Posted by SeaCliff
Stumbled on this quote when checking in on Liz Clark and the Voyage of the Swell on Westsand.com. (Much thanks to skSURF for the heads up on this!) While not directly surf related, this captures, for me, much of the essence of what drives us to pursue the surf, near and far. (more…)
On the cusp of a new swell heading our way from TS Florence, it feels appropriate to reprint this magnificnet piece which NYHC_Boarder first showed me some days back, and more recently was posted elsewhere on NYNJSurf.com by little_nasty.
Young Sea, by Carl Sandburg, 1916
The sea is never still.
It pounds on the shore
Restless as a young heart,
Hunting. (more…)
by little_nasty, as passed on to him, and all of us, by the people of Hawai’i
Ina`a `ohe nalu, a laila aku i kai, penei e hea ai:
(If there is no surf, invoke seaward in the following manner:)
(more…)
Quotes courtesy of surfnstalk, as posted on NYNJSurf.com.
“We came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle three of four hundred yars out to sea, (taking a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his board upon the foamy crest and himself upon the board, and he would come whizzing by like a bombshell. It did not seem that a lightning express train could shoot at a more hair-lifting speed……” -Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872
Quotes courtesy of surfnstalk, as posted on NYNJSurf.com.
“I honestly can’t remember the first time I rode a wave. I suppose it was while playing in the shore break and I must have come to it so gradually that the memory has faded. It was probably inevitable that i’d learned to surf, for the ocean was my backyard. It was where i played every day from one season to the next and riding waves was a part of it. I’m sure it’s the same for anyone who grows up in close proximity to the sea…..it becomes your home, your mother, the very essence of life.”
Quotes courtesy of surfnstalk, as posted on NYNJSurf.com.
“But a diversion the most common is upon the water, where there is a very great sea, and surf breaking on the shore. The men sometimes 20 or 30 go without the swell of the surf, & lay themselves flat upon an oval piece of plank about their size and breadth, they keep their legs close on top of it, & their arms are us’d to guide the plank, they wait the time of the greatest swell that sets on shore, & altogether push foward with their arms to keep on it’s top, it sends them in with a most astonishing velocity, & the great art is to guide the plank so as always to keep it in a proper direction on the top of the swell…..”
First in a Series of Quotes, courtesy of surfnstalk, as posted on NYNJSurf.com.
” I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so smoothly by the sea…”
-Captain James Cook on seeing a Tahitian native riding waves on a wood plank, Journals, December 1777