The Stern of an Old Canoe

Surfboards in São Tomé are hacked from the bottoms of old canoes like this one. Until Sam George arrived in 2000 they weren’t technically “surfboards,” because locals used them as bodyboards — i.e. they didn’t stand up. They also rode the surf in sit-down boats, with bamboo oars. So Sam George was a pioneer in São Tomé in the sense that he got some locals to start surfing on their feet. (Stand-up surfing is the whole focus of my book. ) But Santoméans have been surfing on their bellies for longer than any of them can remember, maybe for centuries; and kids have probably played in the surf along the west African coast as long as their fathers have bothered to fish in canoes.

Why exactly stand-up surfing evolved only in Hawaii, before it moved to California to become something else, may be unanswerable. But I can answer a different question. The first known western description of wave-riding comes from James Cook’s first voyage, when the botanist Joseph Banks noticed something in Tahiti in 1769 that sounds almost like surfing:

In the midst of these breakers 10 or 12 Indians were swimming who whenever a surf broke near them divd under it with infinite ease, rising up on the other side; but their chief amusement was carried on by the stern of an old canoe, with this before them they swam out as far as the outermost breach, then one or two would get into it and opposing the blunt end to the breaking wave were hurried in with incredible swiftness.

I know; he called them “Indians.” But so far no one seems to understand just what he meant by “the stern of an old canoe.” But to me it’s obvious. They were bellyboarding on something like a tambua, like Santoméans when George first arrived.

Cutting-edge surf research, people! And you’re reading it here first.

     posted 13 October 2008 by Michael Scott Moore

  1. Nice to see some more photos up. Thanks for a great trip mate, look forward to sharing some more waves with you sometime. Let me know if you ever make it to NZ too.
    Sean

    — Sean Buckley    Oct 14, 08:01 pm    #