A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Beschen, Shane

Eighteenth-century English sea captain and Pacific Ocean explorer whose voyages led to European colonization throughout the Pacific; Cook and his crew were the first English-speaking people to witness and write about surfing. 

Cook was 48 in 1776 when he launched his third and final Pacific expedition, piloting the

 to Tasmania, New Zealand, Hawaii (named the Sandwich Islands by Cook, honoring the Earl of Sandwich, chief of the British navy), and the west coast of North America, then up through the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean. On the return voyage, Cook stopped at Kealakekua Bay, on the Big Island of Hawaii; after going ashore to recover a stolen launch, he was clubbed to death by a group of natives.

Cook's first-person ship logs were published and republished in London for decades. In a 1777 entry, appearing in chapter 9, volume II, of 

, Cook describes his first encounter with canoe surfing, at Tahiti's Matavai Point:

He went out from the shore till he was near the place where the swell begins to take its rise; and, watching its first motion very attentively, paddled before it with great quickness, till [it] had acquired sufficient force to carry his canoe before it without passing underneath. He sat motionless, and was carried along at the same swift rate as the wave, till it landed him upon the beach. Then he started out . . . and went in search of another swell. I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and smoothly by the sea.

Cook went on to note that this particular "amusement" seemed "to allay any perturbation of mind with as much success as music." Volume III of the 

 series includes a 1779 entry on board-surfing in Hawaii, written by Lieutenant James King, the officer who commanded the 

A diversion the most common is upon the water, there is a very great sea, and surf breaking on the shore. The men, sometimes 20 or 30 . . . lay themselves flat upon an oval piece of plank about their size and breadth. [Keeping] their legs close on top of it, and their arms are used to guide the plank, they wait [until] the time of the greatest swell . . . and push forward with their arms to keep on its top, [and] it sends them in with a most astonishing velocity, and the great art is to guide the plank so as always to keep it in a proper direction on the top of the swell. On first seeing this very dangerous diversion I did not conceive it possible but that some of them must be dashed to mummy against the sharp rocks, but just before they reach the shore, they quit their plank and dive under. By such exercises, these men may be said to be almost amphibious.

Cook, James

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint