Poking out from North America like an excited male member, Florida is an interesting place to be a surfer. The Sunshine State rates on the surf-o-meter somewhere between Texas and Tahiti (Okay so it’s much closer to Texas), and its population bubbles with an uneasy amalgam of rednecks, tourists, and immigrants. At worst, Florida is a retirement home that gets so hot in the summer that it’s almost unhealthy to leave your home before 5PM. At best, it occasionally busts out with some really good waves. Now, don’t get me wrong. The surf here usually sucks. The west coast is flat about ninety percent of the year, and the east coast is fickle even with a category 3 hurricane hovering off the coast, but there is something about Florida and its surfers that is endearing…so much so that I moved back from Hawaii to be a part of it.
I never noticed it when I was kid living down on the Treasure Coast in Fort Pierce (a quaint drug town with a fishing problem). Back then, I hated every second living here and dreamed incessantly of moving away to ride real waves. So just days after high school graduation, I was off to the North Shore where I spent over eight years surfing phenomenal waves, but I noticed something about the other Floridians living in Hawaii. They took nothing for granted. Every wave was a gift, whether it was 10 foot Sunset or waist high Goat Island. They smiled in the lineup and respected the locals. I was proud of my people. My tribal Florida brethren all exhibited similar traits like being so hardcore that many referred to them as “floor”idians based on their somewhat frugal choice of sleeping arrangements in surf-rich locales. What was it about them? Maybe it was the years of surf starvation that produced such cool customers. Or maybe it was something else.
Maybe it was Florida’s somewhat dysfunctional surfing lifestyle. The present surf culture in Florida is a result of years of integration. Good ol’ boys dominated the Florida lineup in the 60’s and 70’s. I can remember guys paddling out in trucker hats and jeans without a hint of irony. Even today, many surfers fill their flat spells with deer hunting, and you can’t swing a dead gator anywhere in Florida without hitting a fisherman. These are real dudes with big trucks and a southern drawl. But the Florida surf scene has become more complex. Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Bahamian surfers have spiced up the lineup from the south with new and wonderful accents, while years of snowbird migration from the North has created a permanent link via the Turnpike to the kinetic energy of New York and New Jersey.
