Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Don't call this a comeback!

Surf camp is fucking amazing! It's like a million times better than I remembered it and I have no idea why I haven't spent my entire summer here. I showed up just in time for the AM surf sessions on Sunday, and DAMN! I have seen the future and it's all good. I actually competed with a bunch of the junior counselors and older campers in my last ProAm. Of course I owned them, but this isn't a surf camp for noobs and I can already tell this is going to be as much work as it is fun to keep these guys impressed out there.

I spent lunch on my first day moving around all the different tables trying to get to know all of the 24 elite surfers. They range in age from 14 - 19 and male to female. I was particularly impressed by the fact that we had 10 girls in this session, which was a HUGE jump from the last time I did surf camp and we were lucky to see more than 4 girls the whole summer.

This is when I met the coolest guy I will ever know, Brad. I walked up to a table with 4 girls and 1 guy. I naturally assumed that like any other boy with a perfectly sculpted surfer's body, and perfectly sun bleached hair, he was trying to get laid. However, the second that we began introductions, I discovered that Brad was in fact a friend of Dorothy! I should have known, but there is such an unaffected air to him that it took me off guard because not many guys his age in his situation are as comfortable in their own skin as he is.

Why is he so cool you ask? It's actually all quite simple. To anybody that has ever gone out to catch a wave, competitively. They understand the machismo and attitude that is involved in accomplishing such a feat. Riding a wave is the ultimate sign of masculinity because it's man taking the awesome power of mother nature for a ride, and doing it with style! You need to be a cocky bastard bursting with testosterone to compete at the level these guys are at. Even if it's not in your nature, you fake it to fit in. But this guy is 100% himself, no pretense, all him. The kid is 3 years younger than me and I have only known him for 1 week, but he's already my hero because he has the bravery and confidence in himself to not be ashamed.

This dude just made my top 10 list for coolest people ever!

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