Brother, Tenerife. Villalba/WE

I am the only person in the world who really can’t get excited about a man made wave. And I’m not sorry.

Sometimes I go to a lonely place, by myself. It is a nation with a population of one. I am in lonely exile in the land of I have no interest whatsoever in wave pools. Apparently, I am the only person I’ve ever met who has such beliefs. Everybody else, ever, is apparently deeply in both love and lust with the wave pool. Friends, colleagues, members of the general surfing public, pros, ams, etc etc, all are enthralled by the wave pool proposition. A clip of a wave pool’s brand new 40cm wave goes online and receives several trillion hits in the first thirty seconds. People with whom I’ve had no contact in years email and ask if I know how to get them a session. And yet, despite the clamour, the froth, the excitability, I cannot join the fawning. I cannot wonder about ‘what might be possible’.

To me, alone as I am, the wave pool is anti-surfing.