|
Page 7 of 7
The waves at Sultan’s are big and perfect, but they’re also crowded by Maldivian standards, and we’re tired of queuing up for each set. Earlier in the week Mesnard told us about some deserted surf spots 35 miles to the south that break only on big swells. Though Mesnard warns us the waves down south might not be hitting correctly, the group decides to go for it. Only Peak cries foul, citing the Baja Rule of surfing: Never leave a place where the surfing’s good. The majority, however, overrules him.
As we churn south for the next three and a half hours, I sit with Howard, Dayton, and the captain on the flying bridge. With the wind blowing through our hair, we watch the water change colors from crystal blue to a hazy turquoise as the sun plays hide-and-seek behind thick gray clouds. It feels good to be traveling again. “I just realized I have no idea what time it is,” says Dayton out of the blue. “And it feels pretty good. I’ve never been off e-mail this long—not since the first time I started using e-mail.”
When we finally steam into the South Male atolls, the guys jump out of their seats and gather around the side of Ocean Dancer, straining to see if the waves are all we’d hoped. The wind is howling, and an ominous black storm front is approaching from the southwest. The waves suck. We’d made a gamble—and effectively wasted a full day of surfing.
“I hate to tell you I told you so, but I told you so,” says Peak with a laugh before returning to his napping spot on the couch.
With that, Ocean Dancer turns around and heads back north. There’s a silent but palpable hope that the waves will still be good when we arrive in the morning. “The wave doesn’t necessarily listen to your plan,” Dayton says to me as we settle in at the bar for a margarita. “Whatever the wave presents, you have to deal with it.”
As we drink, he says that if he ran this surf charter he’d have installed a Web camera on an island in the south or paid a local fisherman to be a spotter, thus saving needless trips when the waves aren’t any good. It’s a part of his brain he can’t turn off. He’s forever improving, innovating, problem solving—whether it’s a better way to access the Internet or a smarter mobile phone, or simply finding a way to suck more fun out of a surf trip.
“I never settle for how it is—I always think it can be better,” Dayton says. “Sometimes it’s like the white-truffle risotto at Giorgio Baldi in L.A., and you can’t make that any better. But in most situations, yeah, you can improve it. Somebody can tell you, ‘Here’s how you’re going to do it,’ but you have to make it your own. We’re here to make it better. That’s the most basic thing there is.
“I have my own compass, and I’ve always had it pointed at certain things.”
“So where’s your compass pointed right now?” I ask.
“North. We’re going to get some great waves.”
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next > End >>
|
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form