TO NAME OR NOT TO NAME
Secrets … everyone has them. They vary from pretending to like a mate’s new partner, closely guarding that “family skeleton”, or something so extreme that Stephen King would base a novel on it. And some secrets depend on each individual, like whether to share or guard a surf break. To name or not to name—is that the real question? But remember, once two people know something, it’s no longer a secret; basically, wanting to share is human nature.
Decades ago, we’d been invited to surf some spots on the edge of the Nullarbor Plains. Our base was going to be a small coastal town, and for months, we’d been in touch with a second generation local surfer, planning the best time to score the right conditions. The way the bush telegraph works, which is a lot slower than social media today, news of our trip had circulated around the town and the word coming back to us was that a few local surfers weren’t happy.
When we arrived, the guy we’d been dealing with was stoked to see us, but amongst the small surfing community, the reception was decidedly frosty. We planned to stick around for at least a week to ten days trying to catch a couple of big-wave spots, but things didn’t quite work out that way. In the first couple of days, we
