God Love the Gold Coast
Memories of my teens and 20s are bathed in Gold Coast light. I’ll never forget running across the pristine beige sand at Rainbow Bay on my 18th birthday to check Snapper Rocks for the first time. The sand I was used to at home was drab and contaminated with plastic nurdles, syringes, trash and lollipops (one lodged into my foot running down to surf once) and it made an ugly dust rise when the afternoon winds kicked up. It also produced pretty average beachbreak surf.
The stuff I was running through on the Gold Coast was pure, fine, warm and gold. Thin and flour-like, perfect for grooming the worlds’s greatest sand pointbreaks. It was so clean it squeaked. Running through it under that bright blue Gold Coast sky full of puffy white clouds, backdropped by a firing pointbreak changed my life. What was this place? It was like achieving young man surf enlightenment.
Laying on this sand, sprinkled about like sesame seeds on a bun were girls unsure whether their tops were on or not when they “sun baked.” They didn’t seem to care either way. The surfers all ripped and were hilarious and made “getting on the piss” sound like a good idea.
The weather demanded you live in your boardshorts and drink light beer when it started to get dark — especially if the clouds rolled in. I’ll never forget doing a runaround at Snapper when Mick Rabbidge said, “Bit of a storm rolling in boys, better get back and have VB.” He was full of shit regarding the storm, but the VB was a good idea. Legends were everywhere you looked.
The waves were anything and everything you could ever want as long as you avoided Fingal and knew how to jump off the rock at Froggies. Off in the distance, high rise buildings beckoned like a desert mirage promising to quench whatever thirst you could think of. Surfers Paradise was a place with no surf but everything else. For better or worse. When the moon was right, it was only 23 stops on the local bus from Coolangatta to get there. Just enough time to drink a tall can or two. The ride home would be figured out at another time. Surfing’s Garden of Eden in full bloom.
Finals Day for the Gold Coast Pro was just called on as I type this to you, which is of course why I’m feeling so nostalgic for the Goldy. It served as the perfect kickoff to the surf life for me as well as where the World Tour kicked off for most of my life. It was the ultimate first stop on tour. I’ve been grumpy about professional surfing since it went away. So I’m very glad it’s back.
It is a place to unveil. A place for new boardshorts, airbrushes and “new vibes” as Andy Irons so eloquently put it. Where locals like Dean Morrison absolutely win. It has the allure and prestige and hype of an F1 race without having to watch cars go around a track. You stand in trunks and bikinis with a skewi in your hand watching the comp go down in blue water.
The Gold Coast going missing from the tour for multiple years was 100 percent why “Make or Break” wasn’t picked up for Season 3. But lucky for us, new WSL CEO Ryan Crosby listened and has restructured the tour back to its rightful self: Starting in Australia and ending in Hawaii. Sexy! He even added some modern accoutrements that will be fun to see play out. Playoffs? We’re talking about playoffs? Works for me.
The current event being held at Burleigh Heads in May is a bit late in the year if I’m being hyper critical. Was Griffin wearing a fullsuit in his heat? So while we’re not quite there this year, we’re close. March and April are perfect. Which is what we’re heading for. Wedged between the hemisphere's summers perfectly.
I’ve been back to the Gold Coast many times, and I have different feelings about it now, and don’t really have any thirst for Surfers Paradise or much extracurricular activity, but seeing the webcast commentary, the lighting, the points, the waves and the happiness in the surfers faces competing there says it all. Things are on the way up for surfing. Our new vibe is sick. Andy would be psyched. Is Julian going to win? That would be wild! —Travis Ferré
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