“My name is Clarence Tobias, better known as Toby. Um, born and raised in Trinidad. Been in Rockaway for I don’t know, 35, 40. Sorry, my bad. Thirty-seven… 37 years now.” I met Toby waxing his board at the surf lockers by Beach 67th Street.
“I ended up here through a guy, Rudel. Rudel owns Breakwater. Nigel, uh, who used to be the guy in charge of Station, who had owned Station Surf Shop. Yeah, um, two of these, Nigel [and Rudel], close friends of mine…I used to live in Jersey. So, I always used to come over here on a weekend. I used to hang out on Beach 67. I mean, those days was just like about four surfers in the water at 67. We just used to hang out under the boardwalk, chill, spend most of the days here. Weekends, that is. That’s kind of like how I ended up in Rockaway.”
Tobias left Trinidad as a young adult. “You know, I would say, like most people who migrate here to United States looking for opportunity, and opportunity that came as…I used to run track…and I got like spotted by a scout, and I came to New York to try out back in like 19– uh, back in the ‘90s. I was in my late 20s. I was, well, young, but old for runners at the same time; I was kind of over the hill in a way…And um, from there I just got the opportunity to stay out there in Jersey. At that time, Jersey was the best place ever,” Tobias said. I asked if he still thought so. “No,” he laughed, but his answer was decisive.
“It was actually in March of 2018. I started coming down to the beach [more]. Me and Del. Del was staying in Brooklyn; Del would come and pick me up and bring me out to the beach…And I couldn’t believe the surf culture that New York had picked up. Like everybody was hyped, was excited, and I was excited to see so many people at the beach riding these small waves. You know, they were just going wild over these, like, two, three-foot waves. I mean, I’m not dissing the wave. I love the wave. But like wow, like in Trinidad, we go out when it’s six foot and above, and even sometimes we just be chillin’ on the beach when it’s six because we have, you know, it’s just a beach town, and everybody’s sipping on beers or hanging out or something like that. But I was so happy just to see the life of it. And I just told Del, ‘Yo, every summer I think I want to be back here.’”
Tobias shares surf lessons that go beyond the technical aspects. “I teach surfing more from like a spiritual base and more of a like, being in connection with the ocean more than just coming and using the ocean. Like, you know…just come in and understand how the ocean operates and that way like you have a better appreciation for the sport that you’re in, which is surfing, and also just what creates that. What creates a wave? What creates the environment, the people who come here? Like sometimes not everybody [who] comes to the beach really comes to surf, but they’re still enjoying the same ocean that you’re enjoying–you have respect for these people as well,” he said. “I do have a not-for-profit as well, and one of the programs that we run is a water safety and beach awareness program back in the islands…Like in my course, where we surf, everybody just surfs. You get a board. You go out, paddle. You get fit, you get strong, until you’re good enough to come up the peak with the big boys and them. That’s kinda like the culture for me with surfing.
“I just never give up on the ocean. I always love it.” While it may seem like Toby has been surfing his entire life, he learned as a teenager. “I mean the first time I tried a board, it wasn’t really a real surfboard. It was um, like foam, like styrofoam, like foam yeah. Yeah, we took an old fridge apart, pulled the styrofoam out of it. …I grew up, as I say, like 10 minutes from the beach in Trinidad, a place called Toco,” hence, TocoToby Surf, “and I’d go, I do a lot of fishing and chilling, bathing by the beach. And I always used to see these [surf tourists] guys riding these waves, and I was amazed at how they could just skate on the water. And I told my dad like, ‘You know, one day I want to do that.” And he said, “No, you can’t swim; you’ll drown.’ So then I was never allowed to go by the beach and try it, you know.” Tobias did know how to swim, “but island parents never want you in the water; you know they always think if you’re going in the water you’re going to drown, so yeah no, like that’s a no-no.”
It’s a fear that penetrates Toby’s community. “One of the best waves in the world and I’m the only person in that community that surfs. I mean, all the push and drive and you try to get people into the water and everything. They may start, but like they always fall apart in the end if you’re not there to continue with them,” he said.
“Surfing has a…a reputation behind it. Sort of naughtiness, drugs, and uh, yeah, it’s just what it is. So that’s kind of what I see when I started surfing; they always just say ‘Oh you’re doing drugs now,’ or ‘You’re smoking,’ and I had kinky dreads, you know, so they’re always like ‘Oh he’s a rasta, smoking now. He’s this, he’s that.’ You know the kind of pure stereotype of things they don’t understand.”
The stereotyping, lack of support, and worse, lack of a surfboard did not deter Toby, however. “One day in school, me and some friends just came up with this idea to find styrofoam to make a surfboard. I don’t know where it came from, but we found the old refrigerator, and we pulled it apart, took the styrofoam out, shaped it in the form of a surfboard but a short board like–it did work for a second,” Tobias said. “You know, the first wave we took, we got a little ride, and then SMASH. It broke.”
The setback wasn’t a deterrent. “I used to do carpentry in school, so that moved us into somebody’s house, so we went and ripped up an abandoned house. We took the cedar from the house, the cedar wood, and in school, with the help of my teacher, we made what we called back then a Lele board. A Lele board is a shorter version of a surfboard. It’s closer to a boogie board, but it’s longer; it’s like four foot,” Tobais said. “So we made one of those, about 19 inches wide, four feet, and we will walk out…on the reef where the water reaches us at about our chests…And we just paddle, paddle, push the board, and then we swim fast and catch the board and pull the board on us, and just like, get on the board and ride like a body board. So awesome.”
