African Echo

Twenty-eight years after Great Britain and the United States of America banned the slave trade (though the U.S. legislation would not go into effect until a year later), Scottish soldier and author James Edward Alexander sailed around the coast of West Africa and into the Gulf of Guinea aboard the Thalia with some 300 other personnel. A prolific writer, he documented his travels along the way in what later became two volumes titled: Narrative of a Voyage of Observation Among Colonies of Western Africa, in the Flagship Thalia; and of a Campaign in Kaffir-land, On the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief in 1835.

Passing by Senegal and on around to Sierra Leone and Liberia, Alexander described the early harmattan season, writing of “tornado[es]” and red dust in the sails, including the specific detail of a locust landing on deck. Among other depictions of seagoing life and venturing ashore on occasion to visit with compatriots, he shared his antidote for maintaining good physical and mental health: 

“By eating very little animal food,” he wrote, “avoiding grease and strong liquors, but indulging in a half a bottle of porter or pale ale at dinner, and daily ablutions with salt and fresh water, I preserved my health and spirits perfectly, without any medicine. On fine nights, I preferred sleeping, in blue jacket and trousers, with a veil over my head and face, on a mat between two stern chasers on the upper deck, or in the hammock nettings, to my cabin. There is a feeling of liberty in sleeping on deck, which to me is very delightful, with the fresh sea breeze and serene tropical sky studded with gems to gratify and soothe the senses.”

Continuing along the southern coast of West Africa, the Thalia passed by Elmina, where the Dutch at that time maintained jurisdiction of the former slave castle sitting on Ghana’s “Gold Coast,” so named for its mineral riches. A little farther east in the Gulf of Guinea, the ship arrived at the British-controlled Cape Coast Castle, in what Alexander had then considered to be Accra. He went on land, and while there, made the following observation: “From the beach, meanwhile, might be seen boys swimming into the sea, with light boards under their stomachs. They waited for a surf; and then came rolling in like a cloud on top of it. But I was told that sharks occasionally dart in behind the rocks, and ‘yam’ them.” 

Fascinated by this narrative, I dug deeper, wanting to know if there were other accounts of indigenous West African surfing. There were, on the internet, in French and German languages with English translations. But I was unable to verify them concretely nor access the original sources. For me, there was a gap, but the research trail did not end there.

More than a hundred years after Alexander scribed about Ghanaians riding waves for leisure, Ben R. Finney, a University of Hawaii anthropology graduate student, began researching the history of surfing. In 1966, along with James D. Houston, he published in Surfing: The Sport of Hawaiian Kings. “With one exception,” they wrote, “moreover, it is doubtful that wave-riding as a popular recreation existed anywhere beyond Oceania before the 19th Century. That one exception is the West Coast of Africa, in the areas of Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and Ghana. Near Dakar, Senegal, for example, African youths and young fisherman regularly bodysurf, ride bodyboards, and catch waves while standing erect on boards about six feet long. These Atlantic skills seem in no way connected with the Pacific, either historically or prehistorically. Evidently, it’s an old pastime in West Africa…The African sport grew independently on the other side of the world…”

With every passport stamp entered, more questions arise as each day passes in an unfamiliar place, often times leading us to seek additional information and knowledge so that our understanding of where we are visiting and/or living becomes deeper. The first time I visited West Africa in 2005, I made stops at both Elmina and Cape Coast to better understand my country’s history and its role in the African slave trade, as well as that of African and global history. At the time, I had not known of Alexander’s narratives, but I had seen The Endless Summer, which included stops in Dakar, Senegal, and Accra, Ghana.

Taking a break from touring the slave castles on that trip, I watched as fishermen guided their boats to ride waves onto Kokrobite beach in the early afternoon sunshine. A few kids played in the shorebreak, some of them bodysurfing. I joined them and it was smiles all around. I had assumed, then, that when considering their livelihoods and proximity to the Atlantic, surfing, whether it was body, or board, was simply an activity that had been commonplace for Africa’s coastal fishing communities. If fishing was a daily activity, would it not make sense that humans would be in the water too, and that the curious, the adventurous, the fun-seekers, might look at each other and say, “wanna surf?” My assumption was entirely unscientific, influenced by my own perceptions of learned reality and a bit of romanticism. 

I later learned that Finney’s research offered such proof to my assumption. Meanwhile, The Endless Summer told us a different story, suggesting that surfing was something not seen before in West Africa. Maybe semantics are at play here, meaning that surfing, as understood from a Hawaiian and/or Californian historical perspective, was an introduction provided by Bruce Brown, Mike Hynson, and Robert August. But would it be more accurate to say that “western” style surfboard riding had not been seen prior to 1963, the year of their surf journey, in West Africa? Do we need to be that precise in our language?

This past summer, I spent a week in Dakar. While there, a morning freed up in my schedule and I decided to check out N’gor Right, the wave made famous in The Endless Summer. Too shallow that day for bodysurfing, especially with me having zero knowledge of the rocky reef below, I sat on a small boulder on the cliff above the ocean and watched as European and African surfers waited patiently for the occasional set to roll in. Chatting with the owner of a local surf tour operator, I learned that surfing, as he and I understood the term, was still new in Senegal, and that most Senegalese surfers would be considered beginners. What’s more, N’gor Right is the only consistent year-round wave between Morocco and Liberia, and the high season is October to May, when Europeans want to escape the colder months up north. When asked if people want to surf Dakar because they had seen it in the film, he said, without hesitation, that travelers and tourists alike, even people who do not surf, want to take a picture with the wave.

A few evenings that week, while walking along the corniche, I saw Dakarois swimming and bodysurfing at their beaches. Back at home in San Diego, reflecting on those walks, and thinking of Alexander’s writings from 1835 and Finney’s research, I began to redefine my understanding of surf history—that it need not have a common nascent point, i.e. Hawaii. At the same time, there was no doubt, to me, that The Endless Summer had influenced the West Africa surf scene. Surf shops, camps, touring companies, and hotels abound, more than ever before, in Senegal and Ghana, as well as in other West African countries. Additionally, the film’s movie-poster graphic is often displayed at such locales. 

Today I take comfort in these thoughts: In places like Dakar and Kokrobite, native bodysurfers cool themselves at the end of the day, enjoying the ocean. Children grab pieces of wood and bodyboard like they have done for centuries. Fisher people catch waves in their boats after catching the day’s fish. And people with surfboards under their arms, inspired by a surf film, whether they be with passport in hand or walking down the dirt road they grew up on, all coexist in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean of West Africa. Even greater comfort is the thought that, given the historical context, surfing in Africa is resilient and adaptive, like its people. James Murren is the author of Whispers of Honduras: A Peace Corps Experience and Ethiopian Vignettes: Seeing is Believing. When traveling, he seeks out any and all bodysurfing opportunities. He teaches environmental policy, food politics, and international development at San Diego State University.