Surfmat Poetics II

I pulled out my old surfmat, vintage '78, for a possible session this past weekend. I'd meant to suit up and slip in at Rodeo Beach, but for a variety of reasons I just didn't make it. I've written about this surfmat already here, but now we have the photos.

Can you see the now-faint markings?

Gear ready for a bit of wave-riding. I'll need my old mask & snorkel as well as the camera too, after I've warmed up a bit and dredged up some skills.

I'd covered my surfmat with poetry and proverbs and only later realized I was blowing my cover as a strictly physical diver-guy (as if anyone would have looked at my skinny-lanky bespectacled self and not said "English major" already).

Actually, most divers liked to see the songs and such I'd inked onto the blue-and-yellow abalone floater. "Hey, what's that say?"

I had to draw in eyes, you know, because Jason's Argo had such eyes. The better to see those abalone . . . .

Even a bit of Beowulf, lines that translate as "Fate often saves the undoomed man, if his courage is good."

1978 vintage, recall, so you won't be surprised to find out that there's a slow leak--at least one--in the old 'mat. I breathed it full in the evening, but in the morning after I got my coffee I found the surfmat to be rather flat.

Honor almost requires that I patch it, her, up, but will I really put the surfmat into the water? The boogie board requires no blowing up to work just fine, and yet I have to say that board lacks soul.

"Kiss my ab" --abalone, that is. Just quoting.

Where's that patch kit?

Surfmat Poetics

There's an old Irish proverb that runs "The waves have some mercy, but the rocks have no mercy at all," at least according to the barely legible words inked into my old surfmat. Way back in 1978, because I am who I am, I used a permanent marker to memorialize my brand new blue-and-gold surfmat with poetry and proverbs, not even thinking that being the bookworm was hardly cool in the high school halls and so probably even less cool along the rocky shores of Sonoma and Mendocino counties. I took some ribbing, as you'd expect, but actually most divers who made any comments seemed to like the nautical verses and the weird enthusiasm that obviously gripped me. I think the lucky Greek eyes I'd inked on the bottom of the mat helped too; everyone wanted an extra set of eyes looking out for the great-white-you-know-what.

No matter how copacetic the inquiry, I'd get self-conscious and stammer out something, feeling silly. If you consider that I refused for a full year or so to buy a dive flag sticker for my car, one of the classic emblems of the diver, until I had enough underwater exploration as stock for this new Jacques-Cousteau-esque identity, you may wonder how--and why--I so marked my mat and myself.

On that abalone-floater, I had verses by Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Poul Anderson, and many more. I should dig out that old mat; it's still in the garage, though it leaks air too quickly to be of much use in the water now. I used it too often as a pad under my sleeping bag, despite being only two-thirds my length; my knees would end up sore from the hard ground, but hey, man, I'm using my surfmat as a camp pad! Last year, when I started going out for abalone again, I picked up a fancy innertube and net combination for shore swims; then, I got myself a kayak for further excursions, and so there's no call for the old 'mat. Still, I haven't quite abandoned it, and I think I'll check through the garage tomorrow and see which verses are still legible.

Now, when I started this post, I meant to write about waves and rocks. I meant to muse on marine mercies and the kindness of kelp. Another day for that one. Tonight, I'm musing on abalone ink, kelp cathedrals, wave trains, and nightfall by the driftwood fireside, watching the salt crystal colors shifting, sparks popping, from the relative comfort of my sleeping bag and surfmat. For a pillow, I always ended up using a damp beach towel or sweatshirt. I remember sleeping pretty well, though.