SWITCHBACKS // A Baptism in Bali
Breaking Through
The waves called. I finally listened
by Michael C. Clements
EXCERPT //
She has always been there, the ocean—her waves, her shamanic calling.
Growing up on the West Coast of Florida, I was surrounded by water, along with images of surfers riding waves, looking tanned, toned, and collected, as if they had cracked some kind of primal code of cool.
In the late ’80s, surfing was transitioning from a scrappy subculture into a commercial juggernaut. Teens my age were not only catching waves, they were riding a surge of commodification. Endorsements, clothing lines, and packs of photographers followed them like they were rock stars, plastering images of them on magazine covers, in glossy spreads, and neon-splashed advertisements.
It was a time when Kelly Slater was tearing up the Florida East Coast, three years before turning pro and becoming the global face of surfing. It wasn’t just magazines, brands, and local beach shops pushing the rad surfer trope—film characters like Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High cemented surfers as the ultimate laid-back vanguard.
The problem was, on the Gulf, the waves are small and unsurfable—unless there is a hurricane, and that’s not a time when you want to be in the ocean. So, I learned to body surf while idolizing “real” surfers. //
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