My typical destination to go surfing is Mermaid Beach. Regardless of whether or not the waves are the best the Gold Coast has to offer (which they’re not close to being), I frequent the area to be able to surf with a bit of elbow-room instead of jammed into a pack. It’s funny, the relationship between surfing as a sport and crowds as a social phenomenon: no surfer out there will confess to loving surfing in a crowd, though all the same surfers in general tend to behave like sheep when hitting the beach (the “follow the leader” syndrome).

On any given day at Mermaid, there will be at least 3 or 4 peaks. Typically only 1 is being surfed and by many surfers. I’ll always have a look before jumping in and invariably, I will pick a different peak to surf on. Both the quality of wave and the number of people on each peak will all play into my calculations. I’ll typically trade some degree of quality for a smaller crowd, but that’s just me.

I’ll sometimes end up walking about a kilometer in either direction to determine which wave I really want to catch. Once I’ve caught one however, it’s almost invariably the case that one of the surfers crammed into the pack will branch off and come surf the spot I’m at. It’s not clear to me why they didn’t do so at an earlier point, since the wave had been breaking there all day long. It seems to be a matter of a lack of imagination on the other surfer’s behalf, not realizing the wave was there until I chose to catch it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many surfers arrive at the beach yet make no effort to seek out the best wave. Instead, they merely paddle up to the spot where all the other surfers are, automatically assuming that that’s where the ideal conditions are.

Often I am out surfing on days where ideal conditions exist all up and down the beach, with nobody else on their board except for me. Then another person gets into the surf and ends up at precisely the same area of the water where I am surfing. Of all the places they had at their disposal, they decide to compete with me at my break. In these cases, I just paddle off to catch the next wave down the beach and keep surfing, pondering in the process about the other person’s intelligence.

In the end, this prevalent behavior obliges me to wonder: what ever happened to the exploratory spirit that used to be so essential to surfing? Where has it ended up? When did it get substituted by this sheepish behavior where everyone just follows the rest? Perhaps I am peculiar now in my eagerness for uninterrupted surfing; maybe the crowd dynamic is what most people enjoy now? It’s beyond me, yet I can’t help thinking this type of behavior is odd.

Some food for thought though: each time you hit the beach for some quality surf, take a minute or three on the beach to really observe the waves before paddling out. There will probably be a better option than the most crowded one and you will definitely get to catch more waves.

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