Teaching surfing is harder work than it looks. Photo / Supplied
Teaching surfing is harder work than it looks. Photo / Supplied
Sometimes work is just work ... even on a beach, with beautiful people, and never-ending surf, writes Elisabeth Easther.
The idea of working at a surf resort sounds like a dream come true. Living somewhere tropical and exotic, surfing legendary breaks every day, going to amazing parties, meeting well-travelled, like-minded people and getting paid for it too.
Certainly, such a job can be an amazing experience, but it also involves a lot of hard work requiring the patience of a saint, the first aid skills of Florence Nightingale and, don't forget, you'll want great boating prowess, a strong sense of practicality, people skills, boundless enthusiasm and the ability to deal with endless, sometimes stupid, questions, and, on top of all that, you'll want to know how to surf really well because this isn't the kind of job you take on because you think it'd be cool to learn.
If you still think surf tourism's for you, read on because you'll be wanting the full story, warts and all, from the coral cuts and the pain, to the fungal infections and the need for a brain - not to mention the requisite tireless energy that's essential if you're dealing with the public day in, day out.
Pete Head, a surfer from New Zealand, set off on his surf odyssey in 2000 to take up a job at Salani Surf Resort, a popular Samoan surf camp. He'd sent his CV to half a dozen surf travel companies in Australia and, while none of them were looking for staff, someone handed his details on to a colleague in Samoa.
"When a call came out of the blue, I had no hesitation in accepting a four-month trial as a boatman/surf guide and, within a few weeks, I was on a plane to Samoa. Two months later, I was promoted to assistant manager."
Promotions tend to lead to fresh perks and additional headaches but, it wasn't until Cyclone Heta hit that the gravity of those responsibilities set in.
"After we'd secured everything we could - boats and buildings - we took shelter in one of the few concrete buildings in the area. Our guests at the time included two ballroom dancing champions from New York, a woman who was six months' pregnant who'd come in on the last plane - why I'll never know - and a former porn star from the 70s who'd made enough in the skin trade to spend the bulk of his time surfing.
"We all played cards and chatted while the wind gusted at speeds of up to 350km/h, so loud it sounded like thunder, bending the coconut trees till their tops touched the ground.
"Where we were, no one was killed, the camp was a mess, but that's just material - we were lucky. It was over a week till we had running water again, six weeks till the phone came back on, power was out for so long we had a generator sent in from Hawaii."
Pete Head surfing at Salani, Samoa. Photo / Elisabeth Easther
Salani was also dealt a serious blow in the 2009 tsunami; the damage was so extreme the resort had to be completely rebuilt. Regulars say the place is better than ever.
When it comes to surf tourism, dealing with weather conditions is a big part of the job and meteorological commonsense is essential. For example, a good guide needs to be able to post accurate tide and sunset times, because getting it wrong will annoy guests.
"At a resort in Indonesia, a boatman calculated sunset wrong by an hour one evening when a guest was hoping to impress his girlfriend with a sunset swim. When the amorous couple reached their romantic destination, 40 minutes after darkness fell, you can imagine they weren't very impressed."
And then there are the mistakes that have more serious ramifications although, please be reassured, most boatmen and surf guides aren't short on commonsense, they're just the ones who get talked about. One guide, whom we'll call Mike, had come to Samoa from the Outer Banks and, in his first week, he was asked to do a complete overhaul on one of the boat motors.
Once he'd put the motor back together, his boss told him to put it back on the boat and idle it round before really testing it. But, being a gung-ho grommet, Mike opened the throttle before reattaching the motor to the boat and the whole 30kW engine flew out of the boat and into the water, taking Mike along with it in a tangle of cables. The boat shot into bush on the side of the river while Mike did everything he could to swim away from the chaos; as for the rest of the crew, they stood watching, wondering who had offered him the job.
Surf guides at Salani, Samoa. Photo / Elisabeth Easther
Beau Burns was a construction engineer living in Malibu when he was transferred to Kansas City. "Somewhere in the haze of power plant design and parking lots so large they have their own zip codes, I realised I was too far from the ocean, so I quit my job in favour of an endless summer. I never wanted to do the guide thing but, four months into my surf trip through Central America, I got an email from my buddy who needed carpentry help rebuilding fales [huts] in Samoa." Naturally he went.
Jon Husack, also American, found his first job as a boatman with Sinaloa Surf Adventures in Mexico. "I expected to meet great people, surf incredible waves and learn about a different culture. I also got a lot of long, strenuous, work hours in intense weather conditions. The scariest thing happened in Samoa though. After the most intense three days of rain I have ever seen, the river that we kept our boats in flash-flooded and carried down full trees, dead animals - cows, pigs, chickens - a lot of mud and other debris, and me and two other boatmen had to jump into the river, dodge all the debris and un-moor the boats to pull them around to the lagoon where they'd be safe from all the damaging objects. While we were pulling the last boat around, the engine exploded and caught fire."
Greg Rogers is an American who spent 15 years producing film and television before he started managing surf camps. "I was planning a three-month sabbatical in 2002. My plan was to drive from the US, through Mexico, into Central America and back, stopping and surfing as my heart desired. Only, during the planning stage of that trip, I heard about a surf resort that needed a manager."
Greg called the owner, who was living in the US at the time, to ask about the job and they met for an interview. "After about half an hour of light-hearted chat he offered me the job and asked if I would commit for a year. In hindsight, I should have been a little suspicious, but I was just so fired up to go on a surf odyssey that my judgment was impaired and I took the job and headed to Mexico."
Naturally, Greg was expecting the whole paradise thing, warm water, tons of uncrowded waves and all the fun a man could handle. "And I got that and a whole lot more because, it turned out my new boss had been a drug dealer in the 70s. "He did federal time in the 80s and built the surf resort with his leftover cash in the 90s so there was a lot of shadiness around the resort.
"I decided to stick it but I quickly realised that managing a resort, even a small one, is a 24/7 job - I was working easily as hard as I had in the US, but, because surfing was part of the job, it was definitely a better way of life.
"I found that I had a real knack for taking care of people and making sure they had a good time. The real surprising thing about the job, an aspect that I hadn't even thought about, was how many cool and interesting people I would meet and host. As for the psychotic guests and villagers and the time I was held at gunpoint on small dirt road in Mexico by a terrified teenager - well, no job is perfect all of the time."
As for romance, the guys I spoke to were all pretty much agreed working in a surf resort doesn't do much for the love life. During his time managing Salani in Samoa, Greg's romantic life took a nosedive. "I live in a remote area and don't leave the resort much so it's difficult to meet women and, as for local village women, casual dating isn't in their vocabulary."
"In Mexico," Jon says, "your chances aren't so bad, while in Samoa the locals are very conservative so, if you date a local woman, you're pretty much obliged to marry her. I had a local woman propose to me on my birthday."
Pete remembers a boatman at Salani who was having a fling with one of the village girls when she became pregnant.
"He only had two options, either a one-way ticket out or marriage and, being an honourable guy he took the righteous path and the wedding went ahead, parts of which must have been rather a surprise for the Californian groom." At the ceremony, guests arrived with lavish traditional gifts which would have been more at home in a butcher's shop. The tinned corned beef was always going to come in handy but as for the guy who strode in with half a cow over his shoulder, still dripping blood, this was a sign the groom was truly being welcomed into the community. And, just so you know, they're still happily married with four kids now, although the side of beef's long gone."
Working in surf tourism may seem like you're living the dream, but it's much harder than most people realise. Photo / 123RF
When looking for staff, Greg prefers applicants to understand that it's a job, not a hobby. "If you don't like being around other people, just chatting and giving information, then your personality is not right for the job and you'll also need to pray you're not lost in the heap of other applicants. First aid training or lifeguard experience can help you stick out from a crowd, hospitality experience as well. And please don't write about how eager you are and that it's your dream job or that it's something you've wanted to do your whole life. All that tells me is that you don't have any idea how hard this is and that your maturity level isn't where it should be for such a responsible job."
All the people I spoke to agreed that surf tourism work has been one of the highlights of their working lives, but Greg offers some words of caution when he says, "surf guiding or managing is island-style living so, if you have any kind of vice, like drinking or drugs, this is not the place for you. If you think that you can come here and get away from your problems you're just going to slip into a deeper hole than you were in before. That being said, I don't think I'd want to ever do anything else besides what I am doing right now. For me, it is simply the greatest job in the world."
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Getting there: Air New Zealand flies direct to Samoa from Auckland.
