I knew it was a reach, an act of desperation from a vocabulary-challenged teen sharing the shoulder with us at Maui’s Honolua Bay. “Sharing” probably isn’t the proper word here, given this little waterbug’s propensity to drop in on every semblance of swell that rolled our way, whether or not it was rightfully his.
So, on a rare unoccupied wave that found him slightly out of position to make the drop, I took the opportunity not to move, using my priority position to block for a friend, who rode the perfect curling barrel more than a quarter mile as the local grommet dug into his pidgin lexicon for an appropriate insult. My laughter only increased his frustration.
I should state for the record here that I’m not really a surfer. I’m just a guy who likes to surf. But at that moment, on a monstrous day when the waves peeled off the point at heights of nearly 20 feet, it became evident that I knew what I was doing. Merely surviving in those conditions took some savvy, much less riding waves. And if I could hook up my friend in the process, it was well worth the slur of a local.
The harsh reality for landlocked kooks living in the mountains of Colorado is that we’ll never truly be surfers. It’s like those friends and family members who visit on ski vacations from the flatland once or twice a year.
Real skiers live in the mountains. It’s a lifestyle. And there will always be a difference between going skiing and being a skier. The same holds true for surfing.
Still, for the past seven or eight years now, I’ve tried. I take surf trips. And I’ve come to understand that surfing, just like skiing or climbing or kayaking, is a lifelong pursuit, a life path.
So, it was with a sense of sharing that I picked up Peter Heller’s new book, “Kook” (Simon and Schuster, 2010), before my most recent surfing adventure here in Costa Rica. Heller, an outdoor adventure writer who lives in Denver, took up surfing even later in life than I. He jumped into the sport at the ripe age of 46 and dedicated the better part of a year attempting to master it.
“I think that’s what it takes. To learn to surf. Just plain idiot doggedness,” he writes. “If you have that, you don’t have to be smart, quick, strong or good looking. All of that will come. At least the strength will come.”
I don’t know if that’s the way real surfers feel about the sport, but his advice resonated with me. I took up surfing on a therapeutic whim after having my shoulder reconstructed due to a kayaking injury. And despite the early sensations I’d previously associated with drowning, that “idiot doggedness” has since allowed me to ride waves in some of the hemisphere’s top surfing destinations, from Mexico to Maui, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and California in between.
Heller’s mission, captured in 322 pages sprinkled with surf-life anecdotes and ecological urgency, was to travel the Pacific Coast of Mexico in an attempt to go from rank beginner to barrel rider in six months.
My goals are less ambitious. Essentially I see surfing as another way to get the most out of life. A way to immerse myself in a natural environment, embrace a challenge and realize the gratification of incremental success. I enjoy the learning, reading the ocean, currents, wind and breaks, especially when combined with the physical challenge.
It’s a sport I never anticipate mastering.
Yet, I share Heller’s passion for the pursuit.
Success adds a superman swagger to your step because of the knowledge of how humbling the sport can be.
That’s because in the beginning we’re all kooks, at least once.
