Rubber Rewards

Photo: Michael Kew

It’s nearly winter, and wetsuits rock, don’t they? They’re so good now, they’ve allowed waves to be ridden year-round everywhere from the Arctic to the Antarctic. And, of course, right here in California. But that doesn’t mean you need to stay here. Just leave the boardshorts at home.

“Besides great wetsuits,” said former Surfer magazine editor Steve Hawk, “with the growing number of surfers, there’s bound to be a lot more people looking at more interesting places based on their own personal travel needs. Some guys don’t mind camping out where it’s cold. I know a lot of people who think the idea of going to Alaska to surf just sounds like the stupidest thing in the world. But then you have guys like Doc (Renneker), who’s done with tropical places.”

Renneker surfed among polar bears and icebergs in Svalbard, an island north of Norway, which made his previous Alaska trips seem balmy. Hawk was with Renneker in Alaska, who, when flying home to San Francisco, decided that it was time to head south for the winter. Not to Indo or Costa Rica, not to Fiji or Tahiti, but to the 33°F water surrounding the great white sheet of ice at the bottom of the world. It was a brave sail from Tierra del Fuego to Antarctica, which some consider to be the deadliest trip in the world, then four earnest weeks on a steel-hulled boat with only one day of good surf. Why? Thank the great British explorer Ernest Shackleton.

“One of the real moments of genesis for our trip was the book about Shackleton’s expedition,” Hawk said. “There was a photo of some of his crew, who, for survival purposes, he’d left behind on Elephant Island. He left them and sailed off in a tiny boat, returning months later to get the other guys.” Shackleton had a photographer with him, and in the book was a shot of Shackleton coming toward his men on a skiff, with the mothership anchored offshore. It’s the moment of rescue, and all of the men in the foreground are waving—they’re ecstatic. And about 20 yards in front of them, there’s this little wave breaking, which was what planted the seed in Doc’s mind about surfing Antarctica.

“The first place we actually surfed was right at that spot on Elephant Island,” Hawk said. “Chris Malloy and I paddled out, and it all came full-circle.” So is Antarctica a bona fide surf destination? “Oh no,” Hawk assured. “It was a novelty trip—an excuse to go to Antarctica. In many ways, all of the best surf trips are like that.”

“Until you’ve surfed with polar bears around,” Renneker told Surfing magazine, “you haven’t really surfed.” To wit: Greenland, Faroe Islands, Sweden, Shetland, Antarctica, Svalbard, Patagonia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Maine, Pacific Northwest, Falklands, Russia, Norway, Iceland. “They used to be places where the elements were working against you,” said legendary surf traveler Randy Rarick. “Now, with the modern wetsuit, you can overcome those elements.”

A 1996 Surfer magazine delegation to Iceland raised more than a few proverbial eyebrows in the surf world, especially considering nobody had ever really thought this island nation smack-dab in the middle of the North Atlantic could produce some incredibly good waves. Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, of Endless Summer II fame, was one of the trip’s participants. “The surf was really fun,” he said. “Good pointbreaks and reefs—even a bitchin’ sand rivermouth deal. Of course it was cold, but one of the points stretched for more than three miles with the right swell…amazing! I would go back in a heartbeat.” Inspired by what they found, Wingnut is sold on the concept of surf-trekking into the world’s icy netherlands. Hey, who needs hammocks and coconut palms? “It will be the cold places that the new discoveries will be made,” he said.

Just like this flawless Pacific Northwest rivermouth seen above. Go find it. Meanwhile, thank your wetsuit (just make sure it’s a hooded Tumo 5/4/3).

– Michael Kew