The benefit of noLeash
When I first took up surfing as a serious sport, the summer of 1962,
there were no leashes.
If you lost your board, you swam after it. If you couldn't reach it in time,
it washed into shore.
Shore could be sand, rocks, submerged reefs, caves or a riptide that took
your board out to sea.
To surf large waves, you had to have good water skills. If you weren't
an excellent swimmer, you at
least had to be able to dog-paddle for a long period of time.
If you wiped out frequently, you had to be able to hold your breath
while under water,
while being tumbled by the waves of turbulence.
typical La Jolla surfers, 1973 - low body-fat
on the left, Sib, future entrepreneur, son of a Harvard trained lawyer
in the center, BobbiC, future lawyer,son of a CalBerkeley engineer
on the right, Jas, future lawyer, son of a bitch
black dog on the right, Belgian Shepherd named Peru
Enter the Leash
Nowadays, with the advent of the leash, any unskilled person can paddle
a board out into the lineup
and take his/her spot with the watermen. Sitting within the pack, such
a person often panics
when an extraordinary set comes through and everyone has to start paddling
for the horizon.
This is when it gets dangerous. More for the other surfers, then this
person.
This person usually has no perception of anyone but themselves.
They have no idea of wave etiquette or positions in the lineup.
They have no idea of the danger of their board to others and themselves.
The good surfers will usually be able to maneuver around this buoy.
The other buoys are in danger of life and body and board.
Often this person will throw their board to the side and dive under the
oncoming wave,
without looking to see if anybody is behind them. Then the wave takes
their board and
washes it across the person behind them and then the leash snaps the board
back to the buoy,
often entangling leashes with other surfers.
In the pre-leash days, the person would have hung onto their board because
they didn't want to
swim to shore to retrieve it. In the pre-leash days, the wave would have
separated the unskilled
person from their board and taken it into shore, forcing the person to
swim for a while, and at
least keeping them out of the lineup for twenty minutes or so. In the
pre-leash days, the
surfer who lost his board and swam a lot would be in excellent shape.
The three surfers pictured above were in excellent shape.
I remember the summer of '68, south swell, eight foot faces, not too
crowded. I started counting
after five, because I knew it was one of those days. I reached nine
as the number of times I swam to
shore at Windan to gather up my board and paddle back to the pack. It
got to be a humorous experience,
not humiliating or humbling or angry, just a fact of life that this
was not my day to have any skill
in the water. I made a mistake, I swam. Simple as that. Nobody got hurt
when my bottom turn went awry.
Nobody got hurt when my drop-leg backside turn caught a rail. My board
would roll in with the wave
and I would swim after it. Not my day. Course the night before was my
night. Yeah.
The Benefits of noLeash
Quite frequently, when I lost my board, another surfer in the water would
grab it and
paddle it out to me. This was and is the respect of the brotherhood.
I did this
for others as they did this for me. The Golden Rule. You learn who your
brothers are.
And of course, sisters. Margo Godfrey, Liz Shelkey, Debbie Melville.
Same respect.
Now, I never took a poll on this, but the friends I asked, denied it
ever happened
to them, and that was quite frequently, when I lost my board and it
washed to shore,
especially at La Jolla Shores, invariably a nice-looking young lady would
pick
it up from the sand and carry/drag it out toward me as I was swimming/running
from
the water. This happened too many times in my early twenties to count.
Whether they felt sorry for my lack of ability to stay with my board,
whether they thought
I was pleasing to look at, whether they were from the Midwest and wanted
a close up look
of a real California surfer, or whether they thought that I looked dazed
and confused as I
scrambled for my board and in need of assistance, I never asked. I was
grateful for their
kindness. I always appreciate the kindness of strangers. Some were more
kind than others.
The Benefits
I am reminded of these memories because of the abundance of kelp in the
water in early October,
when I was surfing one of the Other Reefs. I removed my leash after
kelp kept catching on it. The
freedom I felt was exhilarating. Less drag, more speed of the board.
The humming of the skewed fin.
The ladies drawn to my board? The body-fat has gone up, the skin has
gone down and the hair is leaving.
No ladies when I swam into shore for my board. But some brothers did
paddle it out from near to shore.