Didn’t think so.
You’re too late, that ship has sailed my friend. The era of secret surf-havens in the UK & Ireland and increasingly in the rest of the world has passed. The reasons: People love to talk, other people dig on making money from guidebooks, the mag’s constantly quest for the ‘next thing’, surf camps and more recently clueless numpties have blown the lid off some sacred spots on the damn internet.
Are we doomed? Is there any hope? Read on and find out…
Secret spot A surf break known by a few, but undiscovered by the surfing masses. The Encyclopaedia of Surfing
‘Loose lips, sink ships.’ World War II propaganda slogan
Secret adjective
1. a piece of information that is known only to a few people and is intentionally withheld from general knowledge.
2. known to very few people and consequently quiet and secluded.
3. something that is unknown, hidden, or not understood.
Definition from the Slide Bumper Book of Words’n’Stuff.
A bit of history…
Back in the day (as in the early 90’s and before) nobody was particularly bothered by the concept of the secret spot. They existed, of course, but they were secret, and devoted, small local crews knew how to keep it that way. Crowd pressure wasn’t a major issue and surfing was a brotherhood. You use to honk at another car with boards on the roof and wave, as it was a rare thing to see other surfers. Whenever surfers gathered they would talk story and share information, similar to ‘the knowledge’ that cabbies have, being a hardcore Irish surfer was an ongoing quest. A mission to get the most out of your surfing: to understand the weather charts, to know where to go and make the most of any available swell. Every little bit of info built on your personal knowledge base and when, by virtue of this and some exploration, you found a spot the locals were cool. ‘We don’t mind you surfing here, just keep it to yourself, eh?’
It was a more caring and sharing environment. Surfing wasn’t cool. It didn’t feature in every second advert on TV. It was cold and hard. People just surfed for themselves, not for cool points.
A cautionary tale…
Back in the early 90’s I was at college in Aberystwyth. Mid-Wales is home to a bunch of high quality but ridiculously fickle waves, they only break properly once or twice a year; local knowledge ensured you scored. The recently released Stormrider Guide that everyone was frothing about had handily missed out this corner of the world so all was well (in their eyes there was no surf between Pembrokeshire and North Wales?).
Most of the areas waves were not secret, Wavelength published a comprehensive guide in 1989 (the reason I picked that uni’ in the first place), the BSA handbook had basic guides to the known spots and that was fine. Who would ever drive all the way up there to surf Llwyngwril anyway?
The few secluded gems were surfed by the small local crew and a devoted handful of students. Max number in the water at the secret spots was ten people, if work schedules/lectures cooperated. Generally you would surf with the few friends you shared a lift with. This was cool, some of the spots had tricky access over private land and this was agreed with the landowner.
A new crop of surfers arrived at the college. Doubling the number of surfers in town.
No one let the secrets slip. A year passed without any of them finding out, you’d think they’d notice how the main locals always disappeared when the swell got good, but no.
Another college year started, with a strong swell, sunshine and offshores, we were straight on our favourite spot. The dismay on our, and the locals, faces as we arrived in the farmyard to see the college canoe club unloading along with ten other log-riding, newbie surfers was palpable. The bare arses and blaring car-stereos only made it worse. The landowner was furious. How did this happen? Who blabbed? Turns out a new guidebook had an entry for this, and every other secret spot in the area… After the witch-hunt the source was found to be a guy that no longer surfed, but had in the seventies. The author had befriended him over a few pints in the pub and wheedled it out of him. Result: the landowner shut his gates. Access was denied… The rot had started.
Why they are special…
‘To be completely honest, I’d have to say that nothing, not my family, bank account, country, or even my species, brings out quite the same combination of feelings- a weird mix of selfishness, dedication and worship- as my secret spot.’
Nick Carroll, Surf Journo.
Knowing that a secret spot is yours and your friend’s special place is a fantastic feeling. Especially if you’ve bothered to pore over the maps, explored and found them for yourself. It’s not a localism thing. Entry to these places is not restricted. If you’ve done the hard yards and found a spot as well then no one can begrudge you that. It’s just that a careless word to the wrong person can easily snowball to having half of the world at your once secret little nook.
So what about the Guides…
It’s a tricky moral question. The ethics of surf guidebooks could be the subject of a degree thesis. Low Pressure’s Stormrider Guide to Europe, first published in 1992, is the most famous and has spawned a host of imitators. Anyone that surfs and travels will have used one. They come as standard in any Euro-road-tripping van. The ‘Bible’ as it’s become known in some circles opened up new horizons for many. Originally written with the assistance of prominent locals the contents managed to tactfully avoid giving away many secrets. It’s debatable now whether the inclusion of some sensitive spots was the right way to go, but that’s water under the bridge. No one that’s travelled can really put their hand on their heart and say they’ve not got more waves because of it. Surfer magazines travel guides to Europe and the worlds other surf regions were legendary and oft photocopied way back when also.
This ‘respecting the locals wishes’ is a Pandora’s Box. It depends who you talk to. As with anything there is a spectrum of people: from rabid, anti-everybody locals through sensible, well-balanced people to groovy, welcoming ‘the ocean is there for everyone’ dudes. If you try it’s easy to find someone that’s not bothered about sharing.
Case in point: someone working for a guidebook company contacted me; wanting to use my photos from some remote islands off Norway, I declined. Citing our Norwegian surf guides wishes that the photos only went in the magazines without naming the islands and that they didn’t go to any guidebooks. The company came back saying they had talked to a local and he said it was okay to put the islands in their book. Seeing as there are no locals on the island, apart from a guy known as Toothless Tommy, I was suspicious. Tommy doesn’t surf, true he owns a beaten old board and an unhealthy addiction to Snuss and moonshine, but he doesn’t surf. He’d agree to anything. He nods most of the time anyway; no matter if anyone’s talking. The guy that said it’s fine to blow these islands was him…
Now there are new guidebooks cropping up all the time, surfing is big business and book sales can be huge. Easy money really, get the LP guide, copy it, add a few embellishments of your own and off you go. Sod the ethical, locally approved content. A brace of new books have blown the lid off some super-secret spots, both in Ireland and the UK, and a lot of people are understandably not happy. The locals are battening down the hatches, waiting for the onslaught of etiquette smashing goons…
Guidebooks have the other consequence that’s also been observed in backpacker circles, known as the ‘Lonely Planet Effect; where supposedly independent minded people conform and follow each other sheep-style to destinations, attractions and facilities because they are in ‘the book’. If a guidebook says somewhere is great then people will go. It’s the same in surfing. Of course places not in the book get overlooked, which is bad for businesses but great for sensitive surf spots.
But it’s not just the guides…
The world’s surf magazines have to take the major portion of the blame. Surfer magazine especially, as they had an active policy of naming spots that, intentionally or not, bulldozed many secret spots off the map.
Madeira was a name unheard of in the surf world until Surfer published Ted Grambeau’s seminal trip there. A new Atlantic island big-wave paradise had been found, the photos were great. They named the article ‘Jardim do Mar’, Portuguese for ‘Garden by the Sea’ and also, bafflingly, the name of the village where the waves were. One look in a decent world atlas and there you go. The surfers that had been secretly tucking into the waves on the island since the 70’s were mortified.
It’s an endless list: John Callahan’s Cloud Nine trip with Taylor Knox and Evan Slater, blew that wave to the world and has changed the Philippine island of Siargao for the worse, for ever more. Bali and much of Indonesia are the way they are because of surf mag exposure. Kuta was a small fishing village until the images of Ulu’s and Padang reached the outside world. The film ‘Litmus’ did it for Ireland.
But not all secret-spots are ruined by the media. The most famous case being Jeff Clark’s exposure of Mavericks to the world, after surfing it for years by himself he took it public. ‘The wave will look after itself’ is the oft-repeated quote. Whether he regrets that decision now is a moot point. It is possible to find good waves and keep it schtum; Tony Hussein-Hinde found great surf in the Maldives and surfed it by himself and later with close friends for many years, until he took it public to make a pot of cash. Now, and more so since the WQS, it’s mobbed. As for a certain surf company blowing a certain right hander in Mexico that is pretty much unforgiveable…
Many recent discoveries that occupy the column inches in the mags are off the radar of the travelling surfer now anyway. Shipsterns Bluff, Cyclops, Rileys, Aileens and The G-Spot are all recent ‘not secret anymore’ additions to the surf consciousness, but they won’t get crowded with anyone but pro’s and photogs, cos they are so damn nasty, pandering to our ‘car-crash-but-must-look’ mentality.
Rule Britannia…
In the British Isles there’s a strange stalemate. Many of the best waves are not in the guidebooks, ‘because they are secret’, which seems at odds with them being:
a) visible from a car on their respective coast roads.
b) being surfed by all and sundry, photographed and videoed every time they break.
The mags don’t name the spots but anyone with a bit of knowledge knows exactly where the ‘Yorkshire G-Land’, ‘Y-Bocs’ and ‘That left-point in North Cornwall’ are. Simple fact is good waves are not going to get super-crowded, you need local knowledge of the weather, they are fickle as all hell anyway and the upsurge in surfing’s popularity doesn’t take away the fact that 95% of surfers are scared shitless of reefs. The supposedly ‘secret’, now crowded, deep-shelter beaches that fire in SW storms are doomed though. All you need is an AA road map and a bit of sense and you’ll find them. Either that or follow the convoys of lid-riders that have colonised them. Another oddity- The Cribber, in plain view, on the most popular beach in the country and strangely empty, until recently. It took a South African with balls of steel- Chris Bertish (not Clive as he was amusingly dubbed in the Times)- to show them how it’s done. Thankfully in Ireland a lot of secret spots are just that, not in plain view, only accessible by yomping through fields and climbing down cliffs.
So where are we now?
There are few secret spots left. Internet websites, chat-rooms and the new breed of clueless digital photographer have seen to that. Keener on getting adulation from their viewers than thinking about the effect of their actions. The websites are a magnet for people like Tommy, that don’t understand what it means to be a surfer.
The more crowded it gets, the more important the secret spots will become, at home and abroad, as crowd pressure is probably the biggest threat to our lifestyle, along with people raping surfing for their own financial gain, pimping the latest exposed secret spot as a destination for a surf holiday package.
If you know a secret spot, keep it that way, don’t talk about it, don’t brag about it and certainly don’t let someone get you really drunk and tease it out of you. Don’t scoff, it happens. The location of a carbon -copy of Mundaka in the southern hemisphere, with no surfers for hundreds of miles, was divulged this way, and it’s still secret… To me and two friends…
