by Nik Peachey 尼克.皮奇著
"I've spent most of my entire life surfing, the rest I've wasted." (Anonymous) 我一生中的大多数时间都在冲浪，其他时间都浪费了！（匿名）
It seems that the oceans of the world have become many things to many different people. For some the ocean is a source of food and income, for others a source of inspiration and fascination, for some a beautiful garden with hidden depths to explore and for others a dumping ground for their toxic waste, but of all people the ones that probably appreciate, admire and perhaps even understand the changing landscape of the ocean best are surfers. 似乎这世上的海洋对于不同的人来说，意味着很多东西。对一些人来说，海洋是食物和收入的来源，对其他人来说，海洋是灵感和魅力的来源，对一些人来说，海洋是一个可以探索的深幽的美丽花园，对其他人来说，海洋是一个有毒废物的倾倒场，但能够最好地欣赏，赞美，甚至是了解海洋风景变化的人是冲浪者。
Surfing, which is thought to have originated among the Polynesian peoples of the Hawaiian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, has been around for quite some time. The earliest recorded account of it was made in the journal of Captain King, a contemporary of Captain Cook, in 1779, but there are pictures of surfers carved into volcanic rock that are thought to date back much further. Surfing was regarded by the Polynesians as the sport of kings. The Chiefs used surfing and other Hawaiian sports to display their strength and agility and even the types of wood used for the boards was determined by the person’s rank in society. 人们认为冲浪是太平洋夏威夷群岛的波里尼西亚人发明的。关于冲浪，最早的纪述是1779年，来自于现代版的库克船长--国王船长的日记中。但火山岩上发现的冲浪者雕像，使得冲浪的起源被追溯得更远。波里尼西亚人视冲浪为国王的运动。族长通过冲浪和其他夏威夷的运动来展示力量和敏捷的身手，甚至用做冲浪板不同种类木材，也由一个人的社会地位所决定。
Nowadays the hierarchy between surfers is determined more by their courage and none are more courageous than the surfers who brave the jaws of Maui, where 20ft is considered an average sized wave and big can go up as high as 60 or 70 ft. The huge waves of Maui are created by a mixture of unusual circumstances. There is a huge ridge deep below the sea's surface that was created by the lava flow from a volcano. This combined with the presence of a reef not far to the north of the island and swells created by winter storms some two thousand miles away in the Aleutian Islands can create the kind of waves that make a surfer's heart race. The people who regularly surf there are almost religious about the spot and they frequently monitor weather forecasts and wave readings from buoys for days in advance to calculate when the best conditions will be. A ride on the jaws of Maui can last less than half a minute, but for surfers who fail to keep pace with the 25 mile an hour waves extreme danger awaits. Trapped inside a wave they can become totally disorientated with little sense of which direction takes them up to the surface. They also have only seconds to head for the safe zone of calm water before being crushed by the next big wave. A British surfer who had this experience described the sensation as like having your whole body pulled in every possible direction at once. 现今，冲浪者的等级更多是由他们的勇气所决定的。没有人比敢于面对毛伊岛的魔爪的冲浪者更勇敢，毛伊岛的海浪的平均高度是20英尺高，最高的可达60至70英尺。巨浪是独特环境的融合所造就的，海平面深处有一个巨大的海脊，那是火山的熔岩流形成的，海脊把离毛伊岛北部不远处的暗礁和两千多英里外的阿留申群岛上冬季风暴所造就的隆起地连接在一起，成就了可以让冲浪者惊心动魄的巨浪。经常冲浪的人对这个冲浪点很谨慎。他们往往会花几天时间通过浮标监测天气预报和海浪信息，事先计算好最佳的冲浪时间。冲浪者可以在毛伊岛的狭口上漂浮的时间不到半分钟，对于那些跟不上时速25英里的海浪的冲浪者来说，等待他们的将是极大的危险。如若困在海浪里，他们将完全迷失方向，不知哪个方向可以将他们带出水面，在下一波巨浪来袭之前，他们也仅有几秒钟的时间朝静水安全区奔去。一个有经验的英国冲浪者描述，那种感觉就像你全身同时被拖动且朝向各个不同的方向。
The idea of surfing, however, with its images of sun-tanned youths and tropical beaches, has always seemed to me somehow at odds with the weather and culture of the UK, yet nothing could be further from the truth. The UK, being a collection of islands, has no shortage of coastline and rugged seas and is reported to have an active surfing community of some 250,000. Most of the surfing centres around Croyde Bay in North Devon and Fistral Beach in Cornwall. It was in fact, at Fistral Beach in 1989, where the world record for the most surfers on one board was broken, when 12 surfers rode on a 37-ft longboard. Britain was also home to the first ever University degree course in surfing to be offered and even has its own surfing film. 'Blue Juice', which was filmed in the south west of Britain, is a light hearted tribute to the lifestyle of Britain's surfers and counts Welsh girl Catherine Zeta Jones and Ewan McGregor among its cast. The lifestyle and the people it portrays are very different from the stereotypes of muscular bronzed young men listening to The Beach Boys as they wax their boards, but beneath the surface it is clear that there is still a common link that runs between them and that is their love and admiration of life and the sea. 冲浪给人的印象是在热带沙滩皮肤晒得黝黑的年轻人，对我来说，总觉得冲浪跟英国的文化和天气不大一样。然而，事实并非如此。英国是由许多岛屿组成的，并不缺乏海岸线和汹涌澎湃的海浪。据报道，英国有25万个活跃的冲浪社区。大多数的冲浪点都集中在北德文郡的克罗伊登湾和康沃尔郡的费司球沙滩附近，事实上，1989年费司球沙滩上，一块37英尺的长冲浪板上站了12个人，打破了一块冲浪板上能站多人的世界纪录。英国也是第一个提供冲浪课程大学学历的国家，甚至还拍有自己的冲浪影片，英国西南部所拍摄的电影《蓝汁》，是对英国冲浪者生活方式轻松愉快的赞美，威尔士女孩凯瑟琳.泽塔.琼斯和尤恩.麦格雷戈也出演其中。它所描绘的人和生活方式，跟那些老套的黝黑肌肉男青年一边听着《沙滩男孩》，一边个给自己的冲浪板打蜡的形象很不一样，但很明显他们之间仍有一点共同的关联，那就是他们对生活和海洋的热爱和赞美。
来源：英国使馆文化教育处
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