I took my place behind the break at South Steyne this morning in the 6am club. 40 minutes later, I finally caught a wave and rode it to the beach. Another 10 minutes after that, I caught another and then it was coffee o’clock and I had to go to work. Not completely frustrating, it’s always pleasant to be sitting on the water early on a warm Sydney morning, but I spent a little more time than I’d prefer watching other better kooks catch waves that I’d paddle for and not get.

 

I’m coming to the conclusion that my board might be part of the issue here; it’s an 8”2 mini mal but it’s quite narrow and not so thick either (no, that’s not a tautology; narrow/wide and thick/thin refer to two different dimensions of the three). My fellow early morning surfers have a bit of volume/mass advantage on their boards.

 

There’s a problem though, I can’t just chuck a wedge of cash at this and be done with it. Firstly, I’m a tight bastard and I’d hate to drop $800 on a new board only to discover that incompetence is the limiting factor, not volume of fibreglass.

 

Secondly, the tickets for the Lions tour go on sale next week. How’s that relevant?

 

Well, I’m thinking of going to the Melbourne and Sydney test matches plus the mid-week games against the Waratahs, Brumbies and the “President’s XV” up in Newcastle. So about a grand’s worth of rugby tickets, not to mention travel costs, accommodation, beer tokens and time off work. Not much change from $3,000 $1,500 then (shit, I forgot that Charlie reads this). I’m going to struggle to justify a new surfboard to the Finance Director of Chez TNA accretive to that expenditure.

 

So here’s the deal……

 

Some of you out there are faddish exercisers, flitting from one zumbo class to the next boxercise boot camp and collecting all the fancy fucking gear on the way. You know the type; they keep their self-loathing to a minimum until Easter by taking out a Fitness First Platinum membership on the first day back at work in January. By about October they cancel the standing order after realising that it’s cost about $375 per hour actually spent in the place and most of that time they were in the sauna or standing around in the pool.

 

If this describes you, please do me a favour; have a look in your garage and check to see if there’s a mini mal of dimensions 7”6 x 23’ x 2.5’ or greater that you last used when Star Wars was a trilogy. If there is, take a snap of it and email the picture to me with a reasonable asking price (hint; I can probably sneak no more than $172.50 out of my account without Charlie noticing).

 

It’s a win:win situation; I get a fatter board to ride and you get to offload some guilt about wasted conspicuous consumption and your contraction of the First World disease of having more money than commitment.

Let’s face it, if you were going to use it this summer you would have done so already and, by the way, the sun rises around 6.20 this week, so you’ve missed the majority of chances to get the pre-work sessions in already.

Come on, give a board a good home.