Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

By 1983, Finnegan had prioritized his writing over surfing, passing on an opportunity for his railroad novel to be published because of differences with the editors, and working on a screenplay in a cheap apartment in New York City. Finnegan traveled the country, staying with Domenic and Bryan before visiting his parents in California. Finnegan had a new girlfriend, Caroline, an art student from Zimbabwe whom he’d met in Cape Town. The two moved to San Francisco, buoyed by Finnegan’s having secured a contract to write a book about his experience as a teacher in South Africa and by the city’s good surf.

Finnegan found that surfing in the cold autumn waters in the morning helped him concentrate on his work later on in the day. The small, local surf culture seemed “invisible” to the rest of San Francisco, which didn’t advertise itself as a surf town, since most locals thought it was “too cold and stormy” (281) to surf. He began surfing with his friend Mark Renneker, a local doctor and surfing enthusiast, whom Finnegan had met in university. “Boisterous and imposing,” Renneker loved surfing, which he insisted was a “path” in life rather than a sport (283-85). Finnegan, on the other hand, was more wary of becoming obsessed with surfing and romanticized it less, knowing that he’d “given ungodly amounts of time and heartsblood to surfing” (285). He found it refreshing that Caroline didn’t care for surfing and, being from Zimbabwe, wasn’t an “ocean person” (286). Finnegan embraced a more normal, routine life in San Francisco and found that by his own “wary choice” he was becoming more “domesticated” (288).

With winter underway, Finnegan continued surfing, though he was sometimes overwhelmed by the stormy and unpredictable surf conditions. The author explains that surfers struggle to accurately estimate wave size because of exaggeration or “deceptive optics,” some people using approximations in feet and others, like Finnegan, considering wave height in comparison to a surfer: “waist-high, head-high, or overhead” (292). In Oahu, Finnegan believes that locals tend to underestimate wave height, which one acquaintance took to estimating in refrigerator lengths. As waves become bigger, they become exponentially more powerful, and even waves the same height can “differ enormously in their volume, their ferocity” (294).

Finnegan recalls how during his childhood, big-wave surfers were idolized, but he also heard frightening stories about big-wave surfers drowning or even disappearing completely. He recalls watching big-wave surfers and feeling that they had an unnatural resistance to fight or flight reactions, and he didn’t want to pursue big waves himself. The older he became, the less that dangerous sort of surfing interested him. His friend Mark Renneker, however, embraced big-wave surfing and had a knack for it; he insisted that it wasn’t more dangerous than other, more popular surfing. He often called Finnegan in the morning for a report on how the North Shore waves looked, and the two would go down to the beach together. While he’d become more risk-averse himself, Finnegan admired Renneker’s approach to surfing; he was cautious about which waves he committed to and was able to stay on his feet most of the time.

Finnegan found that his old social group, now spread across California and the US, had largely abandoned surfing. His parents, meanwhile, didn’t like San Francisco much and preferred to live in Los Angeles, where they continued successful careers in show business. He hoped that his book about South Africa would make them proud, even though it discussed why he felt his efforts there were unhelpful to the anti-apartheid cause. Although years had passed since his breakup with Sharon, Finnegan was still haunted by grief over it, which he kept secret from his girlfriend Caroline. Meanwhile, the spread of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) plagued San Francisco, and Finnegan’s brother, Kevin, was involved in activism for better AIDS treatment.

During one winter surfing session, Finnegan had to dive deep to avoid a wave collapsing on him and, in the process, his leash broke. Shaken, Finnegan quickly retrieved his board and went home. He reflects on the terror of being held under the water by successive waves and wonders if most drownings occur this way. On another occasion Mark invited Finnegan and their friend Edwin to surf, only for Finnegan to find that the waves were “gargantuan,” and he refused to go out in them. While Mark thrived in the big waves, Edwin was shaken by them and didn’t surf big waves again.

Finnegan was disappointed by the news that Californian surfers had bought land on Tavarua, the South Pacific island he’d discovered with Bryan, and had built a hotel for small surfing retreats. Finnegan and Bryan resented that a surf magazine would collude with a hotel to exploit a remote spot of natural beauty and commodify a surfing opportunity. Working on his own writing, Finnegan wrote a piece for The New Yorker profiling his friend Mark, detailing his backstory and approach to surfing. He ponders the connection between Mark’s interest in disease, people’s reactions to adversity, and his own death-defying surfing habits. Over time, he realized that some locals considered Mark, who was known as “Doc,” obnoxious and arrogant. Mark continued to encourage Finnegan to ignore crowded waves and seek out more remote and risky surf spots. Their mutual friend Peewee enjoyed Mark’s youthful enthusiasm but felt that the compulsive need to surf could result in “dereliction,” comparing it to a “drug addiction” (329). Finnegan was relieved to hear Peewee’s assessment that surfing and work were often opposing needs, a balance the author struggled to find. While the stereotype of surfers continued to promote ideas about a care-free, happy lifestyle, Finnegan found that surfing usually elicited powerful emotions from surfers of all levels, commonly including fear, relief, and frustration. The author argues that most surfers feel competitive and vain about their surfing. Finnegan ponders how Mark’s influence resulted in his surfing more than he thought he would, comparing his relationship to surfing to a “stubborn, silent marriage” (335). However, once he began writing about Mark, he felt the dynamic of their friendship change as he now had to consider his professional opportunity and think more like a journalist than a friend. In attempting to be an “unfazed observer” and keep the friendship going, Finnegan repressed disagreements with Mark; he felt that Mark was often arrogant and oblivious to people’s real feelings about him.

Caroline had graduated from art school, and Finnegan wanted to write more about South Africa. The two agreed to move to New York City to pursue careers in law and journalism, respectively. Finnegan was anxious to tell Mark that he was leaving San Francisco, worried that his friend would feel he was “swerving from the surfer’s path” (343). However, Mark was supportive. After one more frightening surf session with Mark, Finnegan moved to New York. Years later, he finally finished his profile on Mark for The New Yorker, which Mark hated.

By age 40, Finnegan had married Caroline. She’d become a defense attorney, and he’d built a career as a successful journalist, traveling the world and reporting on conflicts. His work took time away from surfing, but he embraced it again when he met Peter Spacek. Peter was an illustrator whom The New Yorker had paired with Finnegan to work on an article about surfing hurricane swells on the East Coast. While the two men disliked the article idea, Peter suggested visiting Madeira, an island in the Atlantic, after seeing it featured in a surf magazine. The two traveled there together, where Finnegan learned that Peter had a competitive but good-humored approach to surfing. The author had purchased a “gun,” or big-wave board, specifically for the trip. The two felt that they’d found something “extraordinary” at Madeira, and Finnegan began to go there as a winter retreat to surf. Interestingly, Madeira had a strong connection to Hawaii: Historically, many Madeirans had emigrated to Hawaii to work on plantations, bringing their rich food and musical culture with them. Being in Madeira reminded Finnegan of some of the Hawaiian people he’d met and aspects of Portuguese culture like sausages, donuts, and the ukulele that he’d experienced as a child in Hawaii.

While Finnegan considered surfing in Madeira “mining a lode of bliss,” he also had a nagging sense that “disaster never felt far away” since the island bore the brunt of many intense storms (359). One day, they were surfing at Pequena when Peter was “sucked into a shorebreak” (361), and his leash wrapped around a rock, trapping him under successive waves, but survived. Finnegan connected with fellow expats who began to frequent Madeira, and explored new surf spots with them, such as Paul do Mar. While this spot was “absurdly dangerous,” Finnegan considered it “worth the round-trip airfare from New York” (365). Finnegan reflects on how his extensive experience enabled him to ride potentially “lethal” waves in Madeira with a strange sense of calm and gratitude afterward.

Finnegan reminisces about his friendship with Peter, who left New York City to live in Montauk, Long Island, with his partner. Finnegan characterizes Peter as a multitalented renaissance man, a skilled illustrator as well as gardener, fisherman, and surfer. Finnegan felt that they should surf Madeira as much as possible before it became too crowded; the island was becoming increasingly well-known among surfers. He calls Peter a “gnarly dude,” meaning that he took immense risks, which sometimes included frightening potential consequences, and survived without expecting adulation. Finnegan compares him to his other friends Mark Renneker and Peewee, explaining that their antics earned them admiration from other men: “That’s why other men were obsessed with them […] riding surf that requires serious courage and skill without tooting one’s own horn is a keen test of character” (372).

The author relays a frightening experience in which the friends were overwhelmed by massive waves and drifted too far out to sea. After sunset, Peter and Finnegan paddled back along the shore, exhausted, blindly hoping that the waves would push them in toward the boat ramp. Finnegan was tossed from his board and face-planted underwater. A wave eventually tossed the men among the rocks near the boat ramp, and they climbed to safety. After this experience, Peter never returned to Madeira. Finnegan admits that the older residents of Madeira found the new surf culture strange and disrespectful, since generations of fishermen had risked their lives at sea to feed their villages, while surfers took absurd risks for no reason. He notes that his wife tolerated his surfing habit without complaint and gamely traveled with him to many surf spots.

Finnegan describes Madeira as a world of contrasts, highlighting both its natural beauty and its poverty, and notes the sometimes melancholy nature of its villages. He recalls finding the local culture “fractious,” with rivalries between villages or families. Even after years of visiting Madeira, Finnegan found it difficult to get the locals to open up about their political opinions. Only one family on the island was wealthy; their ancestors had ruled Madeira for generations, while in modern times the island’s main industry was tourism. The locals had an uneasy relationship with the growing surf industry: Some disapproved of the more rowdy visitors and local boys risking their safety on the waves, yet many were impressed with the Portuguese official surf team that came to Madeira.

Finnegan was dismayed that an onslaught of European Union-funded infrastructure projects quickly changed Madeira’s landscape and ecology, pushing tunnels through mountains and building an oceanfront road right in front of the village of Jardim. The island was tensely divided about these projects: Some claimed that they brought advancement and jobs, while others were devastated by the ruined views and ecological impact. Finnegan was sorely disappointed that the new road left the ocean muddy and brown, with waves washing into an industrial wall: “My nightmare of an overrun, despoiled Madeira seemed to be slowly coming true” (388). In addition to the infrastructure projects, Madeira became more popular as a site for formal surfing competitions.

After another near-death experience, a defeated Finnegan returned to his hotel where Caroline helped nurse his cuts. They discussed his risk-taking personality, and she confessed that as much as she tried to trust his judgment, she used some “magical thinking” when he was doing dangerous journalism work or surfing. Finnegan reveals that surfing helped him recover from traumatic events at work, such as when he saw a Dutch journalist shot to death in El Salvador. A scary day tackling big waves in Madeira prompted the injured Finnegan to consider quitting surfing altogether, feeling that he was now too old to continue at that level. He later became a father and found that having a daughter made him more able to resist his “ancient compulsion” to pursue big surf.

Living in New York City, the author embraced the gentler surfing on the coast at Montauk. While he initially disregarded the East Coast as a possible surf spot, he came to find good surf during fall and winter. He began following buoy information, weather reports, and live camera feeds to discover the best waves and act on opportunities quickly. Surfing continued to be a “proximate cause of vivid friendships” for Finnegan, who bonded with his friend Selya over their shared love of surfing (410). Selya, whom the author calls a surfing “craftsman,” preferred to surf on Long Island and was even more obsessive than Finnegan.

In his personal life, Finnegan enjoyed fatherhood and connecting with his parents more often, who had moved to New York City to be closer to their kids and grandkids. Finnegan found their presence comforting and felt that he had a “middle-aged second chance” (413) to make up for lost time with his family. His parents embraced life in New York, and William Finnegan Sr. took up sailing again.

The author recalls his dismay when he revisited his old neighborhood in California for a journalism project. Woodland Hills had become a highly developed suburb, and the hills were now covered in houses. Finnegan’s old school had “gone to hell” (415), according to one teacher, as public schools became increasingly impoverished and wealthier families opted for private schools. Finnegan found the rampant drug abuse, racial issues, and gang violence that plagued the area disturbing, and wrote a report that focused on a local gang rivalry. He couldn’t recognize his own childhood community in this “cold new world, all stark downward mobility” (416).

He surfed in Malibu to cope with the stress of doing such work: “Surfing had never made more sense” (416). The author again reflects on turning to surfing as a therapeutic pastime to get through difficult assignments.

Finnegan recalls that by the early 2000s surfing “blew up” as increasing numbers of people embraced the sport. Corporations cashed in on its popularity via surf-related gear and surf logos and imagery on products. The author resents this commodification of surfing and finds it strange to recognize particular waves or surf personalities on billboards and advertising: “Because I sometimes feel like my private life, a not-small corner of my soul, is being laid out for hawking, anything from consumer loans to light trucks, on commercial surfaces everywhere I look, including, lately, taxi cab tvs” (419). Finnegan expresses disdain for what he considers corporate-driven attempts to popularize surfing. The author claims that surfers are more friendly and less competitive on the New York shoreline, and reiterates how much he enjoyed surfing with Selya, who was extremely knowledgeable about local culture, both urban and surf related.

Finnegan describes how he and his father sailed from New York City to Atlantic City. His dad was wanted to hear about Finnegan’s work, including his time in Somalia, and reminded Finnegan how the family was always “dumb but lucky” (425) and how the two shared a penchant for curiosity. Finnegan was startled to hear his dad suggest that he repressed too many things; his dad wondered if it was a family trait. The author agreed that he often kept resentments to himself, and wishes he’d been more open with his dad.

The author shares that although the increasing commodification and privatization of certain beaches and waves (such as Tavarua) irritated him, he still dreamed of surfing there again. He took the opportunity to rent out the resort with other surfers and enjoy the private access to the surf. Tavarua had changed in dramatic yet predictable ways: It had modern comforts and much less wildlife. Fiji in general had changed politically as well: A coup had resulted in a military dictatorship that persecuted ethnic Indians and favored ethnic Fijians. Finnegan returned yearly to Tavarua after that, ignoring his discomfort with the privatization.

The author recalls when his father died of Parkinson’s disease, leaving his mother in terrible grief. When she contracted a respiratory disease, Finnegan took her to Hawaii for a vacation, where she enjoyed watching him surf. He reflects on how his world had “shrunk” dramatically during this time, and he tried to spend as much time with his mother as he could before she passed away. Eventually, Finnegan and his siblings scattered their parents’ ashes at Sag Harbor, where they’d enjoyed boating.

After his parents’ deaths, Finnegan found himself chasing bigger waves; he considers whether he subconsciously was trying to defy death himself but insists that he simply wanted to be “immersed in” the ocean’s beauty. He considers how different his daughter’s childhood is from his own; she receives more consistent attention and is more protected than he was. While the author reasons that his early brushes with danger helped him learn how to be a better surfer, he’s much more protective of his daughter than his parents were of him. Although he believes he’s more careful now that he’s a father, he recalls an incident in Hawaii when he made a foolish decision to surf to avoid the “corrosive, self-hating” (439) regret he believed he’d feel if he didn’t, but after experiencing the chaotic waves, he felt that he was “regressing” in his ability to resist danger. Finnegan reveals that he now swims a mile a day and works out to slow the decline of his body, hoping to surf as much as he can despite his age.