Okbtober Sessions

An old surfing cliche is, "you should have seen it yesterday." No matter the swell or the conditions, inevitably the surf was always better the day before. One beautiful aspect of surfing is that everyday is different. The ocean is constantly changing. Each swell and tide shift changes the make-up of the underlying sandbar or reef. So, although the cliche is still often overused in line-ups across the globe, there is one spot when that phrase is not just cliche, it's a lie.
This break is not on the North Shore or some tropical island in the South Pacific. It's not in Australia or Costa Rica. The world's most consistent surf is in Germany, but it is not along the coastline of the Baltic or North Sea. It is in Munich, the Bavarian capital famous for Oktoberfest, beer gardens and halls and large wooden clocks. A city that is hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean or sea.

The wave constantly breaks in one of the most beautiful parks I've ever been to. The English Garden park. This park has large wooded areas, vast lawns filled with people, beer gardens and surfing. There is a small but fast flowing river that cuts through the middle of the park. The river flows violently down a steep hill and under a bridge. Then, it abruptly crashes into a series of large boulders. The result is a perfect, consistent wave. There are tight pockets on the outsides and a carve-able face in the middle. The amazing part is that the seemingly artificial wave is natural, or so I was told. Like any rip-able wave, there is a crowd. Dozens of surfers stand in line on the banks of the river. When a surfer wipes-out, then next in line drops in. The drop-in is not the typical paddle and pop like ocean surfing. It is closer to a skateboarder acid dropping in to a bowl or half-pipe. The surfer will grip his or her board with one hand and use the other hand to maintain balance. Then, they will pop off their back leg, and tuck in onto the board in mid-air. If successful, the surfer will be cascading across the wave, if not, they will be churned underneath the wave, like a rag in a washing machine, and spat out the back. A wipe out on this wave is not gentle. At this point in the river, the water is crashing around the boulders, causing strange undercurrents and riptide-like conditions. By the time the surfer surfaces, he or she is about 10 yards down the river. By the time they swim to the bank, they are another 30 yards down.
My first thought of this wave was that there was no paddle burn, you could pretty much surf all day. But after I saw a couple people bail, I quickly scratched that thought. Pretty much every wave means having to walk roughly half the length of a football field back to the lineup.
The wave is similar to surfing over a shallow reef. Every time a surfer bails, there is a risk of meeting one of the boulders head on. I realized that many of these river surfers have probably witnessed this first hand, because the less experienced ones sport helmets. Most of the surfers' boards are also beat to shit. A majority had duct tape and other MacGyver style homemade repairs. Boulders and violent current aside, the far most frightening danger is much less obvious to the average on-looker.
As I inquired with a few of the English speakers about the wave, they all told me of the obvious pitfalls. One guy told me that he wasn't concerned about the rocks beneath the water, but rather, the leaches that inhabited the river. I instantly thought of the scene in "Stand By Me" where the leach squirms its way into a hole that, for the entirety of a man's life, should be treated as discharging bodily liquids only. With that discouraging thought out of the way, I realized that the leaches, in a weird way, made the Munich wave a true surf spot. Every place has some sort of a risk element. Whether it be territorial locals, hazardous conditions or the wave itself, every time a surfer paddles out, or in this case, drops in, he or she risks bodily harm for the ultimate reward that is surfing.