Читать книгу Empire in Waves. A Political History of Surfing онлайн

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And yet, for a number of surfers, the distant trip to Hawai‘i was not enough. Surfing was increasingly about the search, the journey, the discovery. In this vein, a number of young men (and it was almost exclusively men) set out to chart something of the littoral world. Their voyages were not the “Grand Tours” of previous centuries. Yes, they revolved around pleasure. And yes, they dripped with the trappings of empire. But those undertaking the journeys were not generally members of the landed elite, their itineraries were fluid, and the object of their gaze was not the patrimony of the West. These were young men looking for waves, most often in relatively untouristed destinations, and they relished their cultural exchanges along the way. The discoveries were undoubtedly important to them, but “the search”—as the wetsuit and apparel maker Rip Curl later designated an influential advertising campaign—was just as significant. These were essentially backpackers with boards, seeking out those quieter parts of the planet where they might be alone—or close to it—with the locals and the ocean. And like their backpacker counterparts, wandering surfers were, as Peter Troy put it, “always trying to enter the life of [those] locals.”⁸