http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?t=53588&page=1&pp=15
If you are interested in bodysurfing/freediving you should check out this thread. It discusses bodysurfing inside the wave as opposed to on the wave. Patrick
Patrick-
Thanks for sharing that link! Very interesting to read that forum’s discussion about dolphins, and human “subsurfing”, riding waves underwater.
“Noa”, a DeeperBlue.net forum member asked…
“is there anybody else out there doing this. I really think that there must be, it’s imposible that no one else has thought of this and tried it. If you are out there i want to know, i want to communicate, this is too fun to not share”
That question has been answered and documented…
Over 8 years in the making, the incredible experience of surfing with wild dolphins… from a dolphin’s point of view. A 35mm film by George Greenough.
Dale,
As I was reading the thread, one of my first thoughts was, George Greenough must have experienced the same feeling noa speaks of. Otherwise, it is unlikely he could have obtained some of the photos he has published in the past. The perspective of some of the photos I have viewed seem to require both knowledge of a waves interior energy and of the dolphins use of this force.
I found the thread particularly interesting in that it brought together a number of folks from around the world, all of whom are approaching, mostly by themselves, wave riding from a different point of view. Rather than riding a wave they are getting inside the wave to experience the energy. To me they appear as pure watermen/persons - no way to show off when no one can see them. With the exceptions of Greenough and Hamilton no photos of this activity exist - and they would both certainly qualify as watermen.
By the way, thanks for pointing out the movie Dolphin Glide. I will definitely check it out. Hope the mats are doing well. I would bet some of those subsurfers would be very interested since the mats are so in tune to the waves energy.
Take care.
Patrick
howdy! I remember seeing a surf flick in the late 70s when I was a kid and there was a part where a guy was riding inside the wave like that, it was tropical water so you could see him, I was amazed as was my brother, so we gave it a whirl. Ive been doing it ever since. Most of the waves I get to body surf now are close out beachbreak, and my favorate thing to do is takeoff from in the wave,(just dive in the base of the wave as it stands up)get momentum, and the wave will eject you out the face , you can actually catch air! Letting out a loud yell adds to the fun, speciallly when you hit the water!!!
George Greenough:
"Once I decided to shoot 35mm, I wound up having to pull one of my Mitchell cameras to bits and rebuild it into the shape where it looks like a tuna now, or maybe a baby dolphin-- very streamlined. If I’d left the camera in its original form, I wouldn’t have been able to bodysurf like a dolphin. I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the wave…
"In some of the scenes you can see dolphins that are moving with the wave just like surfers. Once I’ve caught the wave there’s so much pressure involved… But once you get in the right place in the wave it will draw you along with it, even though you’re fully underwater. And that’s basically the position I was putting the camera in. I was catching the wave and riding it underwater with the camera held out ahead of me. I also have a boat which I can run in the surfline with the camera suspended from an underwater camera crane…
"At times the camera is only inches below and behind the surface of the wave. If you watch dolphins surfing, they are very, very close to the surface… The dolphins themselves seem quite interested in what I’m doing. They’ve come up and talked to me while I was underwater swimming with the camera…
“It’s the lighting that makes it-- when you’re out there surfing with the dolphins, right around sunset, you wonder why they go nuts at that time of day, then you see the colors that occur underwater. And to think they’re gliding along through those colors with that feeling of no resistance. While I’m out there with forty pounds of camera gear, kicking my guts out to get going on a wave-- they’re just gliding along effortlessly, then one jumps through the face of the wave six feet into the air and disappears from my field of vision…”
Excerpt from “Dolphin Glide with George Greenough”, The Surfer’s Journal, Summer 1995, Vol. 4, No. 2.
Awsome posts from everyone.
After seeing ‘Laird’ a few years back i tried bodysurfing in the wave like laird and Greenough have been doing with some success but I have to say i do not make it look half as good. pretty fun to do when the waves arn’t barrelling to good too, and definately a different style.
Dale do you have any photos of the camera housing that greenough designed? It would be interesting to see exactly what his ideas are as a picture is worth a thousand words.
LeeD that side of G R gets insane! as does R mouth! Spring time is about that time for choked up sandbars and closeouts! Better hope almighty whitey doesn’t come around llokin dfor lunch. two years ago i was visiting my parents, went up to the rivermouth and watched perfect peeeeeeeling barels commin through on the inside were seals playing in the shorebreak and catching salmon as big as my thigh as they tried to go upstream! I opted for something else
I like the idea of those sandal boards Poobah. Are those yours or do you just have pics. Are they flexible? That is the problem i have with a lot of handboards is that i want it stiff enough to get a strong pull, but i like a lot of flex while body surfing. Makes it so you don’t have to be sooo concious of diggin in the sides or pushing too hard on your hands.
Went to sandys yesterday. building SE swell, N winds, glassy conditions, and rights with a punishing end section in front of the life guard tower onto the rocks!
Keep this post alive
In one of the nofriends movies (bodyboarding) They filmed ross mcbride bodysurfing teahupo in the manner described it was really cool i geuss they wave is to step to bodysurf the face
Hydrosportz.com has a handboard for sale online. if anyone wants to check it out and let me know what they think of it …also anyone use the Redwings handboard.
i got this little spot where i bodysurf when the lifegaurds take their flags down in the afternoon and all the swimmers get out. ive been fine tuning and getting some ok rides but sometimes i feel i need a little extra speed to run through the sections. cant wait for the banks to get into shape there.
hey also check out the Monofins from the forum link on the first page of this thread. specialfins.com one big ass fin shaped like a dolphins tail…
those handboards look almost identical to the hand guns that i was talking about in an earlier post that they make out of southern california. I am not sure if the size and bouyancy is the same though.
The one that i tried was extremely bouyant and you could literally lift your whole upper body out of the wave with it. Didn’t work so good in shorebreak hwere it would suck out hard because of the size and awkwardness, but on mushy days at makapu or beach park where it would be a slow mushball before hitting the closeout section it was great. had speed over flat spots like i was on a bodyboard. Really fun, but didn’t feel like bodysurfing, felt like something else in between.
Use a Mono fin for a few monthes and you’ll have the most ripped six pack ever!
when i was a grommet while bodysurfing, i used to use the aussie classic “THONG” or jandal which seemed to work fine at the time. still remember some of the barrels .actually made a few to, on my thong.
Quote:
I like the idea of those sandal boards Poobah. Are those yours or do you just have pics. Are they flexible? That is the problem i have with a lot of handboards is that i want it stiff enough to get a strong pull, but i like a lot of flex while body surfing. Makes it so you don’t have to be sooo concious of diggin in the sides or pushing too hard on your hands.
Skeletor,
I got the photo of the sandal handboards off the web. As I recall the guy said they were purchased in Hawaii in the eighties. I'd like to know who made them and how many.
Silly Paul,
you stumped me with the term jandal, and I bet most Yanks wouldn't know either. A Google search yielded:
“All the evidence points towards New Zealand, where Maurice Yock invented the jandal in 1957. There isn’t any evidence of Australians producing anything thong-like before Dunlop in the '60s.”
Perhaps since they had it first, it might have been New Zealanders that first put their spongy jandals to the face of a wave.
ah it was the kiwis to blame, little did mr yock know of the future generations of fashion victims to follow his breakthrough in impractical footware.Listen if you can to the Flap Flap sound surounding you in all beer gardens shopping centers and footpaths of queensland beachside towns.travel further south to to colder climes and witness further pedestrian nightmares and smelly feet of those that wear the famous “UGG BOOT”(not sure if that is short for ugly ? could be an eskimo word i guess.)jandals had a thicker sole by the way and are less inclined to stick tonorth queensland bitumen.I think they also were the better perforner in the surf than the thong as they are a bit stiffer with more planing area they cost about 6$ when iwas a kid, so a cheap surf vehicle if you couldnt afford a morey boogie.
cheers
when did uggs become women clothing i have had a pair first my dads old holey ones for two years then a nice new Austrialan made pair and all the stupid girls in my school have em and i have to were normal shoes cuz my sister is to embarassed when i were them
I made a fine looking handboard. In fact, I posted it on this website. I worked very hard on it. I took four by eighteen inch balsa strips that were 1/16 thick, glued them together, added rocker, let it dry, shaped it meticulously, sanded it for days, glassed it, sanded, glass, sand, sand, sand, polish. It was beautiful.
Here’s the link: http://www.swaylocks.com/resources/detail_page.cgi?ID=942
Worked like crap!
I have no idea why. Of course, I haven’t taken it out in bigger surf yet, just three foot junk. Maybe it needs speed.
Doubt it.
The best handboard I ever used, back when I weighed about 130 as a kid, was a cedar shingle from the side of my house. I’m not kidding. I tore it off (pissed off dad) and it worked great. The best part was when it came loose and hit tourists. It only worked once. We left them at the beach.
I finally got around to taking some pictures of my hand board. For this style of hand hold you have to pad out the front for a tight fit or else water sprays up from the hole. The pad also saves the knuckles. This thing is big enough to grab a rail and ride two handed. Painted it red to look like those kick boards. The fins work for holding you in. Only problem is you can’t run people over with the fins.
Edit: The pictures didn’t work so I deleted them so nobody else will waste time trying to see them.
Sorry about that Skeletor and others. My pictures were too much data for Swaylocks to accept so I cropped them down in a different program, now they can’t be read. Not sure what else to try, the camera is already on its lowest resolution. I’ll see what I can do tonight.
whats up KOKO I can’t read the pic files. What is the format? Can you repost in Bitmap or JPEG. Mahalos
download this thing called Irfanview, it shrinks pictures. i have the same trouble with any photos i want to post on here. i seriously have to work the things to get them to an acceptable size. but they do eventually come down
If you just use the paint program in your accesories file it works fine. click on sketch/skew in the image menu at the top. I usually have to shrink mine to about 30%. thanks for changing the pics, can’t wait to see what you are using.