We’re several hundred miles north of the Scottish border, it’s sometime after 10pm and we find ourselves locked in the sparsely decorated front room of a 62-year-old South African chap we just met in the pub.
He’s announced he struggles to accept the modern living of the 20th century, let alone the ever present technological advances of the 21st. Just as he bolted the front door, raising the eyebrows of the six twenty-somethings (and me) he’s just in-prisoned, he informs us he detests cars and completely boycotts air travel of any kind, which is curious considering his annual trips back to Africa.
William Aliotti sits comfortably in a worn out armchair optimistically checking his very 21st-century phone while a look of sheer terror washes over the face of Guillem, our Spanish videographer. But more on the outcome this peculiar situation in the next issue.
It struck me that despite the differences in age and background, our rabble of surf types all find ourselves in the same room as someone who, at first glance, couldn’t be more of a polar opposite to us all. But, I think to myself, while planning an SAS style exit strategy, how did we all end up here? It’s that surfing thing again ain’t it. It never ceases to amaze me that choosing to dedicate a chunk of our lives to standing up on a piece of foam can generate such curious encounters, I can’t think of anything else quite like it, sport or otherwise. So, once again, use our pages to inspire, don’t wait for it to happen, put your energy into new things, get out there and find those curious encounters for yourself. Over and out.