You Can Surf There

Photo: Gage Hingeley.

You Can Surf There.

The sport of surfing has taken me many places. The sport of surfing has taken many people many places. I have surfed the windswept cliff-lined shores of Ireland, between rounds of golf and pints of black Guinness. You can surf there. I surfed the draining silt-laden mauve waters on the Bristol Channel in southern Wales. I then watched Cardiff’s rugby team lose to the All Blacks of New Zealand and grown men cry. You can surf there too.

Surfing has taken me, like many, to the obvious places; Hawaii, Oaxaca, Baja California, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and throughout Central America. It has taken me to the not so obvious places; Spain, France, the UK, Portugal, Uruguay. Surfers scoff when I say I haven’t been to Bali but I have been to southern France for waves eleven times. And it has taken me to places that seem ridiculous for wave hunting; hence the crying men in Wales, the Cinque Terre coast of Italy, the Garden State, Long Island, New York, and Panama’s Caribbean coast. Yes, you can surf there.

I long for the world’s really off-the-wall surfing locations. China has emerged in the past few years as a bearer of surf. Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula has been the destination of several recent surf trips and there are now even a few locals. Yes, you can surf there too. Tofino, Vancouver has sprung into the limelight as has Nova Scotia. And there is a thriving surf population in Wisconsin that does not depend on travelling to quell the surfing bug; they have their sacred resource right there. You can surf in Wisconsin.

I have a friend that relocated from sunny Southern California to Lake Tahoe a few years ago. He emailed me some photos of him surfing right in front of his lakeshore home. Every once in a while you can surf on Lake Tahoe. Professional surfer Rob Machado visited Munich for a surf trip last summer. And he surfed. As the Eisbach River is siphoned through the city a wave is formed. It doesn’t roll to any shore but breaks in the same place, day and night, and you can surf it.

Several companies have booked their team tickets to the Amazon to surf a tremendous tidal bore. If you don’t mind Piranhas and spinal meningitis, you can surf it. Basque globe-trotter Kepa Acero has found similarly existing river-waves in Alaska and Argentina. Hawaiian Hellman Garret McNamara travelled to the Arctic Circle a few years ago to surf waves produced by falling glaciers. A writer friend of mine joined him to document the trip. Although the photos make it look like you can surf there, my friend tells me otherwise. “You will die,” he says. “But you can surf there,” I comment. “Yes, I guess you can.”

On the topic of global climate change and sea level rise a friend asked me the other day what inland location I’d like to surf; not lake waves but places without a body of water. Only a surfer can look at a landscape and imagine the waves that could break….if only there was water. Heck, we see waves on sidewalks and hedges and curled pieces of paper. I’ve seen potential setups in northern Idaho and Arizona. I saw a perfect point break just outside of Cincinnati. And don’t even get me started about the hills outside of Florence.

But why do I yearn for waves that barely exist or exist not at all? I have the great bearer of waves several miles from my home, where waves break in some shape or form every single day. Why haven’t I been to Bali to surf the world-class perfection that every other wave on earth is measured against? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard on really good days in California and Florida and Mexico…”it’s like Bali out here!”

But the waves today are subpar. The only thing that’s “like Bali” is an afternoon thunderstorm. As the rain falls, puddles form in the street below my balcony. A car passes, skirting the eight-foot wide body of water. Ripples roll toward the sidewalk. Between a discarded McDonald’s soda cup and a hubcap, tiny waves form. A set of ten refracts around the curvature of the sidewalk and peals in unison along the shallow pavement. I check the web cam of my local spot again and make the decision not to surf. Another car passes. Another set rolls across the puddle. If only I was three inches tall. If only I had a board three inches long. I could surf that.

– Zach Plopper