SURFING! The word conjurs up immages of sun, sea, sand, palm trees, bikini clad peroxide blondes, Hawaii, California, Australia, The Duke, the sixties, hippies, drugs, wild beach parties, Gidget, the Beach Boys....... the list goes on and on.
The sport of surfing originated in the south Pacific Islands hundreds of years ago as the sport of kings. Today however, it has become a giant economic sports empire headed by the USA, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa and Brazil. Fortunately, the waves of the world are not restricted to these few countries, as perfect surfing waves break on reefs, river mouths, points, sand bars and beaches all over the world, including.....Jamaica???
The island of Jamaica, situated in the north western Caribbean Sea, seems an unlikely place for surfing to develop. Cut off from the large southward moving swells of the north Atlantic by it's larger neighbors Cuba and Hispaniola, Jamaica seems trapped in the middle of the tiny, tranquil, Caribbean Sea, with very little potential for receiving good surfing waves, except maybe for when a hurricane passes by, which could provide a good swell, or be all blown out, or even worse....blow the whole freakin island away! However, under closer scrutiny we find that this is definitely not the case! The truth is..... Jamaica is blessed with an eight month surf season with the remaining four months of flat time broken up into short one or two week spells. This provided the perfect raw material for the development of Jamaican surfing.
In the sixties, when young teenaged rebels were riding the waves of Malibu, Narabeen and Waikiki making surf history, Jamaica also had it's own brave young souls who were riding Boston and Wreck on home made boards fashioned from refrigerator foam laminated with resin and fiber glass drapery cloth with black electrical tape to make "racing stripes" manufactured up on Skyline drive at Wesley Powell's home (Excelsior Principal) where the young shapers almost poisoned themselves with resin and acetone fumes. The young rebels included Cecil Ward, Steve Solomon, Dennis Pigott, Leighton "Pin Head' Powell, Tim "Apache" Chinyee, The Martel brothers from U.S.A., Gordon Cooper, Donnie Soutar, David "Puss" Langdon, Jack and Charley Murray, Nigel Andrade, Terrence "Mush" Muschette, Robbie Epstein, Tony "Tugu" Lancaster, Herbie Sharp, Robin Samms, David Couch, Alfred "Junior" Kong, who had "Royal Store" in Port Antonio, Eddie Chin from CC Bakery where every local surfer would stop by after a long day at Boston for some hot hard dough bread and butter or a bun and cheese and box milk and the late Paul Blades, who's tomb stone at the Stony Hill Cemetery is shaped like a surfboard and has an inscription which reads...."He rode the waves",.
Boston Beach in Portland, for decades well known by tourists for it's pristine white sand beach, crystal clear water and it's notorious "Jerk Pork", was Jamaica's first internationally recognized surf spot. Visitors to the famous beach witnessed local fishermen returning from sea and "surfing" their boats in on the powerful driving surf rolling into the cove and took the news back to eager ears. Surfers returned to ride the waves, dropping in and sliding left as the fat peak wedged off the outside rock, or charging the thick right on the other side of the tiny protected bay. When these surfers went home, sometimes they would leave their boards behind with locals like Riggley, Morton and Buju, Jamaica's first black surfers, and thus began the Jamaican surf story.
Since those early days, Jamaican surfing has evolved through a number of developmental stages. First was the "before there were boards" era (pre 60's), the "Long Board" or before there were leashes era (60's - early 70's), the "Bungie chord" or "Short Board" era (70's), the "multi-fin" era (80's) and the "High Tech" era (90's - present).
Back in the early days, the "Wreck" was the prime south coast surf spot. Situated on the Palisadoes peninsula, the Wreck got it's name from the poor unfortunate cargo vessel which misguidedly ran aground in the late 1950's, forming a groin-like set up, off which perfect 200 yard long lefts would mechanically peel to the beach. Today however, the Wreck has become a victim of the very waves it helped to create, and is now no more than a submerged heap of rusting metal. Scratch one break!
The decade of the 70's saw many new faces in Jamaican surfing. Along with myself, there was Randy Cargil, Douglas "Nix" Hutchinson, Pat Talbot, Sean Bourke, Ricky "Pearl" Mafood and Pedro Flora. The waves of Lightbourne Corner, Lighthouse, Lollipop, Copa, Nine Mile, Salt Ponds, Roselle, Prospect, Holland Bay, Long Bay and Boston had all been riden by then. But in the summer of '74, the discovery of the decade! The now world famous "Zoo" was "discovered" when David Couch and Terry Muschett paddled out for the first time to sample the clear water, spitting tubes, consistent dependable line-up with the easy go-out. The much steeper, shorter walls of the Zoo, forced local surfers to compress their manuvers. Tube riding skills were honed to razor sharp perfection on the hollow river mouth barrel, resulting in a new more radical brand of Jamaican surfing.
The "discovery" of the Zoo right on our door step, prompted a whole new era of surf exploration on the island throughout the late 70's into the mid 80's. Potential spots which had been identified years previously such as Prospect point, Morant River, Holland Bay, Orange Bay, Rio Grande, Swift River, Spanish River and Buff Bay were surfed for the first times, but all had to play second fiddle to the Zoo which became known as the Jamaican Pipeline, not for the size of the wave, but rather, for it's quality and consistency. The Zoo Was the discovery of the decade!
By the 80's, more new faces had appeared on the scene. People like Piere Diaz, Neil-John Andrade, Julian and Nigel Benjamin, Robert Haughton, Mark Scott, Gary Gregg, Warren Marley, Eugene Miller, Alton Smith and George Cousins. The newcommers surfed most of the established breaks and went on to popularize Peenie Wally and Shark Cove on the North Coast.
The final decade of the old millennium has produced the latest crop of very talented "Tanned Jammies". The new and promising group is made up of a number of second generation Jamaican surfers. The Wilmot Kids, Ishack, Inilek and Icah or "The Rats" as they have come to be known, the Chinyee boys, Daniel and Charles, and Justin and Scott Murray. Other "freshers" included Drum Drummond, great grand son of Jamaican national hero Norman Manley, Yves Yearwood, Warren "Beegus" Bailey, Dwayne Walker, Jacquiann Lawton, Luke Williams, Andre Bowman, Joel Lawrence, Kenny Augier, Louis Matalon, David Lee, Alton Smith and Omar Atkinson. A few new spots were were also ridden for the first time in the 90's such as Makka, Prospect middle reef and Yallahs River. The 90's also saw the founding of the Jamaica Surfing Association, which has brought the sport to the attention of the general public, winning fans and encouraging participants through it's publicity drive and national contests.
The New Millenium is here and now a sport that was not even thought to exist in Jamaica is slowly clawing it's way to the surface and every day new and exciting developments unfold. New faces are seen in the line up. Male and female young and old. Jamaica has been represented at the past two Wirld Surfing Games and the last Pan American Surfing Games. New spots have been ridden and old ones lost in the recent spate of hurricanes that have unleashed their fury on the Caribbean. The world famous Zoo was anhialated by the torrential rains and thirty foot seas associated with Hurricane Ivan, but not before Billy Wilmot caught the largest wave in recorded Jamaican surf history. There is good news however for longboarders who had very few options in Jamaica prior to Ivan. The whole Palisadoes peninsula has come alive with countless spots begging for a 9'6" Robert August.
The full potential of Jamaica's surf is still to be realized. Jamaica has had a long and rich surfing history which is still being drafted today by the young bloods of the Jamaican surfing fraternity who will lead the charge into the next era of Jamaican wave riding!
~ ~ ~ ~ To be continued ~ ~ ~ ~ |