Do you rip the plaster straight off or pull it slowly, wincing throughout the whole ordeal as you torment each individual hair follicle? Do you slowly wade into the sea, whimpering as the water laps your ankles and taking a little extra time as you submerge your delicate areas in the icy embrace? Or do you leap right in?
I'm a leaper. But I'm a savvy one. For example, I used to have to go through the most uncomfortable experience of any surfer – pulling on a wet wetsuit in chilling conditions for a second surf in a day. Not only does the wetsuit stick and grab to your skin, but it feels like your mate's stuffed icicles into the neoprene. So I tried the hot water trick, which is way better than the "leave it under the bonnet of your car as you drive to the beach trick" as a mate found out once. But you don't always have hot water on hand.
Then it dawned on me: two wetsuits! So now I have two wetsuits, one for the morning surf and one for the arvo glass-off. Best of all it hasn't cost me a cent extra because they're both getting half the amount of use of an ordinary wettie.
Seriously though, how good is wetsuit technology these days? If you're a surfer living in Dunedin then you probably appreciate it more than anybody. Sometimes in winter it looks bleak and miserable on our coastline, but floating way out the back of the line-up are a handful of guys with grins like Cheshire cats. They're warm, they're feeling happy and they're trading waves with just a bunch of good mates.
I had a cool Dunedin Light subscriber from San Diego email me recently, "Curious, still love the idea of community living with expansive countryside [and great surf]. Am I dreaming?," Gary asked.
The answer is that in most places in the world, that is no longer so easy to find – especially with warm water. But, in Dunedin at least, it's what the surf culture is wrapped around and it is the wetsuit companies advancing the technology that make Gary's dream so much more attainable.
Looks like we've been plunged into winter weather, but I'm not complaining.
See you at the R&R ski sale this weekend!
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