Surfing Waves

I've been surfing for about 20 years now and in my 40s. I've always surfed shortboards. While I'm no Kelly, I'm also no Kook - hope that sums up my experience before I ask my question. I'm not aggressive in the surf and even if I get burnt i'll say nothing - although i'll give somebody a little shout if they're about to burn me, but that's more a safety thing.

I recently moved country and wondering if the etiquette here is different or I've just been a tw@t for the past few years including today.

So at my local spot on a low tide we end up with 2 peaks - outter one breaking a little bigger but then fades a bit but you can pump through into the smaller inside one. Not far apart really, especially on a small day like today.

I was out catching a few with virtually nobody else out. Eventually a couple of other guys came out. I was sitting on the outside peak, caught a wave and then proceeded to paddle back out. The 2 other guys sat more on the inside peak. I sat with them to begin with but then paddled back out to the outside peak. Each of them took one of the smaller inside waves but they sort of faded. I took the next one that came further out. To my surprise as I approached inside section one of the guys looked directly at me and just burnt me anyway. Then paddled back out to me to say he burnt me cause I was hogging the waves.

Surely, if a few guys are sitting on a crappier inside wave, as a shortboarder I shouldn't be expected to wait when there are better waves further out? I get that if I was on a longboard and always paddling out past them but surely if we're all on shortboards it's their choice to miss out on the outside waves? Or have I got this completely wrong?

I'll add that the guys were locals and even though I do surf regularly with a few locals, others still see me as an outsider. Any thoughts?

Is there a language barrier? If not you might consider talking it out with the locals and see what they consider the rules to be. Rules vary from break to break in my limited experience. But the longtime locals will know what 's going on.

I speak and understand the language fluently. He paddled up to me and said he burnt me because I had just had a wave. I'm assuming he doesn't consider himself pulling out of a wave that faded, as catching a wave. I didn't actually paddle further to the outside until each had taken short waves that faded. I had literally done 2 turns by the time he burnt me.

Try talking to someone else about it. My guess is you will need to show respect to the longtime locals and earn their respect before you will be treated equally. Or maybe just that one guy is a jerk

Yeah, I'll chat to some of the other locals and get their take on it.

Nothing wrong really if it happened the way you described, jus a prejudiced perceptions what his rules were, heated slightly that he wasn‘t catching the better waves.
Give a wave get a wave sometimes works , but Karenisation is creeping into everything and I feel entitled can be an issue!

pdwag wrote: He paddled up to me and said he burnt me because I had just had a wave. I'm assuming he doesn't consider himself pulling out of a wave that faded, as catching a wave.

He said you "just had a wave". And you saw he had just caught a wave, that faded out. So both you and him are 1 and 1 in wave count. So Even Steven right ?

But it's not.

He may have been saying YOU already got one of the set / bigger / clean / etc. waves. He is claiming you're taking all the good ones.

Like Jaffa said, sometimes you got to give a wave to get a wave ( and keep the peace ). If you caught one of the nice set waves, paddle back and others still haven't got a "good one" yet, let the next waves, pass by you to the inside peak where they are.

Sometimes the guy on the inside claiming you are taking all the good waves is just in the wrong place to take off. From where they are lining up it's extremely difficult to catch a wave so they will go for waves but not catch any and complain that you are taking all the good waves. I have had two different friends at two different surf spots accuse me of taking all the waves. Both spots had relatively long waves and lots of them so I was out of the lineup for at least 5 minutes after catching a wave. During that 5 minutes all by themselves they did not catch any waves and many waves came through. I would paddle out and let a couple waves go that I would have caught then catch the next wave. One break was in front of a cliff and I told the guy he needed to be more in front of the cliff but he was too scared so he tried to shoulder hop the wave and it wasn't happening. The other place was a small reef break and I guess my friend had some bad incident taking off from the peak and refused to go out to the peak where I was. After him complaining over and over and me telling him to come out to the peak over and over I went in and let him have all the waves. He didn't catch any. In those instances neither of them could have dropped in on me. I mean they could have but they couldn't catch the wave from where they were lined up so I didn't worry about them. These days I am quite often lined up different from everyone else and quite often when encountering other surfers given allowances maybe because I am an old man and surfed the break before the other surfers were born. Mostly I surf alone though these days.

Yep I get what you guys are saying and yeah I'm all for the get a wave give a wave philosophy.

Lots out there for everybody.

Happy surfing fellas