Surfers Stoked on Surf, Sun & Guinness Record!
Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel
Surfers around the globe from Hawaii to California, Chile
and Brazil, Spain, Portugal and France, South Africa, Australia and other surf
spots turned out to celebrate International Surfing Day and the Summer
Solstice (June 20).
Created by the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation and Surfing
magazine in 2005, ISD honors the great sport of surfing with paddle-outs, beach
cleanups, surfing lessons, environmental education activities, music and more.
This year Huntington Beach, CA (Surf City USA)
definitely went for more! A Guinness World Record!
Already in the Guinness World Record Book for its Epic
Big Board Ride (the world's largest surfboard with the most people riding
it – 66) in 2015 and Making the Most S'mores (with 423 people making
s'mores at HB's fire pits) in 2016, HB went for a three-peat.
The Surfing Circle
of Honor – the world’s largest paddle-out on record.
Diana Dehm, Executive Director of the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum, who came up with the
idea for the paddle-out, told SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel,
"The Surfing Circle of Honor is a way for us to honor the surfing culture
and heritage and celebrate that surfing is going to be included in the 2020 Olympic
Summer Games."
A paddle-out ceremony – when surfers paddle out into the
ocean together and form a ring with their surfboards to honor another surfer –
is the highest accolade that can be given. So, this was the perfect way to
celebrate ISD and Huntington Beach's support for the Olympics.
When the moment came to connect all the surfboards in one
giant ring, 511 surfers reached out and
grabbed each other’s hand, holding on for one
minute. They became one living being floating on the water….and earned the
Guinness World Record.
It was a larger-than-life image to see – the size of two football fields – and a tribute to surfing that won't be forgotten.
Basking in the sunshine of the first day of summer, surfers
around the world did more than soak up the rays at this year’s ISD. They came
together to give back to the ocean and to preserve its beauty.
During the last decade over 1 million participants in more than 30 countries
have held over 200 ISD events and cleared over 20 tons of trash from the beach.
SurfWriter Girls
can't think of a better way to share the stoke!
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Comments will appear the next day.
Sunny Magdaug and
Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material.
Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com
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as long as credit is given.
