My kind of local

I surfed at Lights Beach, Denmark several times this past week. I have been on a week long uni intensive studying Denmark and its surrounds as a sustainable, resilient region. It is s a pretty spectacular place - amazing trees, a gorgeous coastline and a really beautiful small town with very strong green values! I like it. A lot. I think its one of my favourite places in the world.

I like the local surfers just as much.

Lights is a pretty fun right hand beach break, a good break for someone like me.......pretty cruisey, very south coastal, sitting around a 15 minute walk from the car park below a spectacular cliff line........I surfed it with 8 others on Sunday (and that was crowded!) and traded waves with just one other (and three dolphins) on Monday morning. I scoped it out on the Friday before and chatted to a couple of locals as they headed out, a couple of young guys - they gave me enough information about the local conditions and the type of wave that I felt comfortable heading back by myself several days later when the wind had dropped. What locals do that?

On Sunday, I surfed for a couple of hours and chatted to several others including Pete who and I quote said 'don't worry about looking down the line, I've had enough waves, I'm happy to share'. Pete has spent his life surfing this wave and living in Denmark. Usually this breeds a real parochialism and a level of aggression and ownership but not in this place.

I ran into Pete the next morning at the look out. I drove down early knowing the wind was a little wrong and the swell had dropped but kind of hoping that maybe something would roll through. We chatted for a bit about life in Denmark and life in general before tossing up whether to head out.....I really thought I'd just jump back in my car as the waves looked pretty small and no one else was surfing......but Pete offered to be my shark bait and laid a convincing argument, 'this will be better then what you'll get in Perth for the next 6 months'. Sad but true.

We surfed for about 90 minutes..............trading waves, just the two of us. It wasn't amazing and I wasn't surfing so well but when two dolphins and their babe surfed a wave next to me, I could not wipe the smile off my face........

This is why I surf.