A Film About Not Surfing
As I’m packing for this expedition I’m noticing the distinct lack of camera gear compared to the other trips in my life…
This trip isn’t for photography or filmmaking, this trip is for surfing.
It feels like the majority of my life these days revolves around packing and unpacking camera gear for various shoots all over the world. I’m bringing lights and tripods to Hawaii or drones and big lenses to Ireland. I’m double checking SD cards for North Carolina or organizing hard drives into a carry-on bag from Mexico. Unlike filmmaking it seems very little is required for a surf trip. I throw a swimsuit, a pair of shorts, a couple shirts, one camera and one lens into my personal item sized bag for a budget airline and arrive feeling more free from expectations than I have in a long time.
The sunset in Morocco has a distinct feel compared to anywhere else in the world. The red and green colors of their flag contrast beautifully with the arid yet green landscape under the pink sky. Upon landing in Morocco I’m greeted with that welcoming sunset again.
This is my third time to Morocco.
My first being on an Arabic immersion program in high school where I got a unique glimpse into the local culture and language. My second was just last year where did Goat Surf Club and I got stuck here when all outgoing flights were canceled because of COVID. I was excited for what was in the store, especially since the swell size and direction seemed to line up perfectly with the dates we were here.
When there’s no surf… we skate
Our first surf in Taghazout was less than ideal. For whatever reason we thought there would be waves and there simply was no movement at all in the water. So when we rolled out of bed in the dark to be surfing before the sunrise we were a bit disappointed. We ended up swapping the surfboards for some skateboards and hit the skate park that morning instead. I got to chat with some locals about the skate scene here and learned that the Taghazout Skate Association is renting skateboards to local kids for free to the grow skateboard culture in the area. As with most of my experiences at skate parks, the community was incredibly welcoming and everybody was sharing big smiles despite a bit of a language barrier.
Finding epic waves our first night!
The surf our first night was remarkably better than that morning. We knew the wave already because of our trip last year which gave us a lot more confidence to navigate the crowds on our single fin long boards. The wave in this area is especially interesting compared to other breaks I’ve surfed. Because of the shape of the bay in which the wave breaks, it produces as long peeling right hander that, if you’re lucky, will break for nearly half a mile along the shoreline.
It’s not uncommon to have a wave that lasts a couple minutes, all with an unbreaking face ahead of you. Because of the allure of this location, you sometimes have to navigate a decent crowd but if you know where to be and how to carve around other surfers in the water it can be quite magical.
This wave was the majority of our trip. Because the swell size gradually increased during our time we were there we felt a little uncomfortable riding waves that are double overhead and were breaking onto the shallow rocks. Still, some of the best rides of my life took place in that bay so I was totally fine returning there day after day.
Exploring Remote Areas of Morocco
I won’t go into every session or recount every wave that I took because this trip was a lot more than that. Although we were mostly here just for the surfing I wanted to take this opportunity to run around some less populated areas and see towns that not many tourists get to see. So every day I laced up my running shoes and headed up into the mountains for an hour and a half run. These runs often took place in the middle of the day between the morning and sunset surf sessions so after four days of six hours of exercise every day I had to take a day to just rest on the beach… And that’s where I’m writing this from now.
I’m writing this article from the beach
I’m sitting next to a couple dozen blue fishing boats with an occasional waft of pungent fish in the air. My camera is next to me as I take a few photos of my friends as they walk by me on the beach. There’s a few local surfers we’ve made friends with at this point in the trip so I get to chat in my broken Arabic whenever they pass by as well.
We only have two days left in Morocco before I head back home to Boulder, Colorado but I’m already thinking about the next trip.
Ben, a member of the Goat Surf Club, has been on this trip with me so we’ve been able to have productive conversations on what we want this ongoing surf/environmental video series to look like this year.
I’ve been able to think through not just career goals but how I want to structure my personal life and build deeper relationships with my friends, at home and elsewhere.
On the surface my life feels like somewhat of a dream.
Every month I’m traveling to a new and exotic location to film and photograph amazing people doing what they love. Whether or not that’s your dream, it’s always been mine so I’m often filled with so much gratitude towards the people and opportunities that have gotten me here. At the same time I do want to emphasize that nobody’s life is perfect and although it looks like I’m just traveling, surfing and filming in amazing places all the time there is a very important part of the puzzle that takes place at home and on a computer. There’s frustrating meetings with clients, long days spent editing, and weeks of burnout while I pack and unpack camera gear when I just want to be home.
This trip has given me a chance to be present in something other than my job again
I think that’s a huge reason I’ve really enjoyed this week in Morocco. I put no pressure on myself to make a surf film or sell any photos from this trip. I didn’t even carry my camera to the majority of the activities I found myself doing. It was so liberating to shed those expectations I put on myself as a photographer or filmmaker to constantly be creating new and innovative work.
Memorable Moments…
So, despite a lack of comprehensive video coverage from this trip I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a small glimpse of what this trip was like for me. Because I’m getting sunburnt and want to finish this article before I move to the shade, here are a few bullet points of highlights and stories from this trip…
We were invited to a party and I ended up having a long conversation with a Scottish chef who was working at a surf camp in town. We talked about bike packing and skateboarding in the rain in Scotland. When he finished smoking his joint he put it out in the remains of a half eaten red bell pepper. I don’t know why that was so memorable to me but his joint stub in that pepper is an image that will stick with me forever.
Running with Mohammed
On one of my longer trail runs of the trip I was running along a really remote road and was approaching a local Moroccan man who was dressed in all the traditional clothing and sandals walking in the midday heat. As I went to pass him, he began running with me. We ran together for nearly ten minutes while attempting to chat with my basic Arabic. Then, on the way back of the same run, I passed through a group of woman and little kids that were so stoked to see me yelling “oomee, shoof shoof!” (mom, look look!) when I said “As-salamu alaykum”. It was amazing exposure to an area of Morocco that I feel very little tourists get to see.
Party Wave with Ben
On one of the final waves of the day, Ben and I had the party wave of our lives. He was slightly ahead of me and we rode this epic 5 foot wave on our longboards together for what felt like ten minutes. I was shouting at Ben the entire time out of excitement.
I Got Married While Surfing
During one of the sunset sessions we had befriended a local surfer (Imad - who is pictured to the right) who was bringing some incredibly contagious positivity to the lineup. He started yelling, “I need a ring, I need a ring” and I went over to him to see what he was talking about. I paddled over to him and asked him what was up and he said “oh you’re interested?”
To which I responded, “of course, let’s do it!” Despite having no context to this conversation. He then said, “we did it! You’re married!!” And this other surfer girl in the lineup looked at me, gave a wave and gave a gesture which said…
“hey, according to this guy, I’m your wife now.“
Our local matchmaker started cheering and applauded loudly which then spread through the entire lineup and over 20 people started celebrating by throwing the water into the air and singing. The rest of that surf was a huge party with everybody and just shows how contagious genuine positivity can be.
Improving As a Surfer
On what I consider to be one of the best surf sessions of my life I caught about a dozen waves and finally grew so comfortable nose riding that I would just walk to the front of my board after a bottom turn and just stand there at the nose, arms behind my back, slipping around the top of the wave for the entire length of the bay. There’s not a lot of footage of me surfing, because I’m always the one filming, but I feel like my surfing abilities have grown so much this past year that I’m looking forward to the next Goat Surf Club trip where hopefully a few of my waves will be documented. Maybe I feel cooler than I look but this trip gave me a huge boost of confidence to try harder moves and surf bigger waves.
About Roo Smith
Roo is a commercial/documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has produced films for Outside Magazine in Ireland, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, photographed among indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador, directed videos with professional climbers in Mexico and has received notable recognition in his hometown of Orcas Island in Washington State for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.
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