The Magic of Surfing

The surfing experience is a completely individual endeavor yet surfers are part of a global tribe that crosses all political, cultural, religious, and economic boundaries. The surfing experience causes the surfer to become tuned to the natural world of wind and tide and current and season. Even the surfboard it self is modern magic carpet that defies normal physical quantification sometimes planing, sometimes displacement, sometimes airborne with constant changes in direction and velocity.

In an age where many high school seniors in the United States can not find their own country on a globe, most surfers know about Angola, Sumatra, Madagascar, New Caledonia, and the Canaries and more mainstream places like Morocco, and Peru. When the season is right for a particular region, surfers go. Islamic Jihad in Indonesia will not deter them. The works of ETA on the Basque coast of Spain are not a concern. The military coup in Fiji doesn’t get a second thought. Yet at the beach, in any of these locations with others from around the world, there is peaceful coexistence and respect.

Local customs and cultures are embraced by this global tribe. Often the local religions are participated in without question but for the new experience it may offer. Parts of the religion, culture, and customs from often faraway lands usually stick and some of that experience is then carried forward to the next place of the tribes meeting. Again the resulting mixture is a reverent diversity and respect. In fact, at the recent tsunami disaster, surfers were the first responders – not only rescuing people but setting up camps in which to live.

In the water the surfer is not judged by his bank account, what type of car he drives, or where he lives but rather he is judged by his skills in the ocean. Riding waves and the intimate knowledge of the break is paramount and other valued skills include sailing, diving, and fishing. The better the surfer is at these skills, the more independent he becomes and therefore the economic differences become even less important.

The passage from beginner to journeyman surfer includes meteorological study. To fully benefit from the variety of waves breaking around the planet, the surfer learns about the changing of the seasons in the different hemispheres. He learns the origin or source of the waves and can predict the swell direction and time that swell will hit certain beaches. With this knowledge he will calculate the local tide, current, and wind conditions for optimal riding. When this precise time hits, the pursuit of the resulting waves becomes the all consuming focus of his being.

When finally paddling out to the break, the surfer has learned the skills of a physical oceanographer and studied the rip currents and uses these forces to his advantage and get out past the break more easily. He knows the bottom contours and the physical properties of the sea floor under the waves. Understanding the physical condition is critical – is the swell moving across a variable sandbar or breaking like clockwork over a nearly exposed coral reef. Respect is once again in order as the wave will break the way it will without regard to the surfer. The surfer knows to go with the flow and use the natural forces at work to maximize his experience.

A noted NASA scientist once said the ability of a surfer paddling a small surfboard into a wave is a mathematical impossibility. In nearly every other sport both participant and equipment can be quantified for maximum performance, there is no such quantifier in surfing. The act of riding waves is an entirely individual experience. There is no absolute in design or materials nor ideal size like a jockey of 118 pounds or a 6’9” basketball player. Both the surfboard and surfer are completely unique and therefore the experience on the wave is a completely unique experience as well. This is easily proven when two surfers are in the water both on their favorite boards getting maximum enjoyment from the conditions and they switch boards. The maximum enjoyment disappears and very quickly they want to switch back.

Surfers also become staunch environmentalists. Coastal zone management and both source and non-source pollution are well known. Public beach access rather than selling off the coastline to only the richest 1% is a critical issue and that battle rages daily in the halls of places like the California Coastal Commission where the special interests of politics are being battled by the grass roots activists of the global surfing community. A local issue such as a freeway extension that may affect a revered surfing spot near San Clemente has opposition support in England, Brazil, and Australia.

So the experience of the surfer is all encompassing with political, cultural, and religious components. Physical and natural sciences are part of the surfer’s daily experience. And the engineering of the surfboard can’t be quantified. The experience is very personal and unique while at the same time being part of a global community that lives with respect and is acutely of aware the relationship to the cycles of the natural environment. The surfer’s scorecard doesn’t have an entry for monetary success and therefore it is very easy to give back to the communities in which they participate. The world on a larger scale could learn much from a surfer. After all, it’s magic!