My wetsuit has a story to tell. Written in the fading and creased neoprene is a record of a surfing life. Every repair job has a story that's tied to a time and place. It evokes a love in me far more than something that allows me to shiver should. I’ve left it behind, ripped it, peed a thousand pees and blessed its black sole for all the warmth I’ve felt wrapped in its thin layer of comfort.
When I first packed a van and went in search of waves I headed south, through NSW and onto the stormy southern ocean. My god it was cold, I could never understand how the people down there started surfing. How after the first time, they decided bobbing around like an ice cube was a worthy pastime. I failed to see how they were stoked to surf anything less than perfection and especially how they got up to brave the early morning session. Then we visited the surfing mega mall of Torquay and its factory outlet warehouses. I walked out of there with one zipperless rip-curl wetsuit that made me sweat when I tried it on. It was then that I understood how you surfed cold waves.
I naively sold that wetsuit one month later. I was sure that I’d return to Torquay and pick up an even newer piece of cold water surfing technology. I never did return. I ended up flying from Brisbane to Perth to resume my van life and the girl I imagined driving a VW back to Victoria with stayed in Queensland.
It hurt to have to buy a budget 3/4 steamer, with no stretchy bits and a cold-water vent in the back called a zip. I could only make a grimacing smile as the cold water trickled down my back and I looked over at my mate, serine in my old (his new) rip-curl wetsuit. If I didn’t have to live with him in a van I would have definitely demanded he return the wetty I so graciously (mistakenly) sold to him at no profit. Eight years later I love that same budget 3/4 and would not trade it for all the waves in indo.
Yesterday when I attempted to force my leg down the stiff, salt-crusted pipe of my old faithful the stitching behind the knee gave way. This rip didn't make me think about retiring my favourite surfing companion. I just thought I would have to find a needle and thread or maybe move to warmer waters.
I look down at the knee and see a one inch scar stitched across the kneepad. That reminds me of being in Fiji and living in a dive resort. I thought I was brave enough to surf unknown reef breaks alone. I wasn't, and subsequently spent most of my time under the water. Diving on the reef rather than floating above it like a shark biscuit. I stitched up that knee hole because I was embarrassed how old my wetsuit looked compared to all the new gear the 2-week vacationers had in their PADI inspired outfits. The rip in the knee originally came from my own surfboard fin, 6 months earlier, in New Zealand.
New Zealand is cold. You can use worlds like frigid or icy to describe the water and it wouldn't be out of line but I like the simple steeliness of saying it’s just plain cold. I remember one day. A beautiful summer's day, surfing the long lefts of Ahipara and this guy paddles past me in board shorts while I'm wearing my full-length steamer. He comments "it's cold ah?" I didn't detect the irony in his comment until I was admiring the light blues of the sunlit ocean and noticed all the locals around me in board shorts "Smart arse Kiwi's". For a kid from Queensland it was still too cold.
Once I left it behind, hanging over a fence. I was gutted, you can't surf New Zealand without a wetsuit and I couldn't afford a new one. It was over an hour drive away and I didn't want to risk wasting the fuel money to drive back and find it gone. I ended up calling the only business listed in the phone book for that little seaside town. In the true spirit of small town kindness they were happy to walk down and check the fence for my lifeless surfing shadow.
The holes in the bum remind me of sliding down barnacle covered rocks in Western Australia. Not worrying about ripping my cheap wetsuit and more worried about finding abalone to eat for dinner.
The million spider creases across the back and chest remind me that I stopped surfing for a few years. Sold my boards, and forgot my wetsuit lying in the bottom of a cupboard at Mum’s. I don't know what I was thinking back then, but like a best friend my wetty didn't care. It just waited patiently till a picked it up again and we resumed our salty, intertwined lives.
The white hand stitching across the Velcro at the neck reminds me how I've been through 3 sets of Velcro tabs. Each one replaced after numerous surfs cursing the rush of cold water that comes with the first icy duck dive. I replaced one set of Velcro when I pulled out the old steamer to mend all the holes and burst seams for spring surfing in Victoria. Winter was so bloody cold but out of reverence for my trusty wetsuit, I wouldn't replace it. At the time carving frozen water and staying dry seemed far more intelligent than meditating on cold water intrusions into my neoprene skin. The last Velcro wore out in Japan at which point I decided to toughen up and start wearing board shorts. Two weeks later a fresh southerly swell and subsequent cold currents had me back shivering in my suit wishing I’d repaired that Velcro.
The fact the old suit made it to Japan is attest to my tight-arseness and its longevity. In Japan the seams finally started to give way. The armpit split, I sewed it up. The leg split, I sewed it up. I'm getting pretty good at wetsuit stitch. I still laugh when I look down at the crouch and see that repair job. It reminds me of Alicia laughing that she can see my doodle and feeling a bit self-conscious on the beach hoping no one looks at my holy crouch. Japanese are far too polite to say anything but you can tell when they’re embarrassed.
I am beginning to feel like I have had enough of cold-water surfing. Next time I go home I am leaving my much loved wetsuit there, while I go off to explore warm bath tub temperature waters. I won't forget it though; it will be keep it as a memento and a catalogue of 8 years of my surfing life.
