Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Surfers generally enjoy the surf in winter, when storms generate bigger waves, whereas summer is often the “doldrums.” In 1978, at age 25, Finnegan left his job as a railroad brakeman to surf abroad. He’d loved his job on the railroad but had saved up $5,000 and was determined to surf the South Seas. As a “restless romantic,” Finnegan wanted to explore the world and put off “mundane but frightening questions about where and how to live” (148). Bryan di Salvatore, Finnegan’s friend from his time in Lahaina, agreed to come. The two bonded over their love of surfing, literature, and their ambitions as writers. He and Bryan had enjoyed many road trips together and lived in Montana at the same time, where they went to graduate school. The two agreed to save up for their “Endless Winter” trip and practice Spanish to communicate in the South Pacific.

Their first stop on the trip was Oahu, which Finnegan felt was full of “signs and portents” (153). The two were happy to meet Domenic in Hawaii, where he was working in the film industry. Surfing with him at Sunset Beach, Finnegan found himself in the “impact zone,” where he had “the worst beating I had received in fifteen years of surfing” (154) but was proud that he hadn’t panicked. In addition, he ran into Glenn Kaulukukui, who had become a professional surfer. Finnegan admired Glenn’s “glorious” surfing and was pleased to hear that his brother, Roddy, still surfed too, though not professionally. The author saw this reunion as a kind of “epiphany,” since he saw his “boyhood idol” as an adult and reflected on how surfing could become a committed practice throughout one’s life (155).

On Pohnpei, a small island in Micronesia, Finnegan searched unproductively for surfable waves. Meeting women was one of the other goals of his trip, and he began dating a local 19-year-old but felt guilty when she became upset that he was leaving. Finnegan was disappointed in Guam, which was dominated by the US military presence and had little natural beauty since its trees had been destroyed by typhoons or cut down during World War ll. Here, too, Finnegan found it impossible to find a wave. The author was worried that Bryan would change his mind about their trip; he was in a serious relationship, and his mother strongly disapproved of his choice to leave his job. While waiting for Bryan to make up his mind, Finnegan worked on a novel set on a railroad.

After Finnegan and Bryan landed in Western Samoa, they were a constant curiosity to the locals. Using maps, charts, and every type of travel, they explored the islands and found a variety of waves, settling on a village called Sala’ilua. Identifying the best place to surf was difficult; the author wonders if they were the first people to ever surf that part of Samoa. While there, the author tried to respect the local culture and felt lucky to be staying with the family of an acquaintance he’d made there. He found Samoans hospitable, kind, and well-traveled. He was surprised by how traditional life still was there: People didn’t have TVs or phones, and most hunted, farmed, fished, and made their own tools and homes. While Samoan culture had been influenced by the west, people were still “living so close to the land and sea, and so communally” (165) that it inspired Finnegan and helped him understand his own strained relationship with civilization as he knew it. Samoans respected a “curfew” communicated through a conch-shell blast, which meant no work or other activities. The author socialized with many locals and met some expats, including a minister couple from New Zealand.

Relying on incomplete charts with large scales and no internet search tools to help them, Finnegan and Bryan were “flying blind” as they explored surf spots. After an impulsive, drunken decision, they boarded an Australian ship to Tonga. There they rented horses to access rural coastlines and found that the surf was largely “unrideable” and that surfing there was more harrowing and dangerous than in Hawaii. Finnegan admits that he’d given up on his ambitions of romance, having found Tongan society Christianized and conservative. Finnegan and Bryan’s worldview and politics differed; Finnegan was more of a mainstream liberal and supported peace movements, which Bryan considered naive. While on the road, Finnegan wanted to learn more about local cultures and “learn new ways to be” in order “to feel less existentially alienated” (175). He was embarrassed to discuss these “new age” interests with Bryan, but Finnegan knew it was obvious from the way he interacted with locals and clearly admired their lifestyles. Finnegan and Bryan met an American missionary on Tonga who directed them to some local surf, though they were in the wrong season for the best waves. After a disastrous attempt to surf, Finnegan had to hurry to land and hike back, barefoot in the dark, to meet Bryan, who was frustrated and worried.

Finnegan met several US oil company employees in Tonga who were there to discuss the possibility of offshore drilling with the King of Tonga. Finnegan characterizes these Americans as superficial, racist, and critical of surfer culture. He wrote letters home but felt disconnected from his American way of life, as if he’d “sailed off the edge of the known world” (182). Next, Finnegan and Bryan traveled to Fiji, where they approached rural villages with presents for the children and a gift for the local chief or landowners. They stayed in Suva, a major city with a constant stream of sailors coming through. Taking a bus through small rural towns, they encountered a “spooky patch of coast” (187) with massive, unnatural sand dunes. This beach was cold and foggy, and the waves brought a stream of dead animals and garbage, but the surfing was the best of their trip. Bryan revealed that he’d turned 30 during the trip; Finnegan was surprised and confused at why Bryan had kept this a secret. He pondered how Bryan’s more traditional masculinity seemed to make him lonelier and more secretive. While he claimed to be happy, he seemed increasingly annoyed, suspicious, and negative, which made Finnegan feel “nervous.”

Finnegan met a young New Zealand woman named Lynn who revealed that she and her boyfriend John had found a surf spot in the Mamanucas on an island called Tavarua. Finnegan journeyed to the closest village, Nabila, and was thrilled to finally find surfable waves. Local Indian fishermen taught Finnegan and Bryan how to cope with camping on the tiny island, where hundreds of poisonous snakes came out on the beach at night. They were told to use fire to communicate: One fire meant they were safe, two fires meant they needed help, and three fires indicated an emergency. The two friends had to adjust to surfing the Mamanucas, where the water was extremely clear, rendering waves like “optical illusions,” and because of the high coral reef, they had to surf at high tide to avoid cuts and scrapes. Finnegan and Bryan marveled at the island’s natural beauty and its scores of ocean creatures, but they struggled to live off the land by fishing and foraging for fruit. While much of the surfing was enjoyable, Finnegan also recalls frightening experiences in unpredictable waves which, once chosen, had to be ridden out.

Finnegan and Bryan journeyed on to the Gold Coast of Australia, where they bought a car and found odd jobs in Kirra, expecting to make the most of the summer surf season there. Finnegan loved working in Australia; people were welcoming, and wages were high. The local surfing scene, however, was crowded and competitive, and Finnegan often surfed with other expats. Nevertheless, he felt lonely and was consumed with “shame and self-loathing” because the local girls seemed uninterested in him (213).

After discovering the local magazine Tracks, an irreverent surfing magazine for youth, Finnegan and Bryan decided to coauthor an article for the magazine that would make fun of what they saw as the “domestication” of surfing in Australia through clubs, competitions, and designated surfing areas. This sharply contrasted with the perception of surfing as a hobby of the outlaw, or “bad boy” (213), on the US mainland. The two friends had strong disagreements over their shared writing task; each hated the other’s prose. Finally, they agreed on an edited draft which Tracks published, and the article caused an “unexpected stir” (215) in the surfing community, since Australian surfers were predictably riled by American criticism of their community.

Finnegan found a new job as a bartender and lost his shyness around the local women, who seemed sick of Australian men and appreciated him and Bryan as “sensitive, modern” (216) alternatives. After a long period of calm, small waves, Kirra finally “broke,” and Finnegan set out alongside the large crowd of locals to surf. Competing for waves made consistent surfing difficult, and Finnegan sustained some injuries, such as a concussion, by hitting the bottom in the section of surf called the “Butter Box” (220). The author knew that his surfing habit was hard on his body; he had pterygia (sun-caused cataracts) in his eyes and bony growths in his ear canals, as well as a broken nose, an ankle injury, and frequent scrapes and cuts. Although he noticed that the local white surfers in Kirra also had extensive sun damage on their skin, he was uninterested in his health at the time and wanted only to improve his surfing.

Finnegan and Bryan decided to quit their jobs and drive across Australia in their car, which wasn’t in good shape. They stayed with acquaintances and camped in remote coastal places, exploring various surf spots. Finnegan found that many tiny towns were full of surfers from different places who had come for the surf and then figured out a way to stay long-term. Finnegan himself had officially quit his job as a railroad man after his one-year leave ended while he was in Kirra, but he still didn’t know where to go or for how long. He sometimes questioned his decision to take such a long trip and wondered if he was “wasting” his youth with his “aimless wandering” (228). He felt that living together with Bryan burdened their friendship: Bryan was more risk-averse than Finnegan, which the two often fought about. Ignoring advice from locals to not drive across central Australia, the two did just that in their old car, which often overheated, until they arrived in the Northern Territory. On the way, they picked up hitchhikers, two of whom were local women headed to a women’s commune in Darwin. Finnegan developed a crush on one of them, Manja, but she chose to stay at the commune, which didn’t allow men, and she encouraged the disappointed Finnegan to leave Australia.