Surfing🏄‍♀️

My favourite hobby

Wherever waves break, surfers will ride them. Surfing is usually associated with warm ocean beaches like those found in the U.S. states of Hawaii and California, and countries such as Australia. Surfers, however, do not limit themselves to warm weather or ocean waves. Surfers dust a foot of snow off their surfboards to chase waves off the coast of Antarctica. They trek through jungles to pristine beaches in Southeast Asia. They share the water with great white sharks in South Africa. They even ride the “silver dragon,” the giant tidal bore of China’s Qiantang River. Surfing is possible in all these places because the concept is simple. A breaking wave, a board and a brave athlete are all that is needed for the sport. (Sometimes, you don’t even need the board. This is called bodysurfing.) The concept is simple, but the practice is not. Surfers paddle or are towed in to the surf line, the area of open water where waves break as they near a coast. There, surfers sit on their boards and watch waves roll in to shore. Experienced surfers assess several different qualities in every wave. A wave must be strong enough to ride, but not dangerous enough to toss the surfer as it breaks. Surfers must be able to ride and safely exit the wave—not too close to shore or rocks. For river waves or those at artificial surfing facilities, surfers watch waves develop and jump right into the breaking wave. When surfers see a wave they can ride, they paddle quickly to catch the rising wave. Just as the wave breaks, the surfers jump from their bellies to their feet, crouching on their boards. Being able to stand up is the mark of an experienced surfer. Surfers ride the wave as it breaks toward the shore. As the wave falls and loses power, surfers can exit the wave by turning their boards back toward open water. Surfers can also exit by simply lowering themselves back to their boards and paddling back out. Of course, the force of the wave can end surfers’ rides by crashing on or over them. Surfers can be tossed above a wave or below it. Then the process of paddling out to the surf line begins again.