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history of surfing Essay

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A Surf Tale

An account of surfing’s thousand year voyage from the kings of Hawaii, to the surfers exile from society, to the multi-billion dollar industry of today.

The Sun’s radiation heats the upper atmosphere, sending the energy toward the earth’s surface and finally mixes with the planet’s counter-rotational currents, creating jetstream flows. The winds flow over the ocean’s surface creating friction that spawns chops, pushing up the seas forming perfect bands of open ocean swell. Pushed on by gravitational forces, the swells speed away from the winds that they came from, moving across the deeps until they feel the drag of the shallows near the coast. As the swells rise up out of themselves, they peak, curling into the liquid dreams …show more content…

They had perfected the science of celestial navigation and frequently made thousand mile journeys, hitting their target destination perfectly. The Islanders braved the ocean by rowing large canoes made from forest hardwood. They stabilized them with outriggers, enabling the boats to keep from flipping while paddling into the surf. These crafts were propelled by wind being corralled in sails made from pandanus leaves, or when sailing into the wind, they could be rowed with small paddles. The islanders were accustomed to long journeys at sea seeing as these boats were primarily used to venture out on their regular trading routes with other islands, or even on long explorations. It was on these Expeditions that the Ancient Polynesians are believed to have discovered and inhabited hundreds of remote islands, including present day Easter Island and of course Hawaii.
It isn’t clear how the Polynesians actually discovered surfing, but we can all conjecture. Assuming that these ancient people were familiar with paddling in the ocean, they surely understood that while paddling with a swell, one could feel the next wave building behind them. As the wave begins to peak, it pulls you down, and then draws you up, then allowing one to fall along the face of the wave, skipping forward across the surface. It seems to be the best guess that surfing started much like that, a fisherman catches a lift to shore

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