Marketing and making waves - beware the dumpers
Surfers watch weather maps for low pressure systems that will generate big waves in the days ahead.
Experience tells you which breaks will get the best waves - the best spots are usually busy.
Out in the surf pack on big days there is a strong hierarchy, a pecking order, a combination of experience, talent and bravado.
In any group there are usually those who make their presence known quietly and others who bully and yell like greedy anxious seagull waiting for the next chip.
No matter what type of surfer you are - with every big wave you catch you have to wary of the dumpers that close out, the ones that suddenly explode out of control, sucking and grabbing you into the white water turbulence and smashing you across the reef.
There's always a risk in whatever we do - in surfing, the nirvanic reward, a perfect tube - the self realisation, the hoots from your peers, the applause from the crowd.
It's how you handle the situation that counts.
From the observers point of view standing safely on the cliffs above, the "spectacle" of both victories and defeats at the hands of the elements - that's sport, that's entertainment, that's business and relationships.
AND there is a significant difference between those doing the surfing and those observing from the shoreline.
Up on the hills and out in the water there's little sympathy for the weasel bloke smashed across the reef, picking up the pieces of his expensive broken board, crawling up the rocks and out of the water. The chorused boos and indifference of the crowd.
"At least I was in the water" he says defiant and raising his finger, oblivious to the quick buck mentality road of destruction.
It's not the destination but "the journey", the "how we got here" that echos idol collective.
A new day, more waves to conquer, another surfer paddles out.
