Much admired Rugby great

I thought I'd include here a quote made by a man I met a few times and who was greatly admired by myself and many others. A great rugby player, a great all around athlete and a great man, someone who really lived every moment of life. It was very sad to read of his death recently.

I know that my dad met Andy Ripley at his beloved Roslyn Park rugby club and thought highly off him. My dad was the manager of our local Under 19 Rugby team at the time and after a match against Roslyn Park Andy came over to sit with the lads. He spent a lot of time with them offering advice and telling tales of his time playing for England and the British Lions in South Africa.

“Dare we hope? We dare. Can we hope? We can. Should we hope? We must, because to do otherwise is to waste the most precious of gifts, given so freely by God to all of us. So when we do die, it will be with hope and it will be easy and our hearts will not be broken.”

Andy Ripley

An inspirational quote most of which I agree with. The one part that I do have an issue with I shall talk about another time.

Todays surfing taster

Just a short piece of film to keep the dream alive until the next surf session. This is Laird Hamilton surfing some large waves. Yippeeeeeeeeee

Started me thinking

I have been really captivated by a book by Ron McLarty called Traveller recently. It is a library book that I picked up by chance and is not the sort of book I would normally read. I’m not saying it’s the greatest book ever, or even that the story is brilliant, but there is something about it that has made me think about the issues involved, especially about my own childhood, the place I grew up and the people I knew.

While I am talking about books take a look at my lists which represents books I really enjoy and others I wish to read. Some of these I will probably refer back to at some point as they have sparked some thought or idea that is worthy of discussion, or at least I believe so.

Anticipating good swell

Since this is my first entry I feel it necessary to give you one important piece of information about me - I am a surfer and if you must label me, I am a soul surfer. However I am also a surfer who currently resides inland and surfs on a limited basis. If you’re a non-surfer and wish to begin to understand how that feels then read this short transcript taken from the excellent movie Riding Giants, of a statement made by Stacey Perlata (Director). If you are a surfer then you’ll know exactly how it feels.

"If you applied the same amount of devotion to a religious pursuit do you think anyone would call you a religious bum?, probably not. When you consider that surfing is really more than anything else a faith, and devotion to that faith becomes paramount in your life, then there’s no such thing as a surf bum.

Think about everything that comes together to make a rare vintage wine. Think of the soil, the different fruits they mix, the wood they build the casks from for the ageing, all of that combines to make this rare vintage. Think about what it’s like for a surfer, he’s looking for that rare vintage as anything that comes out of burgundy, but he has to find it in the wild. Can you imagine if wine tasters had to hunt down their vintage? Imagine if they had to search the world and that the vintage existed for a mere few seconds and they had to be there at that moment to get the grape, squash it up to get it into that glass and drink it, that’s what surfing is like. When you’re looking for that vintage it may only exist for a few seconds at a time. So what does that do to even the lowliest surfer that surfs on the weekend when he gets the chance? It puts you in a constant state of anticipation. You are always anticipating the next swell, the next ride, the next wave".

Most of the time when I cannot surf I spend my time looking at surf reports, weather charts, DVD’s and books, or in my mind. More of this at a later date. That’s it for now, yours in constant anticipation JOHN