The Great Radio Free Mike Surf Wiki

Welcome to the Radio Free Mike Surf Wiki, where any surfer from any part of the world can leave behind comments, reminiscences, and stories. Mike’s at work on a nonfiction book about the rise and spread of surfing from Hawaii and California to surprising corners of the planet. There will be chapters on Hawaii in the 19th century, California in the ’50s and ’60s, England, Germany, West Africa, Indonesia, Morocco, Cuba, Japan, and Israel.

A random sample of stories from readers on these places will help out the book. We’re looking for a few specific facts, like the name of the first US serviceman to paddle out at Mehdiya Plage in Morocco in the 1950s, details about the Qantas flight crew that reportedly surfed Bali in the 1960s, the earliest days of surfing the Severn Bore in Britain, legends from the hippie trail throughout Morocco and Indonesia, and a reliable source on the first surfers in Cuba — but as you can see from the posts below, anything helps. Leave your name if you want proper credit in the book, and leave an e-mail address if you don’t mind hearing from Mike with follow-up questions. You can e-mail him privately by clicking the little man at the bottom of the left-hand column, or just use editor [at] radiofreemike [dot] com.

Quick introduction: The author, Michael Scott Moore, is a novelist and journalist from California, living for complicated reasons in Berlin. He’s also a surfer, an American, and a German (with two passports). Radio Free Mike is his web site, not his name.

Anyway, thanks. If you leave a story behind, remember to click two buttons — first “preview,” then “publish” — to make your comment live.

PS Yes, this is just a blog post, not a real wiki, but we have room to expand.

PPS Write in any language you want.

PPPS The “surfing tiki” graphic above is available as a sticker from the Calavera Surf Company, which bears no relation whatsoever to Calaveras Beach, although we like the name here at Radio Free Mike for obvious reasons.

     posted 8 January 2008 by Michael Scott Moore

  1. Early Bali: Electricity had only just arrived in 1975, with TV not arriving in Bali until around 5 years later. Sunset saw a gathering of tourists and locals on the beach each evening. We’d all stroll back to our $1 a night losmen before it got too dark. Spicy meals in small cafes lit by kerosene lamps were around $1. There was only one neon sign in Kuta, a Peter’s icecream sign sitting on the ground on Jalan Legian, at the end of Poppies Lane One. Follow the electric lead 200 metres down the dimly lit lane and you’d end up at Poppies restaurant, one of the first places with electric refrigeration, cold beer and icecream (everyone else used large blocks of ice). Surfers on a strict budget couldn’t afford the imported $1 icecreams, so we’d wait at “Bemo Corner” for the coconut icecream vendor to push his cart along at 7pm and scoop out his tiny 100 Rupiah cones (20 cents).

    — Peter Neely    Jan 8, 11:25 pm    #

  2. In 1970 Mehdiya Plage was mostly local French, a few Moroccan and US servicemen. There were three bases in the area. One was in Kenitra. That was a Moroccan air force base. Americans were there to train Moroccan pilots. I suspect there was other activities going on there also. There was a small base at Boucknadel. That base was the transmitter site for my base. My base was about 30 miles away near a small town called Sidi Yahia. We were a communications base that supported the 6th fleet.


    Getting back to the beach. I only saw surfers there a few times….very few times. The break was not all that good. The area had terrific undertows and was really pretty dangerous to swim in. I was very surprised to see any surfers at there. I was even more surprised to see a ‘short’ board. My era had boards 9 feet up to 9’ 10” or so. I had a Dusty Rhodes nose rider. I guess around 1967 or so the boards started getting smaller. I dropped down to an 8’ 6” Morey Pope Tracker. Might have been an 8’3”. I forget. The board I tried out at Medehia Beach was a brand I had never heard of and it was a ‘short’ board. As far as I know, I was the only American who surfed that beach. I can’t think of anyone I knew who was a surfer dude. There may have been others but I am unaware of them. — Joe Franzen    Jan 8, 11:28 pm    #

  3. I was stationed at Port Lyautey from 2/52 to 9/53. It is now called Kenitra.
    I revisited in ‘01 but wasn’t allowed on the base, now a Moroccan air base.
    Mehdiya Beach was one of my favorite haunts, but I never saw a surfboard in the water, nor heard of any swabby operating one. I do know that a few
    sailors drowned in its waters; one was particularly significant because the
    photo lab (I was a photographer) shot pictures of the body.

    I might add that when I visited Mehdiya in ‘01, the biggest change was in the housing that had been built on the hillside overlooking the ocean. During my months there, the hillside was covered with huts used by the French Navy personnel and their families.

    — Joseph Guderian    Jan 8, 11:30 pm    #

  4. Hallo Mike,

    für >Dein Buch wäre sicher auch der deutsche Teil der Surfgeschichte interessant- ich denke, Du wirst auf dem Longboard Festival mit einigen alten Surfern und vielen jungen sprechen können- falls Du vorher schon einen Kontakt zu Surfveteranen oder Youngsters brauchst- melde Dich gerne.

    Lg Sven

    — Sven Behrens    Jan 9, 04:50 pm    #

  5. Ja sicher. Danke Sven. Der deutsche Teil ist einem ganzen Kaptial wert.

    — Mike    Jan 9, 07:43 pm    #

  6. Just a couple of thoughts…Westport, Washington has a couple of great surf shops and a pretty die hard crowd. Craig Hill from the Tacoma News Tribune just did something on it; but you should include a cold-water place where surfing is year-around—I’ve hung out with people around that scene and they are really interesting to board in 50-degree water everyday of the year.

    — Eric    Jan 11, 11:12 pm    #

  7. Pah! 50 degrees. Boston’s colder.

    — Mike    Jan 11, 11:14 pm    #

  8. Hallo Mike!

    Was wird “das besondere” an Deinen Buch werden, das gewisse etwas, was Leute, die die Surfgeschichte schon gut kennen bisher vermisst haben? Werden es hauptsächlich persönliche Erfahrungen und zeitgenössische Schilderungen sein, oder auch (trockene) Geschichte?Ich bin sehr gespannt und freue mich auf das Buch! Gibt es einen Teil über shaper und Boardentwicklungen, bzw wo gab es welche Bretter und von wo kamen die Einflüsse?? schöne Grüsse Philipp

    — Philipp    Jan 14, 12:43 am    #

  9. Philipp: ich will nicht zuviel verraten oder versprechen, aber es sieht so aus, dass das Besondere am Buch die Betrachtung der Weltgeschichte durch Surfing sein wird—etwa wie “Salt: A World History.” Aber es soll wie Reiseliteratur lesen. Boardentwicklungen können nur nebenseitig erzählt werden, leider.

    — Mike    Jan 14, 01:10 pm    #

  10. Not sure if this helps, but I travel to Puerto Escondido each summer and on each of these trips I find a different group of Israeli kids. It’s always bummed me out that many a layman in California have no idea that people surf in Virginia or North Carolina. Not to mention that invariably, when a non-surfer finds out that I surf, they want to know if I surf the “Maverick.”

    Well, I had no idea that there was surf in Tel-Aviv. That there is a thriving surf culture that seeks out mainland Mexico was even more of surprise. And to find that I wasn’t the only Jewish surfer out there! That took the cake. A guy paddles by me on what happened to be the first day of Rosh Hoshana a few years back and wishes me a L’Shona Tova. What? My sense of self was completely turned around. I’ve sort of gotten used to being the only Jew in the water—especially when it gets serious. And here they were, Hebrew-speaking, dreadlock rastas, charging double-overhead bone-crushers, and starting fights in bars, right before my eyes.

    — Jeff Lewis    Jan 16, 03:17 pm    #