IPNews-Monrovia,Liberia-15 August 2018: In just the latest surf edit from global news titan British Broadcasting Corporation titled, “Loving Liberia’s Wild Surf Waves,” the West African nation is projected to be the “next surfing hotspot.”
In ever increasing numbers, locals have been paddling out at some of the country’s consistent left points. With a well-covered civil war 15 years in the rearview mirror, and a recent Ebola outbreak curbed, the BBC expects traveling surfers will soon be joining them in the lineup.
The tight-knit surf community featured in the news story above shares boards left behind by surfers because there’s not enough for everyone. In the DIY spirit of an emerging surf scene, Liberian surfers apparently even knit homemade leashes for their hand-me-down boards. And just as every surf spot has its mores and pecking order, the Liberian grooms only get waves if they’ve gone to school for the day. Based on their enthusiasm for surfing seen in the short, and the waves they have access to, it doesn’t look like these youth will be going truant anytime soon.
SURFER went to Liberia a couple years ago, you may remember. After scoring a long left runner at Cottons in Robertsport, South African goofy Simon Fish said, “It’s like Snapper on your forehand!”
The BBC is no stranger to the surf edit, either. They’ve covered a doctor teaching Pakistani kids how to make DIY surf craft, the sprouting of a domestic surf industry in Senegal, too.
