Surfing sustainably has less to do with bamboo boardshorts and recycled foam than most people think. On a personal quest to surf for the rest of my life, and for my children to be able to do so on a planet that is still thriving and beautiful, I am currently immersed in exploring the idea of sustainability, or lack thereof, in my own personal surfing experience. I encourage us all to do the same.
Early Days
When I started surfing at the age of eleven I never thought about how long I would surf because I surfed in the moment. By the time I was in my late teens and became completely obsessed with surfing, I still never considered what practices might prolong my surfing experience for thirty, forty, or even fifty years down the line. I continued to surf in the moment.
When I entered my twenties, I found myself in the incredible position of being paid to surf from a couple of brands that still support me to this day. I still never considered myself surfing as an old man. I surfed in the moment. Later, as I approached my thirties, I stopped surfing in the moment, and my love of surfing took its first knock.
What happened was that I started becoming critical of my own performance, the other people who shared the sea with me, and sometimes even of the waves themselves. For the first time in my previously blissful experience, I was frustrated by factors outside of my control, and even by the very ocean which had given me so much. For the first time in my froth-filled life, I began to wonder if I might not - in fact - surf forever.
Something got in the way of my joy and freedom that was usually delivered from surfing and I began to comprehend a perspective which had previously been incomprehensible. There were people I knew who had surfed in their youth but had drifted away from their dedication to surfing. Those who understood the joys of surfing, but had somehow let it slip away. For the first time, I understood them a little bit as my own experience of surfing began to change and not for the better.
Surfing as a Practice
Most of us have never discovered any sport or practice that even comes close to the feelings embodied by surfing: the fun, the fitness, the communion with a force as powerful as the sea, and the poetry of riding the final throes of distant storms. Once inducted into the how and why of surfing, universally it seems like an easy perspective to carry on forever.
For me, the act of surfing, in its most distilled form, is as sustainable a pursuit as any other. However, during that time of my early thirties, the newish way which I began to perceive surfing suddenly threatened its longevity in my life. My attention drifted from being solely in the present moment, kinetically feeling and connecting to the nuances of each wave. It shifted elsewhere. Surf sessions morphed from the previous enthralling chunks of endless time, into sharp-edged, timed experiences that were judged by their effectiveness towards maintaining my career, the photographic output for every session, and the captured product as value to my sponsors. Somehow, I slipped away from the joy of being present on every wave into a working relationship with surfing.
Seeing the Broader Scope of Impact a.k.a. “Growing Up”
I believe there is a proper time and a space in everyone’s life when we might stray from the thrill of the present moment and begin to look at the bigger picture.
Water level fluctuations are a proven phenomena and, as we boldly stride into the Anthropocene, they are accelerating upwards in direct proportion to our rapidly warming planet. The truth is, in one thousand years, our local shorelines will look dramatically different due to the rising oceans. Entire archipelagos, including some of the finest surfing destinations around the world, are likely to disappear even sooner than that. Global weather systems like the Gulf Stream which funnels warm water towards northwest Europe, are scientifically predicted to vastly weaken or perhaps even collapse and vanish. While water levels continue to rise, the pH levels fall. Currently, our seas are undergoing a process of acidification due to elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere being absorbed into the world's oceans.
The effects from this acidification are difficult to foresee, but one thing they will certainly affect are the coral reefs on our planet. These delicate reefs are currently struggling to reproduce under our new hostile aquatic environments which points us towards the destruction of world class waves which now break over these diminishing vital habitats.
Given the fragility of our coastlines, their propensity to change over timelines greater than the span of a few human lifetimes, and knowing that human actions over the last two hundred years have affected our coastal playgrounds forever, it now seems wise — for me, anyway — to keep one foot in both camps. By that, I mean we need to live in the present moment while maintaining an understanding of the larger picture.
Surfing and the ocean offers much to my individual sanity and enjoyment, and I wholeheartedly believe we should seek to live in the present as much as possible. However, it is critical for the sake of our planet and sustainability as a species, that we - as surfers - need also to understand the implications of our actions and behave accordingly.
The Sustainability of Joy
Our paths may appear vastly different, but they run along the same lines as ocean lovers, and are best traveled at the same time. As surfers, we must not forget to immerse ourselves in the innate joy present everywhere in the world if we aspire to save that joy for future generations. This is the sustainability of joy.
There's that word again, “sustainability” smothered in virtue and good intention.
All of the above is well and good, but the word “sustainability” itself seems to lose meaning even as I write this article. Google's Ngram viewer (a tool which tracks word usage over time) shows that the word “sustainability” rocketed skyward in usage from the 1980s onward. Perhaps it's a sign of the human collective consciousness finally seeing that our current lifestyles might not be entirely sustainable, or perhaps it is the advertising industry and agents of consumerism realizing that the term could be used to sell us more things and still feel good about it.
I'm not actually 100% sure I know what “sustainability” means anymore. The original idea of sustainability developed around the idea of maintaining a steady rate, practice or action to be in balance with its surroundings such that the practice or action can be maintained indefinitely. But sustainability is also a concept which is at fundamental odds with the dogma of growth-driven, late-stage capitalism. Extraction, exploitation and growth are by nature unsustainable when applied to a planet of limited resources. This hasn't stopped the advertising industry from co-opting the term in the name of marketing and consumerism.
Professional Surfing & Personal Practice
Personally, I feel I am more guilty than most of this egregious form of doublespeak. What I’ve discovered is that professional surfers, no matter how many remote and nature-soaked videos they release, are true pawns in the surf industry's advertising game. I don’t mean to say that co-opting of the term ‘sustainability’ says that all innovations which have been heralded as sustainable are bogus (although countless examples of such deceit do inevitably exist). Rather, the confusion and disintegration of the term sees sincere examples of sustainability butting up against glaring contradictions time and time again which erodes the meaning even further.
I am left confused. Perplexed at the depth of the marketing gloop, but also confused — for myself — as to how to keep surfing “sustainable” for myself.
The perplexity is not new to me, but I do believe my surfing life has compounded it. How can a pursuit as beautiful as surfing possibly lead to moments of planetary despair? The reason may be a powerful one, one which lies at the heart of modern surfing’s narrative and one which threatens to strangle one’s enjoyment of this ancient form of flow.
It is: the search for the “perfect wave”.
The search for the perfect wave or the “endless summer” are dreamy motifs which dominate how surfing has been portrayed, both in endemic and non-endemic media. I believe that the surf industry, its advertisers, and company heads might actually push for a permanent state of dissatisfaction in order to drive a frenzy of future buying in the form of surf trips, chasing new swells and, of course, buying more boards. This shift in perspective reduces the experience of being in the present to being fleeting at best and driven to the point of non-existence at its worst. It happened this way for me.
As a professional freesurfer, I spent months, years even, finding myself tormented by surfing rather than buoyed by it. If swell conditions were not perfect or my performance wasn’t good enough, I became deeply frustrated and chastised myself for choosing the wrong break, swell direction or improper time to surf. If I organized a photoshoot, I became angry (at myself) for not executing a worthy shot or for wasting the photographer’s time. I managed to reduce my relationship with surfing to a transactional one, harshly judged through the poisonous lens of comparison.
This period was not all bad. I continued to have great sessions too, but the negative experiences became more and more frequent.
(Dear Reader: Forgive me for labouring this point, but I was a pro surfer, getting paid to surf, who stopped enjoying surfing. I know that this is a tagline unlikely to win much sympathy in any realm. However, there is redemption in this story that comes in the form of turning those time honoured adages on their heads.)
I began to love surfing again after embracing the reality of the imperfect wave rather than constantly lusting after “perfect” waves. I also began to understand that when I endured the cold, dark, stormy days of a British winter, the sun of summer felt sweeter. In my purview, the surf industry guides us into the arms of consumption, through comparison and engendering a feeling of scarcity; however, the industry itself is separate from our experiences as surfers, separate from the act of surfing itself and certainly separate from the ever shifting abundance of the sea.
In a deliberate, conscious shift towards appreciating the beauty of my own homebreak in Cornwall, my confusion around the sustainability in surfing - both personally and culturally - gained a degree of clarity. By practicing acceptance of what I have, the satisfaction and gratitude for the waves which roll our way, while surfing whatever equipment we currently have, is a much more sustainable way to maintain the endless enjoyment of surfing.
Circumstances may look different for surfers on every curve of our planet. Some will surf far better waves than others, but others will also enjoy far quieter lineups (as I often am). What is important is that all of us will ride waves, wherever we are.
I have come to an even deeper love for the surf here in Cornwall (a Celtic county in the far South West of England which aspires to autonomy and recognition along similar lines to our brothers and sisters in Scotland and Wales). We stand square in the path of Atlantic swells and get a plentiful supply of waves, especially in winter.
Scoring waves in Cornwall is an exciting dance. The whole county is a peninsula of hidden coves and sheltering cliffs. The winter especially is a time for deep exploration and discovery. Every rideable wave is a victory when, occasionally, it all comes together. The sand shifted into the right place, the swell arrived on a beach holding offshore wind, and our own brand of Cornish perfection is the order of the day.
Today’s Sustainability of Surfing
Today, I am now less likely to despair about the often lacklustre conditions presented - at times - in Cornwall, and my appetite for adventure is as strong as ever. My next big project aims at me being able to circumnavigate the entire island of Britain, along with several of the off islands, with a bicycle, a trailer and my surfboard. I won't go into great detail here, but suffice to say that it is a project that will truly test my new surfing philosophy. The adventure is not in search of the perfect wave, nor the endless summer, but rather a procession of magic moments, whatever those moments might look like here in Cornwall.
Today, I believe I will surf for the rest of my life. Not as some surfing ascetic, gruffly riding awful waves at beaches closest to my house come rain or shine. Nor as an idealist, bodysurfing naked into the perpetual golden hours of my life grinning like a Cheshire cat and clicking like a dolphin. I am a product of my environment. My arc of surfing will consist of trying to consciously consume earth-friendly surf products like Yulex wetsuits over neoprene ones and to travel more mindfully (not red-eyeing to plunder juicy swells abroad). I know I will inevitably ride less-than-earth-friendly PU surfboards, unfortunately suffer occasional use of single-use plastics and consume gallons of fossil fuels by driving to work and heating my home… but, for me at least, perfection is not sustainable.
Most importantly, I will attempt to live in the here and now, to seek the magic in every day. I want to revel in the energy present within even the weakest of onshore days near my home, and to make joy as sustainable as possible. For I believe it is in the sustainability of joy that my sustainability of surfing will surely be found.
LISTEN to Session Magazine's On Water podcast
with Mike Lay:
HERE.
