DEAR SURFERS – FALL 2024

Dear Surfers,

For this Fall’s “Dear Surfers,” please enjoy an excerpt from the essay “Aussie Rules” from STS’s upcoming printed mini-magazine, DISPATCH:

In 2003, I joined the Palm Beach Boardriders Club on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. As a 20-year-old traveling alone, finding community was at the top of my priorities. I sought to learn everything I could about this magical coastline quickly because I knew the time would not last forever. Learning from the locals is the best way to get the spot dialed, and the local crew ruled the peaks between “The Alley” and “Nobby’s” with impeccable timing, unmatched form, and fierce loyalty to the local club.

Club life revolves around food and drink. After joining, the affordable meals and casual setting provided opportunities to “have a feed” with the local crew. Surfing world-class waves alongside world-class surfers opened my eyes to what was possible with enough practice. Club life humanized the faces that often flew by you on the wave of the day. It was clear that surfing culture Down Under produced a much more focused and polished surf style, and it seemed like the rest of the world was following the Australian’s surfing path. The surf world in the mid-2000s was dominated by the Aussies, with bleeding-edge surfers, surfboards, and surf media coming out of that golden stretch of coastline.

As one of many surfers from around the world who relocated to the Gold Coast, I understood that to earn a world-class ride, I needed what the Aussies had in spades: mates to spar with. I wasn’t going to get a proper set wave without pushing myself deeper, and nothing makes you charge harder than knowing your mates are down the line watching.

By the time I left Australia in 2005, the Australian Surf Club culture had changed my understanding of what makes a great surfer.

With Aloha,

Shaun McGrath