FOR the boys of summer, there's only one direction to look, and that's west. To the west lies the sea, where steel grey waves unfurl towards a luminous gold ribbon of Donegal beach, fading into a heavy mist swollen with damp. Waves are the thing. Everything. The only thing.
Sprawled across the back of a windowless blue van, among crumpled wetsuits and surfboards the colour of the head on a pint of Guinness, they scramble to peer over the driver's shoulder.
"What's it like?" "How's it look?" Doors spring open and they pile out, sun bleached hair falling over eyes narrowed and calculating.
The steady surge rolling off the dark rocks below pulls together a singular tribe: surfers. Members of the Irish Surf Team, these are the true believers who were pasting "Rip Curl" stickers on bedroom doors before Baywatch and Home and Away encouraged the current flood of aficionados to pull on wet suits. Summer is their true season: the days are long, the water starts to warm ever so slightly, the competitions are happening, and the attitude is right.
Now, they're not happy with what they see: "crumbly" waves that don't hold and break long and slow, the way they like them. Instead, they say, there's lots of "chop" and not enough of "the green face" - the satiny liquid wall that holds just before the breaking curl at a wave's peak. The green face is the surfers' playground, where they dance and glide in tight, intricate manoeuvres, carried out and down and forward at high speed, riding tonnes of heaving water.
At Tullan Strand in Bundoran, 20 male and female members of the team are put into heats by their Australian coach Peter Cooke, who is demanding some impressive action before the European Championships in Portugal. They huddle at the side of the road as towels and wetsuits flap on a barbed wire fence.
"I want to see something serious now I want to see an improvement!" he barks.
A slow drizzle starts. "It wouldn't be an Irish surfing day if there wasn't rain," grins Richard Fitzgerald. The 21 year old, who runs the Surf World shop in Bundoran, has a lot on his mind - he's trying to make the cut for the four member Irish senior team heading for the World Championships in southern California at summer's end, and he knows he needs to look good.
"If you're into the sport it's just such an honour to represent your country," he says.
Bundoran might not exactly be Malibu, but Fitzgerald wouldn't look out of place there, or in Waimea Bay or any other surfing mecca. He has the unselfconscious, healthy gold looks endemic to wave worshippers everywhere. He has also been anywhere that someone can surf - Brazil, Australia, the European coasts. He likes spending winters somewhere warm, where he can work on his technique. This past year it was Barbados, "a great destination for the winter," he says, as if mentioning a bargain weekend in Majorca.
"But I still think Ireland is my favourite," he adds. "I just love the surf here." For those foolishly ignorant of such matters, Ireland has the best surfing coast in Europe. And the best waves are considered to be those off Bundoran: "reef breaks" that fall in long, regular rows across the hard ocean bottom. Surfer heaven.
"Those waves there are reckoned to be the best in the world outside Hawaii," confirms Brian Britton, president of the Irish Surfing Association and god fat her of the sport here. On a whim, Britton's mother bought her sons a surfboard from passing surfers back in 1967.
"We thought it was a great boat," he recalls. Then a roving Australian paddled it out, stood, and rode it in. Epiphany: Irish surfing was born.
Now the Brittons are Ireland's surfing dynasty. They run the Sandhouse Hotel in Rossnowlagh, right across from the Rossnowlagh Surf Club's impressive new clubhouse on the beach. Connected to the hotel is the Surfers Bar where the team gathers for a post training talk. A surfboard hangs on the wall, and there are photos of Britton circa 1968, standing with an enormous old style longboard. Britton himself did the sand blasted glass windows, illustrating surfers galore and beachy slogans: "Drop in and get wiped out" "Lay back and eat the soup".
MANY of the Britton family surf, including Easkey, Brian's niece, a self possessed 10 year old. Her dreamy charm is deceptive: she has been acing the boys in the mixed under 14s competition, placing in the top three.
"I started surfing when I was young, but I was only messing, she explains. Now she is more serious. Why surfing? "I'm used to it. And I've always really liked the water and the sea." And, she says, she likes "the drop".
So does Jamie Byrne, at 12, the youngest Irish team member. He's half the height of most of the team, dressed in oversized surfing shirts, so full of yappy energy that he seems to be everywhere at once.
"It's fast, that's what I like about it," he says. "There's a good buzz off it when you catch a good wave.
Richard's best friend Danny is a quiet 22 year old who snaps into life once his feet grip the waxed surface of a surfboard. With his mass of brown ringlets slicked down by saltwater, he lances across waves with aplomb. Get him talking about surfing and he is passionate.
"It's really more a way of life," he says. "It doesn't matter whether there's a contest or not - I'd still be up at seven and in surfing. The first thing I do, even before I eat, is check the waves."
Richard nods. He's in the water every day in summer, and most days in winter. The sea is a companion, a partner. Today, after his trial heats, he moves a safe distance away from the surfers still being judged and surfs for himself, for the pure pleasure of it. Unlike most others, he surfs barefoot, liking the immediate contact with the board. He and Danny paddle back out into the swell together, sharing the moment.
Brian Britton understands. He still surfs as often as his business consultancy allows. "Surfing".
He pauses, thinking. "It's the ability to go out and just be at one with the ocean, totally away from outside pressures.
"This is my philosophy. I might surf all day. But one wave - that's all I want. One really good wave. Anything after that is a bonus.
