We've all done it before, chatting to surf buddies, stretching the truth a little to tell a better story. You know the kind of things, ..."it was easily double overhead", "...it was definately a 15ft great white that brushed past my leg".
We all love to talk and hear stories, it's part of what surfing's all about, but here I'm going to look at surf tales that are so ridiculous that only the insane would believe them. The idea was prompted by the recollection of a tall story I was told by a customer in a surf shop I worked in many years ago on the UK's North sea coast.
"It was mid-winter and the surf shop in question had no heating, unless the faint glow coming off the shop's single light bulb counted. The wind used to howl from the North, down from Scandanavia, into and under every gap the shop front had (which were numerous), turning the place into an ice box. One day a guy walked into the shop, which was unusual in itself, carrying a shortboard under his arm. The guy wore a heavy jacket and had shoulder length blond hair, he looked the part so I had no reason to doubt the initial conversation.
It turned out that he wanted to sell the 6'2" he was presenting to me, deck up, as it was an unwanted gift from his Uncle in Winnipeg, Canada, who had shaped the board for him. Of course doubts began to surface at this point, but I carried on. I asked the guy why he didn't want the board. His response was that it didn't feel right when he was surfing it, so I took hold of it and instantly felt the wax job.....which was all over the bottom of the board!
There were two ways to proceed, either be sympathetic and explain where the wax should really go, to let the guy know the game was up, or carry on with the conversation to see how far this mans bull*hit extended. So of course I decided on the latter. Next I asked him, where he surfed and he informed me that he surfed locally and actually surfed that very morning on the very same board (bit slippy was it?). So what wetsuit do you wear? Then the all time lie came tumbling out, he told me he didn't wear wetsuits. By now I'm biting down on my lip and mentioned that the water temp was around 5 degrees C (41F) and the wind chill about -3 c (26F) today and his response was all time..."I only need to wear boardshorts because I dont feel the cold"
Obviously the guy was immune to hypothermia! I never did let him know that his "clever" surfer story bluff was uncovered."
I havent heard such a tall surf story since but I bet there are thousands out there. If you have any similar kooky, way out, incredulous, surf stories that you've been told or have heard feel free to share them with us either as a comment or email us at contact at extremehorizon dot com and we'll published the best on the blog (clean stories only please!....we're a U rated site :)
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