A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Sandy and vaguely sinister diamond-rich country in southwestern Africa, bordered by Angola to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the southeast, with a 950-mile Atlantic-facing coast. French journalist and surf photographer Arnaud de Rosnay, while working on a diamond mining story for 

 magazine in 1968, reported seeing a "surfer's paradise" of empty waves in southern Namibia. He discovered that a few of the miners were also surfers, but weren't allowed in the water because it was assumed they would hide gems in their surfboards. To guard against diamond theft, much of Namibia's coast, particularly in the south, is still patrolled by dogs, boats, and planes, and lined with electric fences.

"Namibia" means "land of no people," a fair description for a gray and desolate coastline, dotted with shipwrecks, that averages 340 days of fog per year. Air temperatures range from freezing to 95; ocean temperatures, lowered by the chilly Benguela Current, drop to the mid-50s in winter, and rarely get higher than 68 in summer. White sharks feed on the coast's enormous seal population. Most of the accessible surf breaks are located around the resort town of Swakopmund, near the center of Namibia's coastline, and six to 10-foot waves are common here from May to September. The surf drops off during the rest of the year, and is often windblown. The first surf spot in Namibia to attract a local following is a pointbreak called Guns a long, steep, perfectly shaped left 12 miles south of Swakopmund. More high-quality pointbreaks are found 80 miles north on the Fur Seal Reserve at Cape Cross, and dozens of other spots up and down the coast are either undiscovered or kept secret. "If you don't mind surfing alone in the kind of chilly waters that scream WHITE SHARK," California surfer/shaper/writer Dave Parmenter wrote of Namibia in 1994, "and if you don't object to the odd X-ray and personal body search, this place is for you."

The Namibia Surfing Association was formed in 1996, and later that year staged the first Namibia National Surfing Championships. Two years later the country sent a team of surfers to the biannual World Surfing Games. In 2008, the surfing world was shocked by the discovery of Skeleton Bay, a grinding, thumping lefthand pointbreak on Namibia's Skeleton Coast that dishes out some of the longest and deepest tuberides on the planet. A product of 

magazine's Google Earth Challenge, Skeleton Bay was found by California surfer Brian Gable after months of searching with Google Earth software for an undiscovered quality break. 

sent Gable and a small coterie of pro surfers and photographers to sample the wave in the summer of 2008; accompanying pro Cory Lopez was videoed slinking through the best barrel of his life, and a star wave was born.

The Namibian surf has been featured in dozens of webclips and a small number of surf movies and videos including 

Namibia

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

Encyclopedia of Surfing