THE SURFING COMMUNITY came out en masse to bid farewell to pro junior surfer Zander Venezia yesterday.
On a morning when the overcast conditions mirrored the sombre mood at Coral Ridge Memorial Gardens, thousands dressed in their blues and greens created a human canvas of seascape colours that spilled into the wings, under specially set up tents and onto the driveway on the outside.
Even the ties of those from his alma mater, The St Michael School, blended in, as the man Zander referred to as “Uncle Al”, explained why the 16-year-old was at Box by Box, Cattlewash surfing monster waves thrown this way as a result of Hurricane Irma.
Only a surfer knows
In a packed chapel with standing room only and before an audience that included surfers who were at the Box with Zander on September 5, as well as members, current and past presidents of the Barbados Surfing Association, Sir Charles Williams and champion driver Roger ‘The Sheriff” Skeete, Alan Burke, a former pro-surfer, admitted the question ‘Why do we surf?’ would even stump surfers themselves. (HLE)
Please read the full story in today’s Daily Nation, or in the eNATION edition.