Longform writing, journals and audio from the lineup. The deeper rhythm, in our own words.
A return to presence. On reading the ocean before riding it.
Dawn patrols along the Cape Peninsula. Cold water, kelp, and the slow miles.
Notes from a community united by respect for the ocean and each other.
Following the points up the wild coast. A meditation on movement.
"Out of the water, I am nothing."
"The best surfer out there is the one having the most fun."
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."
"We're all equal before a wave."
"Surfing is the most blissful experience you can have on this planet, a taste of heaven."
"Wherever there is a coast, there are surfers."
Long before contests, Hawaiian ali'i settled disputes in the surf. Boards, breaks and even certain reefs were kapu, off limits, to commoners. A maka'ainana caught riding a chief's wave could lose more than just his alaia. He'e nalu was politics, prayer and play in one motion.
Kathy Kohner was a 15 year old girl who paddled out at Malibu and got nicknamed Gidget, short for girl midget, by Tubesteak Tracy and the Malibu crew. Her dad turned her diaries into a novel. The film hit in 1959. By 1962 every kid in America wanted a board, and surfing was no longer a secret club of beach bums and ex servicemen.
Rabbit Bartholomew, Michael Peterson, Peter Townend and the Gold Coast crew rewrote performance surfing on the points of Kirra and Burleigh. Wayne Lynch and George Greenough had already gone full hippie up at Byron. Tom Wegener later wrote that the seventies in Australia were equal parts revolution, lawlessness and the cleanest barrels anyone had ever seen.
Tom Curren and Mark Occhilupo paddled out at Supertubes for what was supposed to be a quick free surf before the contest. Six hours later they were still out there, trading set after set in offshore perfection. The footage from that day still gets played in shaping bays around the world. Locals say the sea was glass until sunset, like it knew.
A skinny Kauai kid with a chip on his shoulder told a journalist that Kelly Slater was beatable. Everyone laughed. Eight years later Andy had three world titles and the most personal rivalry in surfing history. Bra. That's how Hawai'i talks.
A heavy left over a shallow reef in the Cape Peninsula. The local lineup is small. The water is cold. The wave does not forgive. Regulars say the same thing to first timers, every time, in the parking lot before paddling out, choose your wave like your life depends on it, because today it might. Then they smile and offer you a coffee.
Every coast has its own slang. Some of it is naughty, most of it is loving, none of it makes sense to outsiders. Here are the basics, in our own dialect.
South African hello to a friend in the lineup. Universal.
Setting your line for the barrel. The whole point.
Getting sucked up the face and thrown with the lip. Painful, occasionally funny.
1960s for riding inside the breaking part of the wave. Now ancient.
A young surfer. Bottom of the lineup hierarchy. Will inherit the wave.
Someone who has not yet learnt the unwritten rules. We were all kooks once.
Paddling around someone to steal their wave. Worst sin in surfing.
The base state. If you are not stoked, why are you out here.
No wind, ocean like oil. Sacred.
When a wave or a session is firing. As in, J-Bay was cooking yesterday.
Power in the wave. A six foot Indian Ocean swell has serious juice.
Commit. Drop in. Stop thinking.
Pulitzer Prize winning memoir. Surfing as obsession, as travel, as a way of seeing. The book most surfers gift to non surfers when they want to be understood.
Twelve simple rules from the 1977 World Champion. Half life manual, half love letter to the ocean. Required reading on this platform.
A surfer drives a pickup truck from Long Island to Costa Rica looking for his missing best friend. Equal parts mystery, road trip and meditation on what the sport really is.
A year surfing Santa Cruz. Quiet, literary, and one of the best descriptions of cold water surfing ever written.
The definitive 500 page chronicle. From Polynesian voyagers to the modern tour. If you only own one surf book, own this one.
A placeholder shelf while we build out original stories from our community. If you have a piece you want to contribute, write to us at collaboration@theoceanwithin.world.