When the Lineup Gets Quieter

I have been surfing for over 30 years now. During that time, I've been fortunate enough to surf in places like South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, France, and, of course, Hawaiʻi, among many others. Every wave, every trip, and every surf partner has become part of the journey.

When I first started surfing in high school, I honestly believed my friends and I would surf together forever. We were young, and it never crossed my mind that life would eventually pull us in different directions.

Back then, I thought the lineup would always be the same. I didn't realize that the waves would stay the same far longer than the people beside me.

The first time I realized that wasn't true was in my early twenties.

One morning, two friends and I were driving to the North Shore for a surf. Somewhere along the drive, one of them looked over and said he was wasting his life working as a busboy. He had decided to join the Air Force and would be leaving for boot camp in a month.

The news caught me completely off guard.

We had surfed together throughout high school and for a couple of years afterward. I figured we had decades of dawn patrols ahead of us.

Instead, he left and never moved back home.

In my twenties, I found another great surf partner. We surfed together for three or four years before life changed again. He started a young family and needed to focus on work. Surfing slowly faded into the background, and he never really came back to it.

Later, I had another friend I surfed with for nearly ten years. We chased swells around Hawaiʻi, traveled together to the Mentawai Islands, and shared some unforgettable sessions. Eventually, a better career opportunity took him away from Hawaiʻi, and we haven't surfed together since.

But not every story ends that way.

I'm incredibly fortunate to still have a few friends who have been part of my surfing journey for decades. One friend and I have been surfing together for over 26 years. Another for more than 17 years. I also have two friends from my high school days that I still paddle out with from time to time, even if life doesn't allow us to surf together as often as it once did.

Those friendships are something I never take for granted.

After more than thirty years of surfing, I've come to realize just how rare they are.

Life has a way of pulling people in different directions. Careers change. Families grow. People move away. Priorities shift. The fact that we've continued to meet in the lineup year after year is something I appreciate far more today than I ever did when we were young.

Over the years, I've realized something.

Surf partners come and go.

Some leave to build careers. Some devote themselves to raising a family. Some move across the world. And some simply lose the desire to surf. It stops being part of their lives, and that's okay.

I'm not here to judge anyone's path.

Life changes all of us.

Our paths diverge, even when we thought they never would.

What I've learned is that while surf partners may come and go, surfing itself can remain a constant.

You'll make new friends in the water.

You'll share waves with strangers who become familiar faces.

And sometimes you'll paddle out completely alone and discover that solitude can be just as rewarding.

I've met people on surf trips who traveled halfway around the world by themselves. They weren't lonely. They were having the time of their lives. Surfing has a way of connecting you with people, even when you arrive knowing no one.

If there's one thing I've learned after three decades in the ocean, it's this:

Be present.

Enjoy the conversations in the parking lot before sunrise.

Cheer for your friends when they get barreled.

Yell when they stick a great turn.

Celebrate their waves as if they were your own.

Laugh about the waves you missed just as much as the ones you made.

Those moments are every bit as important as the surfing itself.

None of us knows how long we'll get to share the lineup with the people beside us. Careers change. Families grow. People move away. Life has a way of carrying us in different directions.

So appreciate the mornings you have together.

One day you'll look around and realize the lineup has grown a little quieter.

But the memories—and the friendships that endure—will always paddle out with you.

SSC Team