Good Vibes

With all the negative energy and different opinions flying around regarding the Dungeons event, I thought it would be nice to look at the positive side of things.

First of all, and I am not taking sides here, but people must realise that in any situation in life and especially in a country like ours, if a user group votes on something good or bad, right or wrong the public must respect the outcome of that vote.

If you would like to have a vote then take the time to surf the wave and earn your right to have a vote and a say in the future.

Second of all, if anyone thinks that they are going to get sponsored and make a living off of surfing big waves, they are mistaken. If you want to surf big waves, you must do it for yourself and to represent your country, not to get sponsored or be in an event. If the 11 x world champion at the time, former Big Wave world champion and someone like Albee Layer, who does 720 airs and gets multiple 20 foot barrels on any given day at Jaws, doesn't have a major sponsor, then good luck to you!

Thirdly, and I am guilty of getting side-tracked myself in the past, we must remember why we surf big waves and how we started in the first place. The irony of it all is that it took the biggest day in recorded history and no cameras or people to make me realise this myself. I was watching people that couldn't even spell "sponsor" get multiple 60 foot plus waves at different locations with only a handful of their friends to witness it.

What we have in Cape Town is very special and should be respected, we have the nicest bunch of down-to-earth, proper watermen that do things for the right reasons. They are the reason why I started big wave surfing and should be shown the utmost respect. Included in these people is Barry Futter, who I have always looked up to and in my opinion, has done a great job being the middle man in all of this.

We had another amazing surf at Sunset last Saturday, people got big waves, people got hurt and people spent a lot of time under water but at the end of the day everyone had a great time and just wanted to surf.

These were the words from one of the most committed guys out there,

'A real issue shared with real people who ride real waves - so so stoked Jack is okay and so stoked to share the line up with all you okes - Saturday was heavy, hard, pretty crowded but super cool vibe - everyone got their arses kicked  - onwards and upwards.'

People always tend to look at things from their own point of view but sometimes you have to walk in other peoples shoes to see the bigger picture!

- Jem