The Last Kiss - A Surfing Love Story
Losing the hold on love can be hard to come to terms with.
We think back to our decisions over the course of the relationship and ask ourselves questions to make sense of what went wrong.
Did I commit to making the most of our time together? Why did they make me feel so special? Is there anything I could have done to keep them around?
And the question that haunt’s me about lost love…
WHAT WAS OUR LAST KISS?
Standing next to my childhood shed after searching for love on a paddle board on Orcas Island in 2018
Every time I arrive at a new wave, the anticipation for that first kiss arrives.
I sit on the beach looking at the offshore spray and wonder if love will feel different this time. This wave might look the same as the others, a gentle curve with a slightly devilish grin, but it holds a whole new meaning for my life. All the pain of the last waves might still be with me, but opportunity is flooding in with every wash of the tide on the sand. As I sit on the beach and start my awkward stretching, flaunting my immobility to the ocean as if the depth of lunges will impress my future suitor, I’m hoping to feel that blissful first kiss again.
Maybe this will be it.
Maybe this will be my last first kiss.
It’ll be so perfect, the rhythm so magical and the speed so gentle.
I’ll never need to surf another wave again.
As a lifelong surfer, I’ve spent a whole lot of my life not living by any specific coast.
I found love in the quiet waters of the San Juan Islands, where the biggest swells were one foot onshore wind swells that, to my knowledge, have never been surfed. Of course, no kisses came during that time. It wasn’t that I was too young, even though I was, I just didn’t want to put myself in a position that I knew I’d later regret. Our first kiss in life is special and needed to be protected.
In middle school, I moved to Costa Rica. Costa Rica was beautiful with warm waves. She invited temptation for something more than a fleeting glance or lustful imagination. It was the real deal and the first kiss came soon after.
I remember it perfectly.
A Central American beach break capturing my awkwardness in this romantic encounter with a curvy green eyed beauty
We were living in the cloud forest but took a family vacation to a beach that I don’t want to share the name of. I’m not the guy to kiss and tell so, for the sake of personal privacy and respect, this A-framed beauty deserves its identity omitted. I had a rented board with a bright yellow sticker on the nose and, despite only a handful of surf trips around the U.S., I got lucky. I didn’t know what I was doing but the wave gently positioned me and provided me some much needed shelter from the setting sun.
That first kiss was hot and heavy.
I can’t claim that I took the reins and charged full steam ahead into the technical mastery of love since I was just 13 years old. I was fully immersed and dunked into love’s passion. Trying to make sense of this situation, it didn’t last long until I messed it up. I didn’t really know how to act in this situation and, after blissfully falling asleep soon after, I needed to figure out how to get there again.
That first kiss was the last but it was not my last first kiss.
As middle school moved into high school, I fell in love over and over.
My first overnight surf trip took place on the coast of Wales, just a few miles down the road from our school, in June 2016. Thomas (left) is surfing the famous G.S.C. red trimmed fish - featured in many of our future documentary projects across Morocco, Ireland and Senegal.
The warm waters of Costa Rica gave way to the alluring coldness of the UK where I spent two years attending an international school. Although the U.K. may not have the tan lines and small bikinis of Costa Rica, the charm felt a little more mature. It felt refined and earned. I started developing a sense that with the right kind of sweet talk and careful listening, I could start to find a special someone that I may want to start seeing more consistently.
I took many walks on the rocky shores of the Bristol Channel looking for love but nothing felt right.
Much of my high school experience was flirting with those that appeared beautiful on the surface but jagged and shallow underneath. They felt cold. Then, when the cloudy Welsh morning gave way to a rare sunny afternoon, I found it. Just smaller than me, but not by much, and nobody around trying to catch a moment of bliss, I paddled out.
The first kiss was memorable.
I was riding a longboard that my friends and I repeatedly would steal from the school’s boat shed with a giant 69 on the front. We called it, seductively and uncreatively, 69. It was waterlogged and slow but I didn’t mind. I wanted to take it slow with this new partner. It wasn’t hot and heavy like my Costa Rica kiss but peaceful and lovely.
Life became a little more steady after that initial connection.
We’d try to see each other every few days but it wasn’t uncommon for her to disappear for a few weeks while the winds blew hard. Then, like most high schoolers face, it was time for the last kiss. I was heading to college and had to say goodbye. The last kiss was sweet but saddening. I knew that if I ever came back to this place, I’d be a different person.
It’s been almost 10 years since I walked away from those rocky shores near the seafront wall of our school and I’ve never been back.
In college, I moved to the mountains and I experienced a lot more last kisses than I’d like to admit.
My mom and I in Tofino. I’d surf until my feet or head went numb. Even in 5mm booties, it was usually my feet that went first.
A weekend trip from Colorado to California with a soft top and an old wetsuit with holes in it resulted in a lackluster romantic encounter with some summer swells in L.A. I even experimented quite a bit, taking to the rivers to find a similar affection as I did in the ocean. It’s not the same but it does the trick when I’m needing some affection.
One winter, I went with my mom to Canada and she saw a couple kisses of mine in Tofino that I’m equally embarrassed and proud that my mom witnessed. They were so beautiful and I think my mom thought I’d found another steady partner.
But, as college aged maturity manifested and I disappeared, never called.
I sometimes stalked them on Surfline or Instagram and thought of what could have been but I never made the effort to see them again. Like most young men, I’d tune in to those explicit sites online like Red Bull TV or look at photos in magazines like Surfer and The Surfers Journal from the comfort of my bedroom instead of just doing it myself, but the real thing was always better so that gradually faded away.
It turns out romance and lust don’t fill the soul in the same way.
After college, I wish I could say that I found a more steady partner but those fun and fleeting kisses that kept me romantically inspired turned towards a morose approach to dating after a while.
The pandemic hit and left me online dating by scouring Google Maps and swell charts for places I knew I didn’t have a shot with. My board needed to be at least 6” and my body fat percentage needed to be way lower to have any chance with the unrealistic standards of beauty that existed online or in magazines. But once travel resumed, I found love all over the world. Things got manic in Morocco, spicy in Senegal, infatuating in Ireland and naughty in Nicaragua. Every first kiss better than the last. I had money now and could fly to meet passion where it appeared. I had experience and could dance a little more intimately. I knew what to do when the walls came up and how to behave when the walls came down.
On a rooftop in Morocco waiting for breakfast to digest before the paddling began. I was training for a 50k ultramarathon so running about 5-10 miles per day and surfing twice a day. I ate nothing but tajine and bread for 10 days. It was heaven.
Paddling out in Senegal on the way to Ngor Island, the surf break in Dakar made famous from the Endless Summer. Nearly 70 years after the filming of the classic surf film, it was still empty for us.
But with every beautiful first kiss comes a tragic last kiss.
My last kiss in Morocco left me walking alone on the beach with a heavy heart. My last kiss in Senegal left me wishing I spoke French and could somehow continue a long-distance relationship. My last kiss in Nicaragua left me so exhausted that I wish I stayed more hydrated during my time in paradise. My last kiss in Ireland validated me that, for once in my life, I didn’t have to be the biggest the one around to experience intimacy - being small was okay.
We all make mistakes and I’ve made my fair share too.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left that green eyed beauty in Morocco or the brown haired wonder in Wales. I wish I acted more mature in Costa Rica or let myself go a little more in Nicaragua. Maybe I should’ve jumped in the water while studying abroad in Chile instead of getting too in my head and just watching from the beach.
But, love is a magical emotion.
It’s there when we need it and leaves when we don’t.
It might not look the same everywhere and although we might have a type, it can still surprise us.
Euphoria might be right around the corner.
We just have to keep looking.
Because you never know which kiss will be your last.
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If you read this whole article, let me know! I’m an adventure filmmaker but love writing about surfing so I hope you enjoy this slight change of my pace from my usual articles :)
Roo is a Emmy nominated documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has directed documentaries for Patagonia in California, produced films for Outside Magazine throughout Europe and Africa, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, photographed among indigenous communities in South America, and has received notable recognition in the outdoor industry for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.