NEWS ARTICLES

Surf safety a must says Coolum icon

by Peter Gardener

VINCE Hayes looks like he's lived all his life by the sea. His chiseled featured, like the barnacled rocks out the front of his Oceanside home at Coolum, appear to have weathered many a savage sea.

And so they have.

At Coolum, Vince is in his element and no more so than slipping seal-like through the big swell out the back of the main surf beach. With his flippers and the hand board he has helped become fashionable on the Sunshine Coast, he is the embodiment of the body surfer. It's his passion and his living.

Vince is possibly the only professional body surfing teacher in these or any other parts. And there's no other place like Coolum to challenge his skills at getting every last surge out of the breakers that freight-train their way to the shore from hundreds of metres out when the swell arrives.

He's so much part of the Coolum scene, whether its running the beach early moring saying g'day to every man, woman and their dog, or sitting quietly at the seats outside the convenience store opposite the surf club on Saturday night with his wife Helen quietly, contentedly watching the world go by.
So it comes as a surprise to learn that he's a blow in like most everyone else- even if that seachange happened more than 20 years ago.
Vince and Helen are Brisbanites with a familiar tale of relocation.

"We bought here in 1977," Vince said. "We had a weekend here and thought it would be a good place to live."

Vince was an airline clerk when he finally made the break and moved to the Coast in 1980.
He's grown up at Breakfast Creek and fell in love with the ocean as a boy.

"In those days if you wanted to go for a swim you went out to Redcliffe - that would be a day's outing.

"These days it's so easy to get to the Sunshine Coast or the Gold Coast."

Vince found work hard to get when he first moved north. He was able to get some airline work a couple of days a week and had to work as far away as northern New South Wales.Helen did her bit by baby sitting and housework when she was not doing her duty as a lollipop lady at the local school crossing.

Vince eventually became the first council appointed lifeguard, but his job of protecting the locals was short lived after he landed a job at Coolum Primary School as the janitor-groundsman - something he loved doing for nine years.

"I've always done other jobs as well - I threw the free papers for 13 years - that's a night job I did that not many people knew about," Vince Said.

In fact he's been a real Jack-of-all-trades having started his working life as a stock cutter in the clothing game and in more recent times he had a mowing business. All the time he was body surfing, but ironically it was a trip to the snowfields that convinced him to pass on the skills and love of one of Australia's favourite pastimes.

"We went on a trip in the late 1980's to the snow," Vince said.

"When you go to the snow people have got to hire boots, skis, ski lifts and then you've got to pay for lessons.

"I thought gee, you live on the Sunshine Coast, everyone goes to the beach.
"They plonk their gear on the beach and out in the ocean they go with no experience necessary.
"In 1990 I started the body surf lessons - the major aspect being teaching surf safety."

That's the deal with Vince and it's one that's not negotiable - everyone who comes to him not only learns to ride the surf, they learn to read it so they don't become a victim of rips and undertows.
Ignorance is the biggest problem for novice wave riders according to Vince.
He said Noosa and Mooloolaba are two of the safest beaches, but often they have a savage shore dump that can be crippling or even fatal for the inexperienced.
"People get injured taking the wrong wave and the wrong options - taking it perhaps the wrong way," Vince said.

He reckons he can have people catching whitewater in 15 minutes. "If they're fit and competent enough I take them out to experience the green water with surf board riders, the ski riders and the surfboats," Vince said. He still works with the Hyatt Regency Coolum who took him on board as a body surfer instructor to the guests. Now much of his work is with schools, either local classes or school camps. Over the past two decades Vince has seen a lot of changes in Coolum and is fairly comfortable how Coolum is headed - now that the high rise merchants have moved on.

Vince enjoys Coolum when it's quiet and is happy for the local traders when the place is burring on weekends and holidays. He's a big supporter of upgrading the services to Sunshine Coast Airport to make the place a genuine interstate and international destination. "The Sunshine Coast has so much first class accommodation these days including Mooloolaba and it's what you need to make the most of that." He's unsure about the Sunshine Coast councils melding into one but he said it is critical that the Coast market itself one entity. "It used to be the North Coast and back in the 1970s people down south wouth think it started and ended with Noosa."

More tourists would be good for business and it may mean he can sell some more of the handboards that his mate Mike Roberts designed, but he refined and now markets.

But it will also mean a lot more whistle blowing by Vince who this year resumed patrolling beaches - this time as a volunteer with the Coolum SLSC. Few clubbies patrol with such diligence as Vince. Surf safety is in his salty blood.