Many of you who know me know that I’ve been passionate about surfing for many, many years. I was lucky enough to head out on a surf trip to Morocco over the New Year. Just a boys’ trip with my son.

For most of my surfing life, I lived at least a couple of hours’ drive from the nearest surf beach. As a result, most of my surfing was at weekends and holidays. So for me to get some decent waves, all the planets need to align for the time I was available to surf. The result was that most of the time I was waiting on or around the beach for the swell to arrive, and often it never did!
I made all the plans, made the drive, often for what appeared to be nothing.

This trip to Morocco did not start well! Banking on a trip to North Africa for sun and surf, we took a couple of boards in a large bag and kept to the airline minimum free bag…so one pair of pants(for the flights), a couple of pairs of board shorts, T-shirts and a hoodie. As we descend to land at Agadir airport, I must be mistaken….the runway looks wet!

Well, we had torrential rain and floods, which brought a lot of pollution into the sea, making it challenging to surf. We were staying at a fairly remote surf camp on the beach in a wooden caravan.

A short trip to the local market saw us return, looking like Berber tribesmen.

There were only a few days when we couldn’t surf due to the conditions, but the guides at the school were apologetic for the unprecedented weather.

My son and I were pretty unfazed by this, and the guides said to me, ‘You guys have surfed for many years. ‘ I replied, and he said, ‘I thought so, as you are so patient about the conditions’.

We chatted about some of the newer surfers at the camp who were pretty upset by it all.

Despite the weather, we experienced some incredible waves on our trip, surfing some of Morocco’s iconic surf breaks.

I think any sport or activity that relies on weather conditions requires you to practice patience. Despite all your plans, nature may not permit you!

It’s also a constant reminder that no matter who you think you are, there is something bigger out there that you can’t exercise control over.

In day-to-day life and work, there are elements we can control and those we can’t. It’s good to put our energies into the areas we can control, whilst looking at and anticipating scenarios from the areas we can’t control.

Stay patient, stay humble in life and work! 😂