Shaun Tomson - Alysha Speer - Haruki Murakami - William Finnegan - Storyville: Into the Storm: Surfing to Survive TV - The Endless Summer 1966 -
Being spat out of one of those giant, roaring Hawaiian tubes is the most amazing sensation I've ever experienced in my life. It’s joy, fear and accomplishment all rolled into one experience. Shaun Tomson
You never really know what's coming. A small wave, or maybe a big one. All you can really do is hope that when it comes, you can surf over it, instead of drown in its monstrosity. Alysha Speer
Surfing’s a more profound kind of sport than it looks. When you surf, you learn not to fight the power of nature, even if it gets violent. Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
For most surfers, I think – for me, certainly – waves have a spooky duality. When you are absorbed in surfing them, they seem alive. They each have personalities, distinct and intricate, and quickly changing moods, to which you must react in the most intuitive, almost intimate way – too many people have likened riding waves to making love. And yet waves are of course not alive, not sentient, and the lover you reach to embrace may turn murderous without warning. It’s nothing personal. That self-disemboweling death wave on the inside bar is not bloody-minded. Thinking so is just reflex anthropomorphism. Wave love is a one-way street. William Finnegan, Barbarian Days: A Sporting Life
Surfers have a perfection fetish. The perfect wave, etcetera. There is no such thing. Waves are not stationary objects in nature like roses or diamonds. They’re quick, violent events at the end of a long chain of storm action and ocean reaction. Even the most symmetrical breaks have quirks and a totally specific, local character, changing with every shift in tide and wind and swell. ibid.
For me surfing is a blessing. It’s everything for me. It’s my life and passion. I have an incredible feeling when I’m in the water. I feel obsessed. Free. My name is Jhonny Guerrero. I’m 14 years old and I’ve lived all my life in Chorrillos. Storyville: Into the Storm: Surfing to Survive, BBC 2021
Jhonny enters national trials for an elite surf academy run by former world champion Sofia Mulanovich. ibid. caption
Summer means many different things to different people … but for us – the sport of Surfing! The thrill and the fun of the sport of surfing. The Endless Summer, 1966
Some surfers prefer the hairy thrill of a big wave. ibid.
Henry’s a seal – nature’s greatest body surfer. ibid.
Mike & Robert: You think they’re coming out with their forks to have you for dinner! ibid. guys in Ghana
Here in Cape Town they like to go all together … Durban: the sun is already up and it’s 4.30 a.m. … 80 degrees out, water temperate about the same … Sharks are a tremendous problem here. ibid.
In the curl for 45 seconds. ibid.
Lots of girls surf in Hawaii and many of them are very good. ibid.
Hawaii is truly a land of an endless summer. ibid.
You should have been here yesterday! ibid. dudes in Australia