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

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

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, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Small subtropical Indian Ocean island nation located 330 miles east of Madagascar; best known to surfers as home to Tamarin Bay, the fickle but magnificent left-breaking reef wave featured in the 1974 surf travel film The Forgotten Island of Santosha. 

Mauritius gets its best surf between May and September, from swells originating in the Indian Ocean's Roaring 40s. Most of the two dozen surf breaks located along the island's 110-mile coastline are reef-pass waves that are often compromised or made unridable by the prevailing southeast trade-winds. While Tamarin Bay, located on the southwest coast, is angled so that the winds blow offshore, incoming swells have to bend sharply around the coast before hitting the reef, and the waves are thus much smaller here than almost anywhere else in the area: Tamarin only hits peak form about 20 days on an average season, and rarely gets above eight foot. But when conditions are right, the wave at Tamarin peels dreamlike across the reef for nearly 300 yards, in a series of exquisite tube sections. A 1989 issue of Surfing magazine named Tamarin Bay as one of the "25 Best Waves in the World." 

Average midday temperatures in Mauritius range from the low 70s to the mid-80s; water temperatures range from 70 to 80. Sharp reefs are the island's primary surfing hazard, and many of the breaks are too shallow to ride at low tide. Pioneering French surfer Joel de Rosnay was the first to ride Tamarin Bay in 1958, using an old Australian-made plywood surfboard. De Rosnay wrote about Mauritius in a 1963 Surfer magazine article, and the unnamed Tamarin lefts were featured in Sea of Joy, a 1971 surf film. Three years later California surfer/filmmaker Larry Yates wrote "The Forgotten Island of Santosha," a Surfer cover story featuring Hawaiian champion 

. "Santosha," a Hin-dustani world for "peace," was Yates's pseudonym for Tamarin Bay, and both the article and the like-titled film presented the island as the ultimate exotic surf destination. Yates noted that "Santosha is not a place, but a state of mind," striking a phrase that would become a mantra for the hundreds of Santosha-inspired surfers who set out to find their own perfect wave. The Yates/Cabell excursion itself was listed by Surfer in 1995 as one of the top 10 surf trips of all time. 

Mauritius had two surf shops and more than 100 native surfers by 2003, most of them French Mauritian and local Creole. Resident surfers have earned a reputation as being among the most territorial in the world, particularly a loosely formed group known as the "White Shorts," and visiting surfers can expect to be ignored, harangued, or worse.

Mauritius

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History of Surfing

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History of Surfing

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