Surfing Waves

Since Uncle Jaffa turns 70 next year he has ordered two new boards.
They are not longboards as getting knees and pop ups synchronised after ops and stuff is proving difficult knee boards are a water time answer. Apart from the candy pole one made earlier this and a Diplock are my next toys



This is a 6'2" Sunova Torpedo, ideal shape volume and float for a kneeboard or if I really get it together fun tboard, big if! Though! Sunova is a range of boards by Bert Burger, who was one of the originators of FireWire boards.
Im excited

The Diplock UK brand is pretty much a conventional knee board and take the ideas for the popsicle board back a couple of notches. Picture of a similar Diplock. Soon!

Also Airline trips out of Austria are not friendly to longboards and longboards don't fit standing riverwaves, so knees please!

Move over, George Greenough! Uncle Jaffa coming through on his knee board.

there are some kneeboarders around where I surf; one of them turns up on his postie cycle with the kneeboard tied to the side. Dont know what Jaffa is on about needing an airplane...

It’s about Canaries and Sardines!

Here is Jaffa carrying son of Jaffa's knee board, this board has river and blizzard experience



Here is Jaffa's icy pole board again


Next comes a picture of what Jaffa rode as an eight year old, a coolite, before body boards had been invented, and before the first real full balsa 9'6" pig board.


Finally the 9'6'' Balsa Pig board known as the can opener, maker unknown

that is awesome Jaffa. I wish I had photos of all my old boards, I guess back then I never thought I would have a future. The coolite is similar to what my friends would ride standing up and going across the face like a surfboard. Two brothers would switch off riding it till it broke then they would get another one. Maybe in Australia they didn't have bodyboards but in Hawaii the Hawaiians had them from long ago.

We had Paipos , surfing boards,, Malibu chips didn’t come to Australia until the year of 1956 brought by the California lifeguards.
Prior to that there were 16ft paddle board surf skis and there was the surfoplane, a a heavily rubberized four chambered superinflated surf mat,.
Marine ply varnished and with d shaped cupboard handles were swum out and onto,waves.
Body surfing was introduce to,swimmers who were only allowed to,ocean bathe in daylight hours,after,1903
Bodysurfingnwas taught to sea swimmers by a native from Vanuatu Tommy Tanna, it was a time when indentured ( read pittance wage slavery) Kanak labourers werebroughtnfrom South Pacific islands.
Tanna was probably an identifier of the island he came from. It was also,the introduction of the crawl,stroke to,swimming , though it he been known across,the Pacific islands before!
Board riding, well probably Duke Kahanamoku in 1914 although there are reports of an Australia riding a solid wooden Hawaiian style boa5dbin northern NSW in 1912 there is a photograph too.

Uncle Jaffa hit the water in his golden time when modern surfing was just expanding out of the city beaches and often a Malibu was seen among the skis for the first time.
The time, Bob McTavish’s Book “ Stoked” covers.

I read that book. So did you belong to a surf club? I think I might have asked you that before but I will again since I am forgetful in my old age and forgot the answer.

I did for a brief while to the Bronze Medallion surf Level which meant we could be rostered for volunteer patrols, which we were at DeeWhy Surf Lifesaving Club,we paid to be volunteers, and save people but we could travel,and bunk virtually at most beaches at any seaside village, there was usually a club .
The older guys were returned veterans from,WWII and much of the discipline and Organisation was quite militaristic.
The attitudes of youth changed markedly in the 60s and Graduating from high school to face the draft for Vietnam stirred the pot. fully

Turn on tune in and drop out into surfing, happened around the entire coast. Drugs took,a toll as did the mind messing of the PTSD effect on many surfers who chose or were force by draft to War! The price still being paid!.
Many draft dodges went feral and spent decades surfing obscure beaches. Others held a meagre existence on the dole, a weekly government unemployment benefit, but hey lots of surfing. Without words view Morning of The Earth.
Early Indonesia saw an expat movement, next wave ( pun intended) old farts my age can live off their age pension in Indonesia,at a cheaper cost of living!
Old silver back surfers in their own warung! Yeeeha 1

I hope you see my posts as more than just a look at Me by Jaffa but a potted history of events through the earlier days of more modern surfing as I saw it in Australia! Heavily borrowed from,tall,tales and true as heard and read from,my contemporaries.

It was like a magical peep at a snippet of time now passed, I just wanted that post to go on and on.

Silvery wrote:It was like a magical peep at a snippet of time now passed, I just wanted that post to go on and on.

I appreciate that, recommended watching for English and European surfers , the I think two series Endless Winter, and Endless Winter two. Shows the early days of both English and European surfers. Well worth a view for those golden times