Why I Surf – Mick

Editors note: I am charged up to introduce to you all one of my best friends, Mick. I am beyond stoked to be able to give him that title, and I have learned so much from this guy in the past few years. This is one feller you want to bring along with you for any surf trip or session. He can make the most bland of surfs colorful. He is a scholar, a reader, writer, a quipster, and a die hard surfer with a penchant for style. With a bit of a semblance of a young Keanu Reeves, his surfing suits that of a classic character of our time. Smooth, yet violent. Deliberate and severe. Sincere and cordial. All of his thoughts, stories and words of wisdom hold weight and I am pleased to be the middle man in sharing this bright light with you all today. Look forward to more from our own Johnny Utah on here soon. -hwilsin

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Why I Surf

            The other day I had a buddy pose the question to me, why do I surf? I hadn’t considered it much before. The reason always seemed intuitive. Second nature at this point. But now that I am thinking about it, the answer is clear. We can start with who I am and a rundown of basic information, then get into the foundation of the why. My name is Mick and I am 27 years old at that time of this writing. I live in Huntington Beach, California but I was born and raised in New Jersey. I’ve been surfing for twelve years now, but I got my first board when I was around 10. I got that first board when I still lived in New Jersey, but didn’t live in striking distance of the shore, so I didn’t really begin surfing until I moved out to Huntington when I was 15. I pretty much started from the ground up. With no guidance, direction, or any semblance of a clue for what I was doing. I hit the beach everyday after school to teach myself how to surf. Starting with duckdives, to how to paddle, to eventually standing up on a wave. At the time, I didn’t know wave forecasting platforms existed, so for the first year or so I went out everyday via no-look paddleouts. There were plenty of sessions where I was in way over my head literally and figuratively. Had to learn etiquette the hard way. All-around I had to grind out the whole learning curve of standing up consistently on my own. It’s hard to say when the first wave was, the process was so slow and transitional that it kind of felt like it happened in pieces, not one seminal moment.

            My home break is the Cliffs in Huntington. I prefer evening sessions, I do my best to get in the water everyday. On land I install overhead doors for work, which starts early, eliminating weekday morning surfs, but fortunately provides the back end of the day with opportunity to get wet. The best session I ever had is a little bit of a triple header answer; two that come to mind are a solo session I had on the Northshore, the other was a session with buddies in Puerto Rico, and the third is any evening sesh at my homebreak when its pumping, I’m rattling off wave after wave and having my way out there. The best surf trip I’ve ever been on was probably Puerto Rico, but the Hawaii trip is arguable, up in the air. My dream trip is either Bali or Costa Rica. My dream board is a 6’4” Bing Lotus. My goals in surfing are to always have one of the highest wave counts in the water, keep pushing my threshold of ability, be respected, and keep in mind that it’s supposed to be fun.

            Alright, now for why I really surf. This answer circles back to when I was just a grom in New Jersey. Nobody in my family surfed, I didn’t have any friends who surfed, and trips down the shore were mostly just a summer activity. I don’t know when or how I first heard about surfing, but it was younger than I can remember, I know that much. It was a mystical lore to me that I dreamt about as I flipped through the pages in Surfing and Surfer mags that came in the mail. I knew with certainty that’s what I wanted to do. Ride on moving water? That sometimes creates an empty space that you shoot through the middle of? This was the sport of aliens. An extra-terrestrial endeavor. Before I ever stepped on a board it was clear this was the life for me. And then I rode on a wave and the experience was cosmic. There has always been a thought in mind that there is nothing cooler than surfing. The culture of it. The art of it. It’s the coolest of the cool and I wanted that. Also, it always struck me that there is nothing more fun that you can do in this world than stand up on waves. This was all why I started surfing.

            Now, why I have pursued it as a way of life in the years to follow falls in line with why I started, along with some other contributing factors. Yeah it’s fun and cool. But there’s also a sense of confidence I come away with when I hold it down out there. Whether it’s a critical maneuver, wrangling a beast of the clean up set, or just managing to not drown in squally conditions. It boosts my confidence and makes me feel like I can handle shit. In the water or on land. I continue to surf because I am chasing the best wave of my life.  I continue to surf because I want to get better and better until I’m the best one out there, until my ability brings me the most fun in the water. I continue to surf because it’s a connection with nature and provides an escape. For the couple of seconds that I’m on a wave, all external stresses, anxieties, and roadblocks in my mind clear way for the line ahead of me. I surf to have fun.  

-Mick