Surfing With The Sun

I don’t often get to see the sunrise, but when I do I get a chill running down my spine. It’s a special feeling that I liken to taking off in an airplane, or the first day of a new job. Like you are living and breathing ‘beginning’.

So the idea of getting to see a sunrise is pretty cool, but actually getting out there and doing it is another.

For starters if you want to see the beginning rays of the day, then you have to get out of your cozy bed before that day has even begun. While your laying there in a half wake state there are tones of reasons to NOT get up.

Living here at extreme for six months I’ve managed to find a few more reasons to get up with a pop.  For one, our slogan is live by the sun. So once I see those rays coming through my curtains, I know its time to go…. And when the sun starts to set at night I begin concocting my plans for a wholesome dinner shared with friends and an early tuck in time.

This past November I went surfing more times than I did in all of 2011. Or for that matter the entire rest of my life. Surfing is a pretty cool sport. We all know that. But the reason that its cool to me is that there are so many elements that line up to that perfect wave. And getting up early is one of them.

I stood at the shores edge at 6:45 this morning staring at the massive rippling grey soup of swell wondering why there were no other surfers in the water. All the other surfers had a similar stance to me – standing, watching, calculating….. except I didn’t know why I was doing it. So I said to hell with that and went and got my board ready. By the time I got in the water I was about the fourth person out there. 30 minutes later once I’d battled past the break (I’m totally still an amateur) there was probably 20 people waiting for their perfect wave.

Beating the crowds. Now that’s a reason to crawl out of your covers before the sun. When we say live with the sun, maybe we actually mean live ahead of the sun. Maybe set an alarm, or mark on your calendar – “today is the day you tell the sun what to do”. When you have a fierce desire and attachment to a sport/ hobby/ game – whatever it is that drives you – it doesn’t really matter where the sun is, or the wind or the powder… you have to put yourself there and be ready for whatever mother nature will give you. Big, small, gnarly, suave … its all a part of the challenge and the reason to get out and play.