By the sixth day of the US Open, the men in the Challenger Series had completed their round of 24 and the women had completed their round of 32, and it was down to the bracket stage, which would lead to champions being crowned on the last day of the contest.  The Duct Tape Invitational was set to kick off, which was a separate longboard event.  I’d been sitting at the end of the pier with my ukelele every morning, watching the first surfers of the day, learning a little about how the competition was being run and judged.

Unlike football and baseball, where there are rulebooks and clearly designated ways to score points, surfing is a much more subtle and nuanced sport, not entirely subjective, yet sometimes a performance with enough heart and courage can make all the difference.  What the judges are looking for is a combination of commitment, aggression, willpower, innovation, a variety of maneuvers, speed, grace, and power. 

As a kook who’d only recently started surfing on a soft-top, before graduating up to my brother’s old longboard, the most I could ever aspire to was to become some sort of soul-surfer.  It was how I’d approached everything in life, especially my music, not to be the best, or at the top of the charts, but to follow my own muse and try to create my own style. 

On the south side of the pier there were surfers surfing for money and prestige.  On the north side there were surfers, just as good, who were doing it for love and fun.  My place in life had always been on the north side, but I was still enjoying the spectacle and carnival atmosphere of the Open.

One of the surfers in the Duct Tape Invitational was the son of a famous longboarder.  He came out on his first ride of the day, cross-stepping and walking the nose.  A few minutes later and someone’s board had already been broken.

When I got to the Gathering, one-legged Rudy was acting as scout.  It was a small group that morning.  The crowds were keeping a lot of the ghosts away.  Hatch, Wilson, and Roy were there.  Betsy was there.  Lydia was there.  Susan was there.  There were a few visitors I hadn’t seen before. 

The topic of the meeting was acceptance and living life on life’s terms.  Most of us had lost our humanity by running so far from the pain of life that we were no longer living it.   We’d poisoned ourselves in our isolation and instead of escaping from the pain, had eventually been consumed by it.  If there was a solution, it was to surrender our wills, which had led us so astray in the first place, to that of a higher power and help another ghost.

By the time I got back to the longboard event, the women were surfing in their first heat of the day.  One of the them, from Japan, had raised her own money to get to the event through crowd-funding, and the announcer was explaining how difficult it is for most of the surfers to come up with the money to compete in the World Surf League, flying to events around the world, paying for hotels and expenses, even a decent board can cost a small fortune. 

On this unfortunate day, the Japanese woman bravely surfed into a walled-out section, but then her board got away from her and broke in two on a piling.  I watched it happen on the big screen TV that was set up in front of the plaza.  Only a few hours into it, and the Duct Tape Invitational was already breaking hearts and breaking boards.