This year was my fourth time participating in the surf competition at the Covelong Point Surf, Music and Yoga Festival. I first participated in the competition in 2014, and the best result I have managed so far has been third place.
This time I was targeting a win. But unfortunately, luck wasn’t really on my side.
I arrived at Covelong three days before the event so that I could practice. There were other surfers out on the water with me too. Every day about 15-20 surfers were practising out on the waves. The weather was really good before the festival, just a light drizzle and the waves were pumping. I enjoyed the drizzle; I really like surfing while it is raining, it’s a lot of fun.
The weather was mostly fine during the festival too. The first day was really nice. But then the second day was sunny in the afternoon and had crazy rain in the evening. The music had to be stopped in between. Everyone was drenched. Rain is fun for surfing but not so much for the music and yoga at the festival. Anyway, there were a lot of people and the event went really well.
The waves at Covelong are usually very strong, but they weren’t as powerful during the event days. But they were still really good. Having powerful waves like that gives you a good chance to throw new manoeuvres. And I did try some myself, but I was unfortunate that one move didn’t count in my score.
The competition is divided into stages of heats, quarterfinal, semifinal and final. In the category that I was competing — Indian women of all ages — there were eight surfers. We had a round of heats with four surfers in each heat. The best two from each heat made it to the semifinal, and the best from the semifinals made the final round.
My heat went well and I caught a really nice wave that I could have scored seven or eight points off, but it didn’t count in my score because my round ended just before the move. The trick that I tried on my final wave was a bottom turn, which I managed to execute. Normally whenever I try the move, I fall off the board. But this time I manage to do it properly.
Unfortunately, they had started the countdown for the end of my session exactly when I spotted the wave and started paddling towards it. And as soon as I got on the wave, the buzzer sounded for the end of my session. It was then that I did the bottom turn. It was a miss of two seconds. I am not sure what my total was because I did not get to check my score but I might have reached the finals if that wave counted. But I enjoyed participating anyway.
In the end, Suhasini Damian won the category I was in. She surfed really well in the final. I was really happy to watch her catch those waves and ride them really long. She absolutely deserved to win the first place. She is so good on the board and has such excellent form that she didn’t need to do anything super fancy. She was just doing really cool snake pumps on the waves, going up and down, and a few small turns here and there, but she did it all so well.
I had competed alongside Suhasini in the last surfing competition also. It was the Indian Open of Surfing which happened at Mangaluru in May. I had reached the finals alongside Suhasini and Ishita Malaviya but didn’t manage to win. What happens is that I am 16 years old and my competitors are mostly 26 and above. They are way more experienced than I am. But that kind of encourages me to work hard and learn from them.
I also try to work on my stance and how it matters for the waves. Where the wave breaks and which side it breaks towards makes a huge difference. I have a goofy-footed stance which means my left leg stays at the back of the board to control the movement and direction while my right foot is in the middle of the board to help keep stable. The other type of stance is a regular stance which is the right leg at the back of the board. Your stance depends on which of your legs is stronger. The stronger leg always goes to the back of the board, so your stance comes naturally.
In general, left waves work for goofy footers and right-breaking waves for regular footers; that comes naturally because you are facing the waves. When you are on your back hand, what happens is that you are struggling to look at what the wave is doing. At Covelong, there are mostly right-handed waves, so that becomes my back hand and makes it tougher for me.
But I know the waves at Covelong quite well because I surf there often; at least twice a year. The surf community in India is small right now but we are all on very good terms and share a nice relationship. It’s like an extended family.
We keep checking how the waves are on each other’s coasts, we keep updating each other. Sometimes if it is good we plan trips to travel to each other’s places so we can surf together wherever it is favourable. So I come down to Covelong Point on the east coast when the weather is good and invite people to Puttur, near Mangaluru, which is my home break on the west coast.
Another interesting thing about Covelong is that it is a point break. This means that the waves break at the same point each time. The ones that we have back home are beach breaks. They break all over the place. At home, sometimes waves go left, sometimes they go right, and sometimes they break both ways. So there you can’t be sure how it’s going to be; it depends on what Mother Ocean wants to do. But at Covelong, they are all right-handed waves. So it is kind of predictable. You just have to watch the waves for a bit to see where they are breaking and then you can go out on the water.
Apart from the surfing competition, I also enjoyed the music and yoga at the festival. I did a bit of meditation at the yoga shala and a lot of slacklining. It was really fun to slackline at the festival. I do slackline often; not as much as the professional slackliners though. Samar Farooqui set up the slacklines there and encouraged everyone to get on them. It was a lot of fun. A lot of core strength is needed to slackline. You can actually feel your core working when you are on the line. There must be some really cool photos from that.
I’m also looking forward to seeing my videos from the surfing competition. A friend of mine named Tushar Pathiyan — Ishita’s boyfriend — was recording videos of everyone during the surfing competition. Ishita and Tushar started the Shaka Surf Club together on the west coast. Tushar also surfs and was competing in the men’s category. While he wasn’t in the water, he was recording the other surfers. He will be sending me videos. Like I said, we are all quite good friends.
What’s also great about the surfing community is that it is growing.
I knew everyone from my category really well except for one new girl. She was about 14 years old and had just started off with surfing. This was her first competition. I thought it was really nice because it’s great to see more girls joining the sport. Three years ago, there were just about four women competing in the surfing competitions. Now the number has doubled. The sport is growing really well.
In my first year at Covelong, in 2014, there were only four Indian women participating and six from other countries. This time there were eight Indian women and four from other countries.
When this girl was in the water, we were all getting behind her and encouraging her. While she was paddling out, we started cheering for her. We were screaming, “Come on, paddle harder, get a good wave”, and stuff. It’s great to see more people joining us. I’m looking forward to more of it.
I am also waiting for the release of a documentary I am being featured in. There’s this German film team that is making a documentary called Chicks On Boards. The documentary is about how women surfers around the world face objections from society but still stick to their passion.
Female surfers from six to seven countries have been featured in the documentary; I am one of them. There’s a trailer for it which is out now. The whole documentary should be out by December this year or early next year.
They are planning on launching it in India at the Indian Open of Surfing in May 2018. It’s going to be released as a TV series in episodes. I’m really looking forward to that.
Also, do check out my latest interview with Redbull!!
Link: https://www.redbull.com/in-en/how-i-surfed-at-covelong-point-aneesha-nayak