Offshore property rights

When you first go out surfing you think: "Wauw the open ocean. Here every man is his own master and no one is gonna tell me what to do!" And then you learn how the world works. Mike, Flemming and I went surfing at Diamond Head the other day. It's a pretty mellow surf spot, and there is not real danger apart from the occational reef here and there. I went out on my longboard, Flemming brought his boogie board and Mike was on his much shorter 7 foot board. This particular board distribution meant that I got my ass handed to my on the way out, because I can't get under the waves with my supertanker of a board, while the boys just dove under the waves and got out real easy. I was pretty hammered when we reached the lineup on the far side of the reef, and took a long breather before engaging the waves. Which by this point were getting pretty big. Now once you line up for a wave, you have to know where the wave is coming, how fast it is and how big it is. Then you start paddling as if your life depended on it. You have to reach a certain speed before the waves catches up with you. Otherwise it's gonna either pass under you, or just slam you. For once I caught the first wave I went for and I quickly realised that it was in fact quite big. You can usually tell how big the wave is by how vertical you're going. And I was going pretty vertical by my standards. I managed to stay on the board however and sat in a hunched position to keep my balance. The wave took me almost all the way to the shore, and I was stoked that I had caught a wave that big. I merrily paddled back out to the line up, where I expect to be met with applause and cheering. In stead I run into the local guy who curses me out: "What the fuck you doin, huh? Its the second fucking time you steal my wave. Get back it man. Get the fuck back in." The guy is pissed. Now there is a golden rule in surfing that dictates that you have to get of the wave if someone cathches it before you do. But I'll let you in on a little secret. It's freakin impossible to keep an eye on all the other surfers in the lineup, while concentrating on getting on a wave without getting slammed. The dude curses me out for about 10 mins while I profusely apologize. In the end I tell him to accept the apology or get out of my face, and that seems to appeace him a little bit. Learned one lesson that day: People are just as territorial on the ocean as they are back on land.