Dunedin Light isn't just for surfers – it is also for non-surfers – the myriad of people who appreciate the beaches, the spaces and the beautiful waves that grace our coastline. Today, I will try to offer a glimpse inside a surfer's mind.
 
Last Wednesday something pretty special happened here on our coast. We had a solid 2-3 metre ground swell and it turned the beaches from the tip of the Otago Peninsula to the Taieri River into something that most surfers will only ever dream of. Near perfect waves everywhere.  
 
Waves broke from dawn till dusk as if they'd arrived at some pacific atoll floating in paradise. I darted around the beaches trying to collect a shot here and there between meetings and impending deadlines. Everywhere excited surfers scrambled to get in the water on their coffee breaks, lunch breaks and some just needed the saltwater remedy for the dreadful cold that came on the night before.
 
You have to forgive the mind of a surfer: once the thought of sliding down a wall of air-brushed emerald green water enters their head, they're pretty much rendered useless for any other task. The pointless, self-serving and completely unproductive act of surfing trumps all. It is an addiction. A healthy one, but an addiction nonetheless and Wednesday's swell was like a panacea for surfers throughout this city.        
 
I didn't get in the water until an hour or so before dusk, but what I experienced still gives me a buzz when I think about it almost a week later. The waves were clean, powerful and barelling as good as anywhere you could find in the world. I watched Leroy Rust and Damian Phillips, of Hydro Surf fame, weave through tube after tube after tube – surrounded by emerald-coloured water and smiling like excited children the whole way. The line-up at St Kilda was filled with others just like them. Just stoked to be living in that one moment and totally focused on it. As the sun dropped in the west it heightened the sensory overload with another fiery red Dunedin sunset – an appropriate backdrop to the last hours of a day like this.  
 
The surfers were reluctant to leave the line-up even as the colour emptied from the sky at about 10pm. It was a day filled with sessions that will generate conversation ... at least until the next ground swell comes marching around the corner.  
 
Even if you don't surf, keep an eye out for it and you'll understand why your surfing colleagues and friends are suddenly ill, distracted, awol or constantly encrusted in salt. They are helpless, entrapped by the lure of the ocean.
 
See you at the beach ...