Wise Words

One of my favorite quotes comes from one of the most stylish surfers of all time; Gerry Lopez. After years of making surfing one of the world's most difficult waves look easy, G Lo moved to the mountains to pursue the 1,000 foot bottom turn on frozen H20.

He said, "A wave is where you find it."

I like it because I surf on the Great Lakes, and we know all about having to find our waves. It's not easy. Sure, you can roll down to the beach when the wind is up and find some crappy, disjointed, washing machine crap in onshore conditions. That's easy. What's hard is finding something worth surfing. Something that any surfer with soul, with passion, who understands the meaning of trim and speed, of finding energy in the pocket of a wave (no matter how big), would enjoy surfing.

Would you believe that 50 miles of fetch can deliver that wave? Sure, it may only be waist high with a little wind wobble on it, but it happens to be peaking and curling over a finely groomed sandbar. It also happens to be coming from the ideal direction, refracting just enough around the pier to filter the short period chop, and lining up quite nicely while zipping off a 50 yard left and a 30 yard right.

After weeks without surf and a summer with only a small handful of days, the waves are starting to come. A short jaunt up the coast delivers you to this wave and it's shared by only you and a small group of friends. It's warm, the sun and setting are beautiful, and you're geeked out of your gourd because that little right is setting up perfectly for a walk to the nose and a few precious seconds of what brings you so much happiness. And they keep coming, and coming, and coming, for three straight hours. Then, they keep coming, but you're too beat to keep going so you head home feeling a lot better than you did when you arrived.

G Lo is a wise man.