Tynemouth Surf, ‘Needles in Your Face’
Today I went down to Tynemouth Surf Co. to interview surfers about their experiences with being held underwater.
First up was Louis, 21 years of age and the owner of Tynemouth Surf Co.
Louis is an experienced surfer
“I’ve been surfing for around 14 years”
“I’ve done a lot of competitive surfing and surfed quite a lot of spots around the world”
“The biggest [wave] I’d go for in terms of feet is maybe 15? I’d go about double/triple overhead. I’ve just bought a Patagonia wetsuit with extra foam padding & buoyancy for winter, so I’d probably be wearing that if it got to triple overhead”
“I’ve been held down [chuckles] more than 50 times for sure. There are certain ones which are more memorable than others”
“A couple of the worst ones are where I’ve been on shallow reef. I’ve wiped out, and been pinned onto the reef on my back. Its like not being able to move, you’re basically stuck on your back until the water pressure releases and you can push yourself off the rock”
“I’ve also had a couple of other ones in deeper water, where you’re just being rolled around so many times and you don’t really know which way up you are. I’ve had to grab my leash to check which way up I am, and then obviously swim up from there”
“Personally, I’ve never actually felt like I was going to drown. I’ve been really scared and thought ‘God I’m in trouble here, this could be serious‘ but I’ve always had enough breath. This winter I’m going to be going for a lot more big waves, so thats where I’ll get tested a little bit!”
“A lot of the friends that I surf with are actually lifeguards, but most of the time there isn’t an on-duty Lifeguard when I’m surfing”
“It’s definitely a factor. The more experience you have, the more [courage] you’ll have. It’s also a thing with big waves, you have to want to go and surf them. I’ve got a few friends who are professional surfers who just don’t like big waves. Their skill set is good enough, but they’re not really into that”
“I was in Thurso a couple of weeks ago, the waves were 8-10ft [1.5x overhead], one of the lads got held under for quite a while and he said he was worried about drowning”
“I think if you’ve got additional buoyancy when you’re under the water obviously it’s a good thing, helping to achieve the same thing as what your surfboard is doing”
Next I spoke with Tom, 21 years of age and works at Tynemouth Surf Co.
Tom is an Intermediate Surfer
“I’ve been surfing for around 5 years. One year before uni, and 3 years whilst at uni but not as regularly and a year since I’ve finished”
“I prefer smaller waves, because I just bought a longboard, but I’ve surfed about head-high before.”
“I remember three or four times where I remember being like ‘this is not a normal wipeout’ ”
“I was surfing waves that were far too big for my ability back when I first started surfing. I caught a head-high solid wave, took off and rode the wave in a bit and fell off. It wasn’t that wave that I got held under by. I turned and started paddling back but took a massive set [of waves] on the head. It was because I was out of breath after paddling & surfing, and it felt really bad. I was put through what felt like a washing machine, when I came up for air, I was kind of dizzy and then got held under again!”
“you feel a lot more out of breath than you actually are, and you’re panicking and you don’t know where you are”
“It was mostly because I was out of breath before that wave, if I’d had breath I reckon I’d have been fine”
“I’m only surfing with an on-duty lifeguard present in the Summer, really”
“Yeah, I reckon that my first priority in a hold-down is to make my way to the surface as fast as possible”
“Yeah, I suppose if you had additional air you wouldn’t be as concerned with getting up”
“You really just want to get to the surface to breathe I guess”
Air & Water 