Salt in his Veins - Tom Therssen - A 25 year love affair with the ocean
I have featured several kinds of sports people on this page. So, it's obvious that when I get news of someone with a new profile with a new sport, I'm delighted. I heard about Tom Therssen and his love for surfing and I had to reach out. Someone who connects with the seas and oceans through sport is not common where I come from and so I'm excited to have him here.
Tom was introduced to surfing when he went to try it with a couple of friends at 21. One of the friends had tried the sport before and so took them along. Over couple of years that followed nearly all Tom’s friends tried their hand at surfing and half of them were bitten by the bug just like him. Tom was immediately in love with everything about the sport. The half of the friends Tom mentions still do the sport over 25 years later.
Surfing is a technical sport and Tom says that some people pick it up quickly and some take more time. He keeps in shape to be able to surf throughout the year by ‘Face Climbing’. This exercise of climbing is also something he does year round. This way he works on maintaining a strong upper body. Everyone thinks that a surfer is riding the waves most of the time. But the truth is that a surfer is usually paddling belly flat on the board waiting for the right wave to handle or reaching the wave. So, it’s mostly the shoulder, arms and core strength that is very important for this sport along with endurance and overall strength.
Surfing and Face climbing have been Tom's main sports although he did some other activities when he became a father and could not just take off on a surfing trip. During the years when his children were small, cycling and running kept him in shape throughout the year.
Technically Tom feels that he is not a great swimmer. He can swim okay, he says, but he believes a swimming instructor would have a lot of corrections to teach him if he had to be judged. However, he loves being on his surf board enough to want to try to fit it into his life as much as possible. He explains how ‘Wave Surfing’ works. This is when I imagine a picture postcard scene of a surfer riding the waves under a huge wall that's looming over him or her. To ride a wave, one has to see it coming and then manage to get behind the wave. There are many techniques to do so but Tom says most often he faces the wave and just when it's about to touch him, he's lying face down on his belly on the board, he gets onto his knees and then does a duck dive to cross over underneath the wave. He then explains that the smaller the board, the more difficult it is to handle but the more fun one can have as the hips and legs need to constantly turn and sway to keep you upright.
Tom says that when he was younger, he used to want to stay fit to be able to be ready for the waves at any given time. But nowadays, any kind of sport (climbing, running, cycling, surfing,…) is more part of a philosophy to stay healthy and in overall good shape. However, surfing remains highest in giving him the most satisfaction and ‘fun factor’ feeling.
There are surfer groups in Belgium where one can be part of a bigger group and enjoy advantages like keeping the equipment at the Surfers’ club. However, Tom has a small group of his friends who like him, prefer smaller groups and the freedom to choose the spots to surf, and the wind, tides and waves that they want.
He suggests some apps that surfers use to find the best spots depending on the wind. They are Wind Finder, Wisuki and Wind Guru - a website. He also uses some official weather apps from the Belgian Weather forecast offices.
These days, Tom and his wife are busy with their teenage sons who need to be dropped here and there during the weekends, so Tom tries to fit in an evening in the week after work when he can meet up with friends on the Belgian coast. He lives in Ternat, a town that lies close to the highway that leads to the coast, so if he plans it well enough, he can be at the beach in just over an hour. There they surf for about 2-3 hrs in the evening as the Sun sets very late and can get back home before it's really too late. This needs some preparation and planning and maybe more flexible hours at work but the fun he has is worth it. He loves the end of the evening hanging out with his friends around the vans before heading back home. He tries to do a weekend surfing too if time permits.
Like any 'classic' surfer, he has a van and currently it’s his 4th van. He bought his first van when he was 25yrs old. Till about 10-15 years ago, every t-shirt he owned was from a surfing brand. His wife and kids don't surf but his wife likes the outdoors a lot and so the camping, surfing, campfires on summer nights lifestyle is something they both enjoy. In fact, when they were younger, they both were part of Scouts and this lifestyle sort of resembles what they lived through in their youth - moments of freedom and adventure. The family uses the van for their holidays and Tom uses it to commute to work. They also make the most of it during off season as they can 'wild camp' in France as long as they're mindful and respect nature.
Tom is looking forward to his friends’ trip that he does every year at the end of September where they wild camp in France. He also has done that kind of trip in Spain and Portugal but the distance and time to reach those countries usually keeps them in France. In any case Tom says they are a group of friends who are amateurs and are not running after the crazy rush of a 20-30m high wave that would be available in Nazareth, Portugal for example. His favourite spots are in Ireland where the nature is amazing and the people are the friendliest.
What's amazing is that some of the friends Tom surfs with were with him since he was in kindergarten. Many of the people that join Tom and his surfer friends don't even surf. They just enjoy being with their buddies and chilling out in nature. Tom's a very social person and so he's completely in his element surfing either alone when he's at a beach with his wife and kids or with friends when it's a group trip. He hopes his younger son who has tried surfing will want to continue so he has more support to choose surfing destinations for holidays.
I ask him if he's been on a surfing trip outside Europe and Tom tells me about a trip to Morocco which was with a surfing guide. He went to Venezuela when he was 23 with a friend on a backpacking trip with his surfboard. This was of course half surfing and half a hiking trip through the jungle. He has been on non-surfing trips before his surfing years with his parents to Botswana for a safari. About four years back Tom visited Tanzania. He would love to travel to Asia someday. Tom says that going to any of the countries outside of Europe made him feel like he was entering another world.
Now after all this fun talk, I did ask him if he ever got injured. Because in all sports, along with the adrenaline often there are moments when the body gets hurt and we need to overcome, heal and fix whatever went wrong. Tom said that once he ripped the ligament in his knee when he was surfing and once, he nearly drowned. In some of the waves, you could feel like you're in a washing machine and your limbs are jerked around. He remembered that he needed to calm down, came up for a breath and when he was caught in the second wave just after the first, he put himself in the foetal position to conserve what oxygen he had.
Once in Portugal he was caught in a rip tide. That's when the ocean looks like a river and tries to drag you out into the large. He kept paddling and can't really remember how long it took him to get back to the shore. He kept paddling and thinking how he would get out of the situation. His friends at shore knew that they would be caught in the tide too if they went out to help him. So, keeping calm and repeating to himself to not panic and keep the rhythm led him eventually to shore.
I think this last image is like life. Tom shows me through his description that we may be enjoying one minute and that the tide can quickly turn on us. We can choose to panic or calmly and steadily get to shore.
You can listen to me read this article on my new podcast channel on Spotify or by directly clicking here https://open.spotify.com/episode/0S3xEtwspgY1aqKWChS8i6?si=Ti668reKQ2awBQtdUyS1-Q
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