Terminus: 6'3 Gulf Stream Performance Thruster

I picked this 6'3 x 19 1/4, 2 3/8 performance thruster secondhand recently... and I finally surfed it last week. This is certainly a terminus - the end of a line for me. After four years of hard slog trying to surf I now find I have (just!) got the ability to drop into an overhead wave on this and surf it. Technically catching a wave and popping up on this is harder than on anything else I've surfed. I found that if you take a wave late you kind of fall onto it and just find yourself flying down the line - if things work out.

Two really nice waves - a right and a left - have shown me why people surf these things. It's just really, really lively. Wants to play like a puppy. Technically difficult to surf but the rewards on the face are so exciting, it's really nice to feel something so small under your feet. I'm going to surf this whenever possible now and just see where I can go.

Last night I sat up and watched Kelly Slater in the Volcom Fiji Pro - yet again the man whitewashing over all my pretences that I'm a bit old for this kind of shit. He is an inspirational athlete yet so disastrous for all the other pros: how the hell can you compete against someone who surfs like that! Sheesh... he's got to retire this year surely!? I think I read that he won the first surf competition he ever entered, as a kid, on a bodyboard, when others had proper surfboards. I guess if you associate competition with pleasure and the excitement of winning early - and get that ingrained in your subconcious - you've got a dramatic formula for success. Conversely I tend to feel that inner kook welling up at all the crucial moments, which is a distinct recipe for disaster. I guess we all feel that dark 'inner kook' lurking... except Kelly.