A wavelength in scientific terms, is the space between waves. For surfer’s a wavelength can describe the lull in between the set, which is when the largest waves come. Yet another way we can apply the notion of a wavelength to surfing is to see surfers as the wavelength. It is the surfers who fill the space between the waves.
Surfing to me has always been equally about the waves and the surfers. This is because I grew up in the Highland Park and Silver Lake sections of Los Angeles. On a good day, my closest surf spot was a thirty-minute drive through LA traffic.
Maybe that’s why I felt like an outsider from the time I started surfing. It wasn’t just a feeling.
My mom reminded me a little while ago how, when I was learning to surf at Topanga (I’ve either forgotten or blocked it out), I was yelled at and chased from the water on numerous occasions. Why should one of my first lessons about surfing have been how unpleasant it can be in a line-up?
As I grow older, I have begun to wonder about the unmistakable coldness in the water amongst surfers, especially if you are perceived as an outsider.
This aspect of surfing has gone undiscussed in surfing culture: the space between waves, between the world of insiders who have been surfing their whole lives at a particular break and outsiders who did not grow up there and only seek to enjoy it.
Perfect waves are well documented and even being created artificially in wave pools around the world. What isn’t being documented is the imperfect space between the waves — and between surfers. That will be the point of “The Wavelength” — to shift the conversation about surfing from the waves themselves to the wavelength between them.
The Wavelength 