🏄‍♀️ Surfing on social media isn’t really surfing 🤔

👋 Happy Thursday & Friday! It’s a busy one! But before we jump in, here’s what I heard not once, not twice, but four times this week when I asked surfers for the best piece of advice they would give or had ever received: “Be kind to yourself.” Because surfing is going to test you in every way imaginable. 😜

🏄‍♀️ Let’s surf:

• Surfing on social media–not really surfing 🤔

• What the heck is overgunned? 💪

• Cloudbreak is a food court wave 🥡

• When the 9-5 just won’t do 🏄🏻‍♀️

• Surf news roundup 🗞️

^SURFODRAMA

😱 Surfing on social media isn’t really surfing 🤔

Do you devour surfing videos on social media like you haven’t eaten for a week? Yeah, me too. Although I am more selective these days about what I take from the footage.

Because watching surfing on social media is not really the surfing you get to enjoy when sitting in the lineup or watching from the beach. It’s awesome for analyzing other surfers’ pop-ups and admiring their footwork.

But the lens tends to focus on an individual surfer rather than the entirety of the surfing experience. And the lens is not facing your local break. As such, you miss out on a lot of juicy and helpful learnings.

Not to worry, here are 7 things to do next time you find yourself in the ocean not catching waves on a crowded day or admiring from the beach.

🏄‍♀️ Board type vs take-off spot
One of the easiest things to learn from watching your local spot is how different boards position themselves in the lineup. Longboards tend to sit wider and farther outside, foamies often hover in unpredictable places because we are beginners, mid-lengths drift somewhere in between, and shortboards cluster right on the peak. None of this is random—it’s dictated by how early a board can engage the wave and how much paddling you need to do.

Watching who catches waves early and who has to scramble teaches you more about board choice than any volume calculator ever could. It’s a great way to adjust expectations for your own board, too.

🚧 Maneuvering around human obstacles
Crowded lineups are a masterclass in human navigation. Watch how experienced surfers avoid collisions without panicking. It’s an art form: small angle changes, slowing down, or committing rather than hesitating. You’ll also see clear differences between surfers who paddle wide to stay out of trouble and those who try to punch straight through. That surely must be personality-driven.

Pay attention to how better surfers magically anticipate beginner mistakes before they happen. They have a built-in “stay away” radar. Watching how people quickly recover after wiping out without blocking the entire lineup is invaluable.

🌊 Will it, won’t it break
This is where watching really pays off. The wave you think is going to break often isn’t the one that does. By sitting back and observing, you’ll start to see patterns: which waves close out instantly, which ones peel, and which ones are just freaks of nature and don’t behave as they’re expected to.

We have an entire guide dedicated to this exercise if you’re interested.

💪 Paddle tactics
Watching stronger surfers paddle is enlightening. They usually start earlier than you expect, but with less panic in their eyes. They don’t seem particularly desperate, making micro-adjustments along the way.

Or you might get lucky and spot some “surf or die” shortboarders who jump on the wave at the very last possible moment, throw half a paddle, and they’re off.

🗣️ Look who’s talking
Most lineups are quiet affairs, but spotting how local surfers signal intent is priceless. Do they shout out “left” or “right” when taking a wave at the same time? Or do they just, you know, know—because they’ve spent so much time in the water with the same people that no words are necessary?

It’s as if you watch the lineup on mute, but so much interaction is completely nonverbal, yet so telling.

🔄 How to get to the back
Getting out the back at any break is rarely about brute force. Watch where surfers enter and exit the water. Do most of them power through or wait for a lull? I read this once and it’s so poetic: the ocean almost always offers a path—you just have to see it.

Currents and rips are another kettle of fish, and you should be aware if that’s a feature of your break before you even step into liquid. Then, you can pay attention to how more experienced surfers navigate them.

😈 Problem kids & happy campers
Every lineup has characters. The snake—that’s the obvious one. The follower who will sit in your chosen spot wherever that spot happens to be. The hugger who rams their body into yours at the takeoff. And that one who is in dire need of an anger management course.

On the flip side, you’ll see who’s clearly having fun. Who laughs after wipeouts, celebrates other people’s waves, and screams “OMG. Yes.” as they catch their wave of the day. Next time, you’ll know who your people are and where to hang out.

Surfing is as much about catching waves and popping up as it is about pattern recognition. And as you become a more skillful pattern spotter, your surfing gets a big boost.

^{WORD OF THE WEEK}

💪 What the heck is overgunned?

Overgunned, according to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, is riding a surfboard that is too big for the prevailing wave conditions. There are two scenarios in which a surfer may become overgunned.

One—as a result of misreading the surf. Let’s say a surfer takes out a bigger board thinking the waves will be 10 feet, but they end up being only 6 feet and they wish they’d brought their faster shortboard.

Two—surfers may overgun tactically and use longer boards and their paddling power to their advantage, especially at longboarding and crowded breaks. You often hear surfers complaining that “this a-hole was sitting so far out and catching all the waves.”

🔫 So what’s a gun anyway
But what’s a gun anyway? It’s a surfboard designed specifically for big-wave surfing. They tend to be long and narrow, with a pointed nose. Not a board you take out on a 2–3 foot day, then.

I guess we could call Pat Curren the father of the big-wave gun. In the early–mid 1950s, Pat started shaping longer, narrower boards so surfers could paddle into and survive much bigger Hawaiian waves, especially at Waimea.

At the time, boards were still wide and bulky—great for cruising, terrible for steep drops. Today’s big guns are something else, and they’re more about refined shape rather than just length. You can get a 7’6” gun, for instance.

🪵 Gun vs longboard
Isn’t a gun just a longboard? Not quite. Longboards are wider, meant to be stable and glide at low speed. Guns, on the other hand, would struggle and feel slow on small waves. But on big waves—woohoo—they go fast.

Needless to say, as a beginner you won’t be coming anywhere close to a gun. And that’s smart.

^{SURF SPOT SPOTLIGHT}

🥡 Cloudbreak is a food court wave

Shortened from “Thunder Cloud Reef”, Cloudbreak is one of the world’s best left-breaking reef waves. Living just next door to the other world’s best left-breaking wave called Restaurants. Both are located in Tavarua, which is a very wee island in Fiji.

The breaks in Tavarua break best from May to October, you get Southern Hemisphere storms driving consistent surf often coupled with offshore winds.

If you thought Restaurants was a fun name, Cloudbreak is split into three sections: the Point (boring), the Middle (boring), Shish Kebabs (hell yeah).

When they link up, you get to ride for 200 yards. As for the height, normally you will be experiencing four to six feet, but it’s still rideable at 18 feet. The water is warm, it’s the tropics after all, high 70s to low 80s.

☁️ Discovering Cloudbreak

Cloudbreak was “discovered” by American yachtsman John Ritter in 1982 who shared his discovery with a surfer friend Dave Clark who later staked out Tavarua for two months.

The spot seemed to good of a business opportunity to pass by, so Dave and his cousin secured what they believed would be exclusive surfing rights to the local breaks and built a private cabin for 24 surfers and called it The Tavarua Surf Resort. By 1984, the circus kicked off, because of course a feature in Surfer mag. And the resort would get booked solid for months in advance.

🐠 The era of “exclusive rights”
The “exclusive” rights to the surf breaks, with added “fishing rights”, have been “tested” for years. For decades, Cloudbreak lived under this strange, semi-privatized system. If you weren’t staying at the exclusive Tavarua resort or on one of the connected islands, you couldn’t surf it. Locals—actual Fijians—were often told they couldn’t surf their own waves. Visiting surfers were openly turned away.

That changed in 2010, when former commander of the military dictatorship in charge of the country at the time Frank Bainimarama issued the Surfing Decree, a national law guaranteeing free access to all waves in Fiji. It was historic. Suddenly, anyone with a boat could surf Cloudbreak and finally locals could surf their home breaks freely.

It worked out for some locals, for sure, but other indigenous owners of the coastlines and seas were cut out–the decree removed their rights to control access to their marine areas and banned other activities from surfing hotspots, like fishing.

So, a new bill is in play today. One that would re-privatize the marine areas, including surf spots like Cloudbreak, and generate direct income for local Fijian communities rather than private resorts.

That’s the intention. Whether it will work that way is the debate.

^{GIRL WHO CHUCKED THE 9-5 FOR SURFING}

🏄🏻‍♀️ When the 9-5 just won’t do: Laurane’s story

Would you be brave enough to leave your old life behind and travel the world with no backup plan, just to find yourself again? We wouldn’t. Too scary.

But that’s exactly what Laurane did. Spoiler: this story has a happy ending.

👉 Read the full story

^{THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY SURF NEWS ROUNDUP}

🗞️ Hawaiʻi grieves. Sydney sharks. San Diego thieves. Scotland surf labs.

🦈 Sydney shaken by shark attacks
Four shark attacks in New South Wales in just 48 hours—three in Sydney—have left surfers rattled, beaches closed, and authorities urging everyone to “wait a few days” or, bluntly, “just go to a pool.”

🚗 Surfers targeted by car thieves in San Diego
In Pacific Beach, thieves are reportedly watching surfers stash keys before paddling out—prompting police and locals to warn: don’t hide keys near your car, use a wetsuit pocket or lockbox.

📏 Surfline’s most important update has nothing to do with forecasts
Surfline’s latest move isn’t a forecast upgrade but an etiquette explainer series, That’s The Way. We just wanted better forecasts!

🏗️ Wave pool watch, this time it’s Scotland
Outside Edinburgh, a former quarry is now Lost Shore Surf Resort—Europe’s largest inland wave pool—doubling as a surf lab researching everything from surf therapy to sustainable wetsuits.

👉 Read the full news roundup

^{ALL THINGS THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY}

_{The Wipeout Weekly—enjoy stories on surf culture, skills and technique, recommended surf spots, and insider tips and tricks. Plus real stories from the lineup.}

_{The Wee Surf Shoppe—explore useful, cute, and sometimes simply outrageous surf “stuffs”.}

_{The Wipeout Weekly podcast—daily surf stories told with a bit of an attitude, plus conversations with our latest podcast guests. Wherever you listen to podcasts.}

_{Girls Who Can’t Surf Good—a global, supportive community for surfers of all ages and levels. 85k members strong private group on Facebook. Sorry, girls only.}

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⬆️ Aaaaaaand that was the last wave of the week!
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