Part One – Why we surf: The pull of the ocean

By Ross Phililips, founder of Tropicsurf In the first part of Ross’ story, he reflects on the formative moments in the water and the lifelong push-and-pull between risk and joy that shapes a surfer’s relationship with the ocean.

A moment underwater

Surfing has a way of pulling people back again and again — but why do people surf in the first place? For me, the answer lives in a lifetime of moments in the ocean.

I was drowning.

By the fourth or fifth cartwheel, Archimedes had deserted me. Not knowing my up from down, I attempted to swim for the surface, only to find it getting darker and darker. I was driven down, disoriented and panicked. My now helpless body turning limp, desperate, and without a clue which way to swim. So desperate I called out like you would in one of those about-to-die moments, where you suddenly find the time to pray. “God, please. If you just let me live, I promise… I promise…” I watched as the body under the waves promised God that if he let him live, he would give this stupid game away forever.

But just like that, in an instant, I’m on the surface, sucking gobfuls of air. Sprawled motionless across my board, trying not to vomit. Immensely grateful for every inch of flotation, waiting for the heaviness in my limbs to disappear.

For a long minute, I think about giving it all away. For another long minute, I think about paddling in. But, of course, I paddle back out.

Early Encounters with the Ocean

I’ve been respectful of the ocean ever since that moment. This personal experience in big surf wasn’t my first incident with near-drowning; this went all the way back to when I was a wee one-year-old. My father was a sailor, and we lived on a creek with a wooden jetty that he’d built to moor Tingira, our 27-foot sailing boat. One sunny Sunday, with visitors briefly diverting my mum’s hawk-eyed attention, I managed to crawl off the end of our jetty and plunge into the murky waters below. I don’t consciously recall this event, but fortunately, Mum saw me go over. She jumped in wearing her Sunday dress and retrieved me to live another day.

My grandfather lived near the beach in Caloundra, Australia, and my earliest surf memories are from staying with him as a six-year-old. The utter delight of skimming across whitewater at his local surf beach was offset by the painful sting of Coolite-foam-induced rashes. The yin and yang. Pleasure and pain are etched in my earliest memories of surfing.

Soon after, I fluked my first sideways glide across the green face, one of the most profoundly exciting moments of my short life so far. The tactile joy of that brief rush pivoted my life forever. Such was its stronghold over me.

The cost and the joy

My progression to a proper fibreglass board ended on its first day with a trip to the hospital for a decent headful of stitches. Covered head to toe in blood, I was proud as punch when my dad walked me into the emergency room. Only a surfer knows the feeling. Battle scars well earned. Skin cancers, pterygiums, broken bones, and enough reef cuts to scar a hundred men. My surfing life has been more a game of snakes and ladders than beer and skittles.

But outweighing all of this in spades has been exuberance, flow, awe, wonder, triumph, and a feeling of freedom that money can’t buy. In fact, I think I knew as early as that first addictive ride that I would dedicate the better part of my waking hours, my career, and my spare time to the seeming illogicality that surfing presented to me. The highs have been priceless. But really, honestly, if every surf I ever had was offshore and perfect, would I have persisted? I really don’t think so.

Searching for meaning

Given my peculiar dedication to surfing, I’ve found myself sometimes trying to justify my obsession. Or, at the very least, understand it. I guess that’s why I founded a business to help others experience the joys of the ocean, but with less of the dangers and hardships that I faced.

It’s no great secret to surfers that after you jump in the ocean for a surf, you normally exit feeling happier. While you’re riding a wave, even if you try to think of something else, you can’t. You’re in the moment and living completely in the zone. It’s an incredible antidote to the stresses of modern life on land.

But the question lingered for me: why does something so difficult feel so meaningful? That curiosity led me beyond the water and into philosophy.

Stay tuned for Part Two of Ross’ story. In the meantime, find out more about Tropicsurf.