The Stab 10

You’re dead a real long time, ain’t that the truth! No endless bowling points in heaven despite what the Christian surfers might say. So before your date with the crematorium here’s 10 things you absolutely gotta do.

Surf Teahupoo

It doesn't have to be big, it doesn't even have to be six foot. You just have to feel it: the long paddle from the end of the road, skirting the reef paddle around the channel markers, up the point and pulling up at the world's mist infamous and photographed hunk of volcanic rock. It won't be crowded, at least it won't be if you avoid the two weeks in May of the Billabong Pro, and you'll sit up on your board and see the spectacular green-covered mountains throttling upwards from the shore, the reef fish swimming among the crevices below your feet, the fishermen hurtling through the dynamited channel close to shore in their speedboats steered by two levers, and a wave that'll come from either a south or west direction. As a Teahupoo novice, select the south swell running up the point. It'll let you in easy and, more importantly, it'll let you out. If you've got a stab of courage in your guy, take on a west swell. Once committed, it's a clean, in-out tube or a wrestle with your craft as you ride the cylinder straight onto dry rock. Whatever the outcome, when conversation with non-surfers turns to surf and someone asks: Have you ever surfed Teahupoo? You can confidently and honestly tell the truth and bask in the wave's associated cred.

Be towed into a big wave

Have a small-wave whip in sesh

You don't like jetskis? You're not alone. On the Gold Coast there's a plague of the things. Anyone with access to a benevolent parent or personal loan is stumping up the green for a little jet power. Meanwhile, you sit in the lineup and you can't believe the clowns on the things. What a joke? Who do they think they are, Laird Hamilton? But, if something's popular, it's gotta have something going for it, right? By whatever means, get yourself a couple of sessions behind a ski. Be towed into a 12-foot wave. Be launched into a four-foot ram. Then tell the world how fucked it is.

Spend Summer in France

Think you know it all? Think France is a kaleidoscope of naked Lolitas with bushels of pubic hair beckoning you to their favourite sand dune while sand-bottom barrels spin off on dreamy uncrowded banks? Reality is never like the dream. Sometimes better Often worse. It's your duty to discover the truth.

Be Coached by Martin Dunn

It's horrible to think about and even worse to admit, but most of us surf with an appalling technique. We try to hit the lip a second too early or late, we outrun sections, we only try cutbacks when we're a mile away from the tube, our airs are dreadful throwaways and backside tuberiding is something we can only enjoy vicariously through video of Dorian or Al. For the price of a couple of sticks ($330 a day, private, or $165 a day if you can find two other souls), you will stay with super coach Martin Dunn, surf three times a day, and have every session videoed and analysed. You will leave either a vastly improved surfer or so discouraged by the shit you saw on the tv, you'll never want to touch the sport ever again. As for Martin's credentials, have you seen how good his kid, Ben, surfs?

Spend December on the North Shore

Like the Mentawis, it's just one of those joints you have to see once in a lifetime. Pick up your rental truck (black) from Alamo, follow the signs to North Shore and stay at your pre-booked beachfront house at Off The Wall. Go to the opening ceremony of the Eddie, visit Foodland every day, eat at Cafe' Haleiwa. surf Rocky Point and Sunset and the various Pipe waves (Backdoor, Off the Wall, Pipeline), watch the Pipe Masters, get yourself on a nodding basis with Kala Alexander in the Pipe lineup and pick yourself up a sweet mainlander looking for surfer prime beef. Just once.

Visit Mentawais on a Luxury Charter Vessel

For the last 15 years, the surf mags have poured a tsunami of ink onto their pages documenting the Mentawai islands. Is it as perfect as you've been led to believe? Only one way to find out. And if you're going to go, save a little longer, save an extra couple of grand and experience it as if you were a millionaire professional surfer. Air con cabins, a fast boat, hot showers, a king's supply of Bintang and food so artfully prepared your taste buds will weep with joy. This, and waves you've only ever seen in the movies.

Surf in South Australia

Ever since the Great White had the bounty lifted off its head in 1999 (July 16. mark it on your calendar), they've become so plentiful Port Lincoln fishermen reckon some days you can just about walk from boat to boat on their backs. Good news? Of course! What paranoid, weed-smoking locals wobbling around with shotguns couldn't achieve, the conservationists have with the protection of the Great White - zero crowds! Experience hot days, cold nights, cold water and a cold frission of fear every time you paddle across the bottomless channels. You'll either die in the mouth of a primitive fish or leave with a headful of memories of desert barrels.

Get Stitched by a Skipper

You haven't lived until you've drunk half a bottle of Captain Morgan's rum and had the skipper of our charter vessel crudely weaves your split knee/arm/back/ skull back into shape. Now that's a scar you can brag about.

Order a Surfboard from Simon Anderson

Imagine your grandfather putting you on his knee and describing the time he had a board personally built for him by Duke Kahanamoku. Do your future grandchildren a service by ordering up a craft from the inventor of the thruster, Mr Simon Anderson. Despite his reputation, Simon works out of a small factory in an anonymous industrial estate in Mona Vale on Sydney's northern beaches. Call, make an appointment, and share a cup of tea with the most influential man in surfboard design while seated on stools in a backroom brimful of boards destined to all four corners of the world. Simon will repay your handful of gold (a paltry $700) with a beautiful surfboard and an experience that will pay for itself over and over. Remember to keep the order form with Simon's notes.

Have a Conversation with Kelly Slater

As irony would have it, the most in demand surfer in the world is also the most approachable. For the sake of a memory tank you'll need to access when age and decay force you out of th water, engage the best surfer in ever in a conversation. He isn't hard to find - his movements are posted on the ASP website in a section entitled WCT schedule. Don't be drunk, don't over fawn, treat the champ with dignity and respect and you'll be rewarded with candour and insight.

Stab Magazine