Bodysurfing, it's more dangerous than you think.
Written by Nathan Gernetzky
Ever run down to your local beach and the waves weren’t quite what the forecast promised?
Before you turn around to head home you notice this fun like wave breaking just a few feet from the sand. You stare longer and you notice a fun little barreling closeout. I’m here already, might as well get some exercise,’ you say to yourself. So you put your board on the sand and go enjoy swimming like a seal through those turquoise sand barrels.
Of all the surfing forms and boards required for each variant. Bodysurfing is probably the most primal of them all. It’s ancient history with many untold stories of beach dwellers the world over swimming like dolphins, just their bodies with the oceans push and pull of breaking waves. A simple past time to some, and a right of royal passage to others, riding a wave with just your own body as the only vessel the wave carries along couldn’t get any purer.
Here at BoardTalk we’re about all forms of wave riding. One wave is always different to the next. So is the craft we use to ride them. We want you to discover the joy and fun out of riding your wave of choice, your way, your style and your board.
Today’s current skilled bodysurfers are looking to do the same. Have fun in the ocean in its most basic form – using your arms to swim yourself into a wave and ride it as long as you can. Body surfing might not be your first choice of wave-riding. But lets’ be honest, we all love a good shorey barreling onto the sand.
South Africa is wave rich and we are South Africans are truly blessed to have the variety of coastline we do from the tip of the west coast wrapping all the way around the Cape of Good Hope to the warmer tropical waters up north of the east coast. There are waves for everyone. From beginner to pro we have it all. We are also spoilt for choice when it comes to the diversity of boards made here in South Africa.
From professional bodysurfers to the weekend ballies, the boards that suit your fun factor best are called ‘Hand-Slides.’ And one of the finest craftsmen of these boards is Cobus Joubert shaping under his brand ‘WAWA’ . He has been shaping wooden surfboards and handslides for years. It’s art and he is one of the masters. Go and check out his website. Cobus has helped to lead the charge of a tight nit crew in the Cape who brave icy water and other ocean dwellers to bodysurf some of the best waves to be found. See here for some photos from a recent gathering they had.
Pics by @garythbevan?
But just like discussing the latest carbon-wrapped world-title winning high performance shortboards, we can get lost in the range of handslides available at your local surf shop, from the cheapest range made from foam and plastic to highly customised pieces of redwood or cyrpess slides worthy of being wall-hangers. Swimming into waves with the strength of your arms and kicking feet, to the addition of the finest Dafin fins introduced from Australia and made popular in Hawaii by the master himself – Mark Cunningham.
The earliest modern pioneers used both. Just make sure your boardies are tied on tightly. Many a lost speedo or ripped off shorts have lead to a raucous car park of friends who will never let you forget the moment you left the ocean sheepishly covering up your privates.
Here we simply want to introduce you to the ancient art of riding a wave simply with your own body. Swimming into a wedged peak and sliding left or right into a closeout barrel is primal and simple. Just you and the ocean. Great exercise for surfing or simply great exercise. Bodysurfing is a lifestyle- a metaphor for life. Taking the simplest route, spending less, and basking in the joy of an uncomplicated life, bodysurfing represents that and more.
Get into bodysurfing!