Although Sri Lanka is a relatively small country with great offerings in terms of nature and culture, my main reason for visiting the teardrop-shaped island is to surf. The topic of Sri Lanka as a surf destination had come up several times in the last few months and were attention goes, energy flows, or so they say. My yoga intention of doing a couple of courses in Thailand and India respectively had been put on hold, but loyal to the surf intention I seem to stay.
Surf or how to develop a Compulsion
Surfing is a peculiar practice. The girls and boys, who have been doing it for years, make it look incredibly fun and quite easy. Fun it is, just as much as it can be hard work and frustrating, especially if you start learning as an adult. I’ve always wanted to learn how to surf, but, unlike windsurfing, it was not an activity people did in Lowlands Country when I was growing up. In London I was far away from a surf sport and poor most of the times, which made realising that dream quite a challenge. Nine years ago, when I had some extra money coming in, I decided to go sniff at that dream and went to a surf camp in Tamraght, near Agadir in Morocco for a week. I had fun, didn’t catch one (unbroken) wave and had fallen in love with Morocco. Only years later I realised that my surf tuition in that week was terrible. My ‘instructor’ was a nice guy. He had been surfing for years, spoke a little English, as my French is shady, and was a mate of the surf school owner, but a proper instructor he sure wasn’t. Doing a surf camp for a week, or even two, to learn how to surf is a bit of a joke. It’s like doing a one-week language course to master a new language from scratch. It can be a fun introduction, but it’s not that you’ll be fluent in surf or can even have a basic ‘conversation’ with a wave.
In addition to the difficulty level of learning how to surf at an adult age, surfing fucks with your time and with your hair. Before you know it, you are checking Magic Seaweed several times a day and starting to design your day around the surf. My hair is a mess and despite trying to take precautions with oils and creams and all that jazz, my Dark Fairy locks are brown-reddish-going-on blond, rather than very dark brown and dry as hay. Then there is the risk of injury by boards- your own or others’- or the ocean floor, whether sand, rock or reef, or getting a glimpse of what it must feel like to drown (or actually drowning if you are rather unlucky or stupid or both). And yet, the surf sucks you in. Riding a wave not only gives you a great sense of freedom, surf can teach you a lot about life and that seems reason enough for me to stick with it and let it consume my life.
Surf as a Practice
For me surfing is not a sport. I know that it is considered as such, but I doubt it was invented as a competitive activity. For me surfing is very much a practice, like yoga. It helps me to stretch my comfort zone and overcome stuff I find hard or scary. It helps me to deal with what is; you can’t dictate the ocean. It shows me how to be in the zone and it can give me a sense of ultimate freedom Even if I had a bit of rubbish session, the water seems to mellow you out and you learn to deal with what you are given. In addition, although sea water messes with your hair, it’s pretty good for the skin, assuming the waters are not too polluted.
After several weeks in Sri Lanka the only culture I have dived into has been surfing culture. As a woman of the world, I do find it a tat embarrassing, that my stories about Sri Lanka will be mainly about surf plus an elephant and a museum or two. I guess if you’ve made a practice your fixation and a fixation your practice, you’d better do it properly.
top image: Mokum Surf Club
Dark Fairy Adventures 
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