Welcome to surfing hard times #1

Hearing stories of limp wristed surf industry guys topping themselves due to lack of sales reminded my of the time honoured tradition of hanging tough.Well we did it tougher than any of you, and your worst stories are a 5 star hotel holiday compared with ours !I recall living on a flood prone riverfront boatramp carpark in an illegal immobile bus for 8 months with a family of ten including three dogs, using a hole in the ground for a toilet and a bath with a fire under it for washing ourselves and clothes, being flooded out at night 3 times during big storms, and having a child born in the bus by candlelight on a night when we were flooded out . . . but surfing nearly every day and getting some of the best waves of our lives.That was a good year!Here's the Kaituna river boatramp camp on a nice summer's day, in winter when the river flooded, cars would be washed away from this tidal area :.The title of this post is stolen by way of a tribute to wooden boat builder Dean Stephens