I read this in the annual special of Australian Surfing Life. I took a photo of the article and haven't had the time to transcribe it. But this morning I woke up with a major cough and fever. So yan... here's the first bit of the article. It's really good. :)

It's Soooo Easy

Really it is. Being a surfer is the easiest thing we'll ever do. As the rest of the world gets more complicated, surfing goes in the opposite direction. It doesn't start that way though does it? It starts out almost  freaking impossible. At first you can't paddle out, you can't paddle in, you can't catch a wave, and you can't stand up. Slowly you manage parts one and two, then part three, then (occasionally) part four and the first humiliation recedes, to be replaced by a new humiliation on a marginally bigger day when parts one or two's suddenly out of the question again. You're like ten years old and you can ride a wave almost to the beach and compared to almost everything else you're doing - watching cartoon on TV, teasing the family pet, tricking your parents into buying you lollies - this riding a wave seems like the biggest bloody achievement of your life so far. The whole surfing equation is baffling, so hard to solve it feels like to do so would be to perform a magical feat on par with or perhaps exceeding anything you've ever seen or read in Harry Potter. You've got a board, yes, but is it good, or isn't it? Sometimes the answer's yes and sometimes no, but WHY?? Why is it different every single day? How come your mate gets more waves than you, ever surf? On big stormy days you stand next to a tree hiding from the wind and wonder about these waves you're seeing, if you could do the same things on 'em that you've thought of doing and tried to do on small days. You're consumed by this, consumed by learning, by being alternately afraid of the ocean and feeling at home in it, by the friends and enemies you're making while doing it, every little step you're taking toward that magical feat of a flawless ride on a flawless wave during flawless surf.

 I submitted this article to Elev8 Magazine's second issue. The last few paragraphs didn't come out due to a printing glitch. Or maybe they cut iy down cos I rambled for so long? Hehe. Anyway, here are the missing bits: 

From observations and conversations with other female surfers (and yes, even in the line-up, we girls like to yack it up), it seems that The Philippines is among the best places to be a chick in the line-up. The boys are less aggressive, more accommodating and actually quite encouraging. I don’t know if it is the way that Filipinos are raised to respect women, if it is the intrinsically mellow personality of Filipinos in general or a combination of both that makes these local line-ups a good place to be a woman surfer. Granted each line-up will have its fair share of macho men that will never see women as equals in the water. But they are, thankfully, the exception and not the norm.

My good friend Mille Fairhall is a free surfer who surfed competitively in her teen years. She shuttles back and forth between her two homelands of Australia and the Philippines. We were talking once about the state of women’s surfing in the Philippines and she said “There have been a few women who have dared to challenge the stereotype (that surfing is for boys). And I think that gender has no relevance on a wave. If women can get past that intimidation factor, the old guard thoughts and physical inhibitions there would be a lot more of us out there… enjoying surfing for what it is.”

By the way, Millie charges and rips so if you happen to be one of the rare aggro boys, don’t even think about asking her to move to the shoulder.