Swells and Soils
Suppose every decent blog should have a little bit about the author and what all drove them to spend their hard earn cash on a website. Well...see below.
I'm a practicing geotechnical engineer working for a large engineering consultancy in the UK, working towards becoming a chartered engineer. There wasn't a pivotal moment in my life when I realised I wanted to be an engineer, especially one who spends their time understanding properties of soil and rock. I grew up wanting to be an extreme sports photographer/film maker because I knew I didn't have the dedication to become the pro athlete that gets filmed, plus I liked eating and playing American football. The physiques didn't quite overlap. However, I've always been an engineer, and like every young human, it started with Lego, then it grew into being resourceful with anything if the wind of inspiration caught me. Whether that was a multistorey car park complex made of cereal boxes for my Hot Wheels or, more recently building a bar from old fence panels to put in my flat (what else was I supposed to do in lockdown).
I originally wanted to do marine biology at university inspired by idols Steve Irwin and Steve Backshall, but then I found out that there was an incredibly low chance that I'd be stationed in the Mentawai islands and the money wouldn't be great. So, I decided I'd do engineering and mechanical engineering didn't tickle my fancy but civil engineering looked really broad, interesting, captured my interest in geography, and at some point I'd definitely find my specialism.
Fast forward through my degree, I spent a lot of time drinking, partying and playing first-team sports each week and just generally having a fantastic time. I wasn't top 10% of my class, not even top 50%, but I had still gained the knowledge and applicable skills and more imnportantly, I was constantly curious and developing ideas in my head to make whatever I was doing more efficient. I spent two summers on site working for a groundworks contractor assisting the site engineer setting out houses, roads and sewers, then I spent one summer in a consultancy as part of their geoenvironmental team.
So my career equation had become... groundworks site role + geoenvironmental placement + enjoying geotechnical engineering module the most = applying for geotechnical engineering roles.
Fast forward again, I landed the dream graduate role and now at the time of writing this, I'm almost 4 years into being a fully fledged geotechnical engineer absolutely loving it.
So thats the soil covered, but what about the swells bit?
I'm a brummie, but you probably couldn't tell from my accent straight away unless we've been chatting for a while, or I've just got off the phone with my mom, or the fact I've just written mom instead of mum and I'm from the UK.
Obviously Birmingham doesn't have a coastline. It's probably the worst place to live if you have a burning desire to be at the coast. However I've had the privilege of my annual family summer holiday destination to be in Cornwall every year between 0-18 years of age. I didn't go abroad till I was 18. Every day out of the two weeks we were there was purely checking the tide times and if it was low-tide then we rock pooled and if the rock pooling spots were covered as the tide came in, we were in the water. It started off as my brother and I bodyboarding and just general flailing about, in what probably looked like attempts to injure ourselves, but our parents were stoked for us having fun anyway. Only a couple of minor scrapes and scratches came our way luckily.
I got pretty good at bodyboarding, i.e. a good board and fins, I was outback with the locals, limited fear in big conditions, barrelled in a few big close-out waves, and dropping in on surfers like the irritating 12 year old I was. But being a bodyboarder didn't sound as cool as surfer to the girls at school so naturally I asked mom and dad for surf lessons, so me and my brother became surfers.
When university came along we basically stopped the holidays and I wasn't really surfing. BUT THEN with the placement money I was getting, and one of my uni mates having a car, we decided to start going down to North Devon, Croyde Bay specifically, in the summer. What craic we had. Stories not suitable for this blog.
Since then I've kept up the surfing, got my graduate job which came with the much needed salary... and ultimately I took surfing more serious. I now have a small quiver, all the accessories you ever need and repaired many-a ding. Surfing abroad is limited at the moment, drove down to Hossegor, France, with a couple mates and surfing there, as well as San Sebastian. I've surfed a lot round Cornwall and Devon now and as my career and surfing have grew together, each new spot I visit brings me a new wave and new geology to observe whilst I'm waiting for the next set.
And now we're here, I want to share both passions as they overlap more than you think, and for me to learn in the process too. Thanks for making it this far, hope you enjoy the articles which actually might help you with deciding your next career move in to geoscience or get in the sea and get after it! 🌊
Stay stoked,
Swells n Soils