Ancient Hawaii developed the act of waveriding more than 600 years before European contact. When Captain Cook christened the Sandwich Islands in 1778, his ship’s physician Dr. William Anderson noted the act of waveriding in his ship’s log. He described it as what appeared to be a “supreme pleasure.”
It was not an understatement. Pacific Islanders had been catching swells in both Tahiti and Hawaii for centuries. They were led primarily by the island’s sovereigns and their families. Surfing and the Hawaiian nobility are mentioned in almost every story in Polynesian oral tradition. They include feats of daring, romantic interludes, and epic sagas.
