Sea Fever by John Masefield

Sea-Fever  By


John Masefield (1878–1967)



I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.



I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.



I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Bad Ass

      I am thrilled to have surfed many famous and at times undiscovered waves with at other times undiscovered friends.  Friendsip is earned, then given!  To ride a wave that had travelled so far to announce itself on a land mass where someone with a surfboard just happened to be waiting, with knowledge to ride this phonomenah!.....Oh!  What a joy....?  How many people know Jeff Hay?  I do.  More people know Joey Cabell and Jimmy Lucas!  Who knows  Robert Stay!  I know them all because they allowed me into a very special world called." Surfing",  Bunker Spreckles, I liked  hugely!  He was generous to a fault.  He loved rideing waves.
       Music, some drugs and an extreme desire to rip the shit out of a virgin wave that had traveled so far to break on a foriegn shore!.  Every wave, unique, original and just yours.  I can place, easily, one hundred names on this paper right now!  Many of them you may know.  Many you may not!  But I do and I will not forget the men who rode waves with me!  The surfing community is like no other, even sailing!  I will never regret dedicating my life to the ocean and riding with her, allowing my devine Mother to shape my heart and gifting me into an eternal understanding of life and love itself!  The very nature of love is written in the footprints left by your feet quickly nuetralized by the ebb and flow of the tide as you watch the sunrise as if it was the very first time!   Which it is!

Last Voyage

        When I was a youth, I thought great thoughts.  I had desires and dreams that weren't quite formulated
into substantial thoughts or directions of purpose that would establish the immaturity and immortality of my youth.  The dreams were and still are real!  So, when does youth stop?
        When is one's last voyage?  When is one's last adventure?  Many individuals would make reference to the idea of death.  They may be right!  I say they are wrong.  I can not know what was in Captain Cooks mind when he was asked by his queen to make his third voyage from England into The Pacific Ocean.  What I do know is his desire was to stay with his family.  Alas, called to duty for God and country, how can one decline? To his death on a very Big Island.....
       History has a bizzarre way of re-writing itself.  We do that as people daily.  There are few that I have met in my life that can truly say they haven't made a mistake or three.  The difference of certain mistakes are
how major are they?
       In hindsight we as a people and I mean ALL people, governments included, realize a mistake has been made!  We only realize that a mistake has been made because the conclusions of said mistake didn't get the results we had hoped for.  Borders are not necessarily a territorial boundary of radom political, racial, monetarial by definition seperation,  governments.  Plural.  Pluralsy is seperation.  I say, know!
       When one visits a foriegn country with a different language, monetary value and culture, do not open your mouth until you can understand the depth of the trouble you are in. One of my heroes, Captain James Cook, was torn apart in Hawaii.  It was his last voyage.  I have one voyage, maybe two left in me.  But then again these are different times.  I think they are worse.  I could be wrong but then, that would be my last voyage and I surely could not handle that!  ARRAGGHH!!.

Someone who knows me

       There are a few people who know me.  There are a lot who don't.  Assholes find themselves
important.  I think assholes are really important to themselves.  Don't you?  I am overly fond of assholes and I pursue them with all my heart and soul.  A prick is a prick!  A cunt is a cunt and an asshole will never be anything other than what he is!  So be it....Kant said, " I think therefore I am " ......I say" If I am oppurtunistic, then let me take advantage of this oppertunity"!  So let us all be healthy and wealthy!  I don't see why not?  Do you? 
      Screw oil.  Fuck Jerusalem but continue to surf and love your ocean,  This is important.  Nothing else is
but this.  Love your ocean.  It is really important.  I mean this......Rip tide.........

November 11th. 1967

        Oh, how wonderful.  A long airplane ride over a vast ocean.  A big ocean.  The Pacific Ocean.
I am 19.  I have lived in San Clemente and worked at the brand spanking new , San One'fre Nuclear reactor.  Checked out Mexico after my friend got us fired for stealing tools.  We were the first two janitors.
He was the thief.  I was/am an asshole.
        All I ever wanted was to ride very good waves.  Southern California has some real fun waves.  Kansas, Arkansas, Arizona, Wyoming don't have an ocean but they do or did have some very fine missle silos.
My dad took me to these places so that are family could live the " American Dream".  My dream was to surf
waves and enjoy a life on or near a beach.  My dad's idea was to protect our country by making me a local in places where I didn't get to have a name.  I didn't realize how important it was at the time to have an incredable amount of armed Titon Two nuclear warhead missles aimed at our enemies!  I sure do now.
         The heck with surfing and not having a name!  I'm proud to say I went to school with a guy, Jim Ryan,
from Witchata East, Kansas who fell down in the Olympics.  Topeka was very flat also.  Kansas is a place that looks like an ocean if you look at a lot of grain blowing in the wind.  And have an active imagination.
When it snows and freezes don't look for a hill to ride a tobaggon, sled or ski's!  Guess why?
          Cheyenne Wyoming is where I discovered cold!  Not cold like surfing Santa Cruz but so cold that when I spit my spittle broke into pieces when it hit the ground.  40 degrees below.  No surf but the pinball machine and bowling tried to replace my dreams of a perfect wave with me as a masterful rider and failed
horribly.  Frontier Days was great and Jack-a-lopes are fine.  I'm sure no one ever knew my name.  I was called," California ".
          Arizona and Arkansas have nothing in common.  Both states start with an A.  I mean nothing.
I've never met anyone except my sister and brother who have lived in both these states.  Why would you?
My father is buried in Tucson.  Maybe I should exume mother, who is buried in California, and re-bury her next to dad.  The weather is better in Arizona and they should be together.  The only surf in Arizona is a surf machine they built.  In Tucson every high school is named after Southern California surf towns.  It's kind of spooky!
          I land in Honolulu, Hawaii!  Can you smell the air?  Frangipane (plumaria) and an undefinable frangrance!  Youth freed without restraint for the very first time!  Unlimited possibillities.  To taste, touch
and feel a dream long awaited for.  And in the doing, discovery of myself while exploring an island and it's people.  All these years later, I still am discovering myself while exploring an island and it's people 
         All I ever wanted to be is a surfer.  I didn't plan to own a restaurant in Hanalei, Kauai. But we
did.  When I say we, I mean Jeff, his wife Sandy(my sister) and me.  Ralph Young (my friend) also
was our partner.  Equals and friends to this day.  Who would have thought that it was a possibillity that one could actually own
a resturant located in Hanalei Bay?  I don't care who speaks about all the places on Earth!  Hanalei is not only the finest wave I've ever seen or surfed but is also the most beautiful place on Earth. It might just be a memory.  Time has a way of changing what we used to know.  Tourism has a way of re-defining landscapes
in Hawaii!  Maybe the Big Island of Australia is my next Port-of-Call!  Newcastle, New South Wales -latitude 21 south!.............Maco nuts and Kona coffee, yea! 

No Wax

I asked at the store and they said," no wax"!
No pilikea.  The nearest store is only twenty-three
miles the other way through a cane field.

Someone will have some wax.  Someone
always does!  I really wish someone was here!
Billy Shea and I rubbed our boards back and forth
trying to exchange wax but because he had done the
nasty with Sheila on his board the day before, her
sun tan lotion turned the surface of my board into
a slippery slide! 

One thing worse than not having any wax is not
having a surfboard.  Especially in Hawaii.  It's
difficult to return a borrowed board to a friend
in two pieces.  I've seen that done but I found it
was easier to move to another island!  When
McCellan broke Coy's board at Hanalei he had no
problem at all returning it.  He said he was sorry.

You can tell when someone loves you because
they never say they are sorry.  Coy resined
that board back together over at Bubbie's
house.  And, " The Super Scoop" was born.

Without wax this board could not be ridden!
It was a " V".  Not a v bottom but a v as in
child's playground teeter-toter.  One had
two choices.  Ride on the front half of the board
or stall on the back half!  Soul Wevo made it
look easy and stylish.  He was so cool he rode
a wax surfboard I whittled and no one could tell
how many bars of parafin it took for me to make
it.  A week later when they found out that there would
be no wax in Hawaii for a month they asked me
nicely to move into the City of Refuge on the
Big Island.

I flatly refused.  I told them that I knew Mr. Punter.
They staccotoed, " What does that have to do with
the price of Ginseng at Ambroses"?  I countered,
" Absolutely nothing"!  Then I quickly expressed,
" But are we waxing esoteric"?  It was then that
I knew how I was going to survive this ordeal!

Mr. Punter is not only an organic farmer but a
bee man as well.  After I explained my plight he
with vigor allowed me to purchase $ 5,000
worth of honey.  It took me five days but I
was able to seperate the honey from the combs.

I went out to the Taylor hippie camp because
I knew I could score some pachuli oil.  60lbs
of bee's wax mixed with pachuli oil and Old
Spice, packaged as Sex Wax sold like hot
cakes.  This is kind of poetic in that I sold
the honey too!  Tasted great on pan cakes!
Made a lot of money but what is more
important is that I never, to this day, have
been without.  Wax on, wax off!!!

The Ventures, Dick Dale And The Dell-Tones, Jan And Dean, Beach Balls

      I'm twelve years old in Berdoo.  San Bernardino, California..  New Port Beach, San Clemente, Dana Point, Doheney , San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Beach, Trestles all at my finger tips!  If I had a car and could drive.  So there I am with a string tied to my wrist, running out my bedroom window, waiting for my older friends to yank it at 4 o'clock in the morning, waking me up for dawn patrol!  Boards stuffed into the back of my friends "54" Ford stationwagon.  I think one of the reasons God created racks was to save us young children from the noxious vapers our boards sticking out the rear of the stationwagon would draw back in upon us.  Mu lepo!
     In the early sixties there were only three waves in California  that I knew of that could handle anything over twelve feet.  I only got to surf two of them. Lunada Bay, Dana Point  and Steamer Lane are the three.  You may know of others but remember I am 12- 17 years young at the time.  I ended up in Sacramento and got to surf Santa Cruz before I moved to Hawaii. 
      Dana Point ( Killer Dana)  could handle massive swells.  On a large day there was a table rock that set the wave up for an outside take-off.  Position.  The ride, when Dana was huge, would take you through the pier if you allowed it to.  The lifeguards used to warn you off with bull horns because they knew you were going for it!  They never warned me off at Huntington.  Go figure.  When they were building the boat harbour that is there now Dana broke big three days before the new breakwall jetty was finished and Dana Point had a grand farewell.  I was fortunate to be there and say, " Good-Bye"
       At the time I wasn't a sailor but I had read, " Two Years Before The Mast", by Richard Henry Dana.  So I knew that just below the lookout Gazebo near Hobie Alters Surfboard Shop was a break called" A Thousand Steps"!  They used to load animal skins there to take back around " The Horn".  On the other side of that breakwall was a left called" Nepee's".  Then you moved on to Doheney.  That's where the beautiful boat harbour is today and the breaks I mentioned are gone.......
       I don't miss Killer Dana as I thought I would at the time.  I'm older now and have taken a liking to sailing.  I really think they did a good job with the Doheney Marina.  I've actually sailed there from Hawaii but I think it has another name.  Dana Point Marina! But it's really knot!  It's Doheney
       Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz is a better wave than the Point but the water is really cold!  What I especially like about " The Lane" is that being a goofy foot, I can go left there.  It can be a little hairy but nothing near Hanalua, Maui. Or Kaliiwhi, Kauai.  When Steamers gets really large it's fun to see if you can turn the corner into "Killer Cowells"  Heh!  Cowells is a great wave to teach your keikes how to surf.  It's cold but it is user friendly.
       Never did surf Lunada Bay up by Palos Verdes.  Heard good reports.  Why should I go up there when I could sneak in to Cottons and Trestles B.A. a train and out paddle marines whose only purpose of the day was to bust this little blond haired gremmie, take my board away and fine me for tresspassing.  It NEVER happened.  Life has it's small pleasures and an occasional disappointment
      I can still see the cliffs of Dana Point in my minds eye as if it was yesterday. I wouldn't mind talking to some of the people who rode that wave in the day.  Corky Carroll and Phil Edwards are still around somewhere.  Remember Joyce Hoffman?  Greg Noll worked with Hobie up the hill!  I'm wondering if Hobie ever made it right with Phil for the cat design?  I've sailed different sized Hobie Cats and they rip! 
     Oh yea to finish this surf story.  I move to Oahu in "67' and destroyed my 9'9" Hobie nose-rider at Haleiwa.  My next board lasted a day.  It was a 8'Bing Nuihiwa light-weight that Pipeline said", Robbie, you aren't going to make this take-off"!  Pipeline was right!  Three pieces!  $80 down the tube.  After that I went to Dick's.  He is still shaping and he is the greatest shaper I have ever had the pleasure to ride for/with.  I have never ridden a Brewer mistake.  But each board challenged me as I feel I challenged it.  I loved being able to use different fins in a slot.  Mike Diffendurfer is the only other shaper that is close to Richard.  Gerry learned how to shape from Brewer and is loved by Dick so he is #3.  I like surfing with Gerry but it has been quite a few years.  I like surfing with Margo to and thats been awhile.
       You know, at this stage of my life, just to be able, physically, to paddle out to Impossibles, and sit in the line-up as if I was going to take off would bring me a measure of peace and culminate the years I have spent pursueing and finding an uncrowded perfect wave shared with a few of my die hard surfing friends.  You know who you are.  Cowabunga!!!