Surfing with David Grose
13 Jan 2020
Surfing with David Grose
Probus Member David Grose from Kiama Probus Club shares his surfing experience over the years.
David says " I have been surfing for 55 years.
I was completely tragic at any land-based sport; I couldn’t run, I couldn’t throw or bowl. I played one season of footy where I sat on the tryline playing noughts and crosses in the dirt. I tried one season of cricket and I got hit in the head with a ball and knocked out, but found that my destiny lay in the surf because that was the only place I really felt comfortable and relaxed, as well as just enjoying creation and nature.
Surfing has taken me all around the world. I have surfed in America at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz where I paddled out and said hello to the sea lions. Then just as I tried to take a photo of one of the bull seals another bull snuck up behind me. These things are the size of a small car and it just roared at me, so I sprinted back in. I have surfed under the Golden Gate Bridge at Fort Point, which is a known bull shark breeding ground. I have surfed in the UK in Cornwall and Devon, Hawaii and Fiji, and pretty much everywhere in Australia.
Over at Margaret River I have surfed waves that were as high as a telegraph pole and I was the only guy out there. I was pretty gung-ho back in those days, but after that I broke my back while surfing about 10 years ago. In 2009, I was on my favourite reef break on the New South Wales south coast when I compressed-fractured and displaced my C2 on my spine after coming off a wave. I walked out of the surf and drove home, but it turned out if I had turned a centimetre in either direction I would have been paralysed for life. That has made me slow down, and I now wear a helmet when I’m surfing. People think I look like a ‘kook’, but I’m still out there having fun.”
David continues to embrace active retirement so graciously.
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