The Mystical Omnibus
Words by Brent Mostert & images by Benoit Queguineur
Words by Brent Mostert & images by Benoit Queguineur
If you’re the adventurous type, one who enjoys full time the thrill ofwaking-up in foreign lands, then you’d appreciate more than most the value of true friendship. As a travelling surfer and expat I’ve long since left my childhood friends behind, and that’s not to mention my family. Notably, as a foreigner, or non-native national in the country that I now call home, my new companion sare mostly also expats from countries such as France, Ivory Coast, India, Malaysia and Japan. This is understandable if you consider how many foreign friends you may have, who have been accepted into your circle of childhood friends, in the land of your birth.
And so when you, as a foreigner, happen across a local who openly embraces you, welcoming you into their home, it elevates the joy of the new friendship to an even more memorable experience, one that is worth recording and telling about.
It was my first December, a solid North West swell was being driven by the grey thunder heads from the freezing North Atlantic onto the grey limestone reefs of Ireland. Before paddling out to the blue-grey, green glass tubes I’d stand naked at the roadside, tugging on my damp wetsuit in ankle deep ice and snow. From the line-up I’d marvel at how alien the environment was to me – instead of women in bikini’s on white sand there were herds of cattle in green fields enclosed by dry-packed stone walls, the off-shore breezed tainted by the strange smell of burning peat from cottage hearths and the open fires in village pubs. After a session I was sheltering from the wind behind an ancient stone tower on the point when I noticed a tall hooded figure striding towards me like Roald Dahls Big Friendly Giant. His straight armed swinging gait fizzed him up to me where he stuck out his hand and bellowed ‘How’re ya? Welcome to my field!’ - his manic, electric blue eyes laughing at my frozen self.
That was more than 11 years ago now. And I’ve since been resuscitated by a many a warm cup of tea in my friends home – a derelict school bus parked at the far end of the field over - looking Easkey left. I’ve also had the pleasure of witnessing him re-enact that same simple offering of friendship many times over to surfers from many different cultures, so much so that the bus has become a sort of rendez-vous point for a global network of friends – all instigated by one remarkable individual. To put this into some sort of perspective – I bumped into a school friend from Cape Town in the bus after last having seen him in1986! I even took my mum to the bus to have a cup of tea.
That was more than 11 years ago now. And I’ve since been resuscitated by a many a warm cup of tea in my friends home – a derelict school bus parked at the far end of the field over - looking Easkey left. I’ve also had the pleasure of witnessing him re-enact that same simple offering of friendship many times over to surfers from many different cultures, so much so that the bus has become a sort of rendez-vous point for a global network of friends – all instigated by one remarkable individual. To put this into some sort of perspective – I bumped into a school friend from Cape Town in the bus after last having seen him in1986! I even took my mum to the bus to have a cup of tea.
A visitor of the omnibus preparing pancakes after an early surf...
I’m also certain that the bus has a cleansing effect on people. I’ve never met a person coming out of that bus that I didn’t like. It’s probably got to do with the character of the proprietor and the good-will which he extends – I say proprietor because the B.F.G doesn’t in fact own much more than his surfboard and wetsuit. And ‘ownership’ would be a subject that we’d discuss at length on many occasions – from the western need to accumulate wealth to the waves and coastline outside the bus window.
For instance when the Celtic Tiger was in it’s prime and I’d be surfing my desk late at night in Dublin and growing rapidly balder, I’d return to Easkey where he’d reassure me that all I really needed was right there in front of his bus - the ocean. And now that the politicians here are demanding of us that we should accept a lower standard of living and consequently lower quality of life, and yet I’m surfing more than ever, he quips to me in the line-up:‘Recession? What recession?’
The ‘ownership’ of the fledgling Irish surf scene has also led to the inevitable clambering of personas in search of recognition within these relatively new circles. I say new because when I first arrived in Dublin airport 11 years ago people asked me if I had landed in the wrong country because they saw the surfboard on my trolley. It was something of a closely guarded secret within the tiny surf community that Ireland was something of an Indo-in-Europe. But today, you see surfers in pork sausage adverts and‘Prowlers’ makes global press release. So times are changing fast. The bus has been ordered out of the field by the local authorities and plans have been drawn-up for the development (if that’s the correct word) of the field itself by a local interest group. Further down the coast a pier is to be built near 2 world-class reef breaks which could change these set-ups forever.
Nevertheless - for those of you in the southern hemisphere who can afford a 5mm suit and fancy a surf trip to a strange and beautiful land, I’ve no doubt that you’ll bump into one of the characters who make a priceless contribution to the experience of surfing here – simply by extending to many the fabled ‘thousand Irish welcomes’.
Words by Brent Mostert
For instance when the Celtic Tiger was in it’s prime and I’d be surfing my desk late at night in Dublin and growing rapidly balder, I’d return to Easkey where he’d reassure me that all I really needed was right there in front of his bus - the ocean. And now that the politicians here are demanding of us that we should accept a lower standard of living and consequently lower quality of life, and yet I’m surfing more than ever, he quips to me in the line-up:‘Recession? What recession?’
The ‘ownership’ of the fledgling Irish surf scene has also led to the inevitable clambering of personas in search of recognition within these relatively new circles. I say new because when I first arrived in Dublin airport 11 years ago people asked me if I had landed in the wrong country because they saw the surfboard on my trolley. It was something of a closely guarded secret within the tiny surf community that Ireland was something of an Indo-in-Europe. But today, you see surfers in pork sausage adverts and‘Prowlers’ makes global press release. So times are changing fast. The bus has been ordered out of the field by the local authorities and plans have been drawn-up for the development (if that’s the correct word) of the field itself by a local interest group. Further down the coast a pier is to be built near 2 world-class reef breaks which could change these set-ups forever.
Nevertheless - for those of you in the southern hemisphere who can afford a 5mm suit and fancy a surf trip to a strange and beautiful land, I’ve no doubt that you’ll bump into one of the characters who make a priceless contribution to the experience of surfing here – simply by extending to many the fabled ‘thousand Irish welcomes’.
Words by Brent Mostert
