SUP Haters

This morning I had my first run in with some surfers that were none to happy to see me on my SUP board. I knew it was bound to happen, but the circumstances were pretty odd to me. I jumped in at the harbor, saw two guys, paddled around the jetty to see what else was around and returned back to the harbor. At that point they vocalized their displeasure with my re-appearance.

First, the waves were small, I mean SMALL. Second, they were the only two guys out there, it wasn't like it was a super-crowded day and I was adding to the chaos. Third, I had tried to find another spot and when I made that point their response was, "well, you're here now". Brilliant.

One guy said I should "show some respect" while the other said "that's not even surfing, it's just lame". Well, both are great points. Except that when I came back to the I didn't take the first good wave, drop in, or snake a wave. A decent set rolled through and I made sure they got those waves. I made this point directly to the guy who yelled about respect, but it fell on water clogged ears. To the guy that made the comment about SUP being lame I said, "so, you get to decide what's cool in surfing and what isn't?" Without hesitating he said, "yep". Well, OK then. Arguing with that type of person is a dead-end encounter so I moved on. When I told them I'd been in line ups with 10 to 20 guys and no one else complained they replied those guys weren't "the right guys". I have no idea what the means. Of the 100's of surfers I've encountered these were the first two to take issue (at least audibly) with me being on the SUP board. The oddest thing is that these weren't some 20-something punks, these guys were probably in their late 30's or even early 40's. They were on boards almost as long as mine and were not quite shredding the water.

So rather than sit in a tenuous situation and fight for a few measly waves I paddled to the next jetty and caught a few decent waves. After sitting around and looking for more waves at other jetties I paddled back to the harbor. The two surfers were gone, so I got a few good waves and called it good.

It just takes a few guys to take something fun and make it more of an issue than it should ever be. However, rather than focus on two morons I'll remember the guy that approached me as I was putting my board on top of the car. He asked about the board and remarked that it looked like a lot of fun. He isn't the first guy to ask me about SUP, and he won't be the last I'm sure.