Remedy: The Timeless Hungover Style Of Craig Anderson
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I reckon I saw the best surfing I’ve ever seen on a trip with Spondog and my buddy Grady who’s a best friend. Craig had just flown in from Tahiti and we all had a pretty huge night in Sydney. We woke up feeling pretty sad and sorry for ourselves but Spon hadn’t gone out so he was like, “Come on, let’s go, we’re gonna go surf the south coast points.”
It was one of those days where the waves were absolutely pumping everywhere. We got up and in the car feeling pretty sweet, and 20 minutes later I was feeling like it was the worst decision I’d ever made. Craig, myself and Grady were just feeling like we were gonna keel over and die at any moment.
We got halfway to Cronulla and we said, “Lets turn around, I feel like I’m gonna vomit.” But Spon was like, “No way we’ve committed.” So we get to this spot and we all fall out and we’re lying on the grass and the waves are pretty good. Anyway, we knew there was another point around the corner that gets pretty fun and we just thought, ah hell we’ve come this far. We saw a couple of old boys and a girl heading around to it and she’d surfed it a couple of days earlier and said it would be pretty good.
Craig didn’t even have a board, he brought a single fin but didn’t bring a screw for the fin so Spon was just like ride my board, man. We trekked in with Grady, it was his first trip there and he was psyched to check it out but he was super grumpy.
“IT WAS THE PERFECT LINE AND I CAN HONESTLY SAY I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYBODY RIDE A WAVE AS BEAUTIFULLY AS HE RODE THAT ONE.”
We get down there sitting around on the rocks, long lefts, three to four foot, four old boys out there, really fun looking waves, we had a bit of a chat on the rocks. Biggest legends, started feeling a bit better, nice and sunny, one of those offshore crisp perfect days and we brought heaps of junk food down making ourselves sick. And so Craig comes down with Spon and he’s on Spon’s board. Craig had been sitting for a bit chatting with the old boy and this four foot set comes and Craig just stroked into ths thing, took off, did a little high-line to get his speed and then it was just… you know when you watch someone who’s a really good surfer feel out a board? Well Craig did that and something just locked in, right from that first high-line and by the time he pulled off Grady and I just looked at each other and said, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING? THAT WAS THE MOST PERFECT SURFING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!”
This whole wave there was not one limb out of place, there was not one pump that didn’t need to be there, if he needed speed he’d just lower his centre of gravity or push off the right rail, there were so many nuances gathering speed and doing jives that were the most functional things ever. And I’m not joking, he nearly did nothing this entire wave. There were probably five direction changes on this wave that weren’t even turns, they were like high-lines to floaters to cut-down bottom turns. It was crazy, like nothing I’d ever seen before. He just danced across this perfect left on the most beautiful day in front of these old boys that sat there as mesmerised as we were. He pulled off and I was flipping gobsmacked. Grady and I were sitting there wondering, what did we just witness?
It was the perfect line and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anybody ride a wave as beautifully as he rode that one. He was feeling out this board and the wave was the perfect mix of speedy and slow and he was magical, he didn’t do anything but every movement was so in tune with the wave and the board and it blew me away.
I’ve been watching Craig since he was a little kid and that wave made me think this guy is one of the icons of our sport and he’s gonna go on to be one of the most incredible surfers of our time because of the way he can feel waves like that. It’s the hardest thing to do, especially nowadays where there’s so much focus on big single manoeuvres that a lot of the time everything becomes quite jerky in between and you lose track of that in-between flow. A lot of the best guys – Micks, Parkos Kellys – they all have it, but a lot of the freesurfers lose that because we’re just racing trying to get speed for the section. Creed has it, drawing lines and generating speed from stopping himself from moving… there’s not many people who have that Rasta, Gerry Lopez, Rob Machado finesse and I think what Craig is doing, how it seems to come so naturally, it blows my mind.
When I paddled out to him, I was bewildered, I wanted to go surfing so bad but I just sat there watching him surf and when I eventually paddled out I said, “Dude, you are surfing so good. Me and Grady are tripping in there, that first wave was insane.” And he was as humble as always “Thanks so much man, it felt cool.” I guess after the surf he was stoked on that board and he had a fun surf but it had to be acknowledged and Grady said the same thing. We had to tell him, we were like two little girls just pining over him stroking his hair and telling him how good he surfed. It was pretty wild.
