100 miles to the sea

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The waves are calling.

Continuing from the previous article, I would like to introduce some of Yoshio Kataoka’s surfing novels. First, “The Wave Calls“.

There’s a movie theater over there,” Yukio said. The main street of the small country town was filled with bright sunlight in the middle of March. Everything seemed to stand out clearly in the brightness. Spring had definitely begun… I was surprised to see a wave behind the actress in the movie I saw at the cinema. I was amazed by the wave I saw behind the actress in the movie I saw in the theater. “A perfect tube ran across the screen from right to left. When it appeared on the right edge of the CinemaScope screen, the wave was already a perfect tube. The wave, which was at least eight feet high according to Takashi’s measurements, fell forward and arched up into the air, creating an incredibly beautiful and straightforward tube that ran from right to left…

In order to find this wave, I asked the company that made the film and wrote to the actress who had played the lead role. In her reply, she wrote the address of a small island that was reached by ferry from Kagoshima. He sells his motorcycle and leaves his girlfriend behind, and they head for the island. When they arrive at the island, they carry their boards over the mountain to the beach on the other side of the island. There, on an empty beach, is a perfect tube, just like the one you saw on the movie screen.

There was a land breeze that blended well with the power of the rising waves. Waves that had risen to the limit of their height would trap the wind in a wall that gaped inward. Beaten by the wind, the slope of the wave looked like a wall of water with a smooth texture. The wall of water rising up from under the board, just to the right of his face, continued to head towards the ceiling at a rapid pace. He glided inside an elliptical space set up at an angle, surrounded by a wall of water that was a pale blue with sunlight blending in…

I once monopolized the waves in the ocean just after a typhoon had passed. The rain and wind had stopped and the sun was shining, and I was the only one in the usually crowded sea, speeding down the slope of the hard wave without being disturbed. This book reminded me of the elated feeling I had at that time.

100 miles to the sea

Next up is “100 Miles to the Sea.”

This book is a collection of photographs and dialogues about the sea by Hideaki Sato and Yoshio Kataoka, first published in 1981. In their conversation centering on the “sea,” the then 41-year-old Yoshio Kataoka and 38-year-old Hideaki Sato talk about the birth of the sea, its components, the science behind the creation of waves, and other topics. They use the word “surfer” but do not say “surfing. They say “surfers,” but not “surfing.” They say that the very act of “riding a wave” has meaning.

One of their topics of conversation is the story of the surfing of the white-winged teal and migratory birds.

Hundreds of thousands of them fly over the sea like a white cloud on a sunny afternoon in May to cross from island to island, and when they get tired, they perch on the waves in groups and rest. They would then rest in groups on the waves, with one of their two wings on the wave and the other upright, enjoying the wind as if they were windsurfing.

Migratory birds also enjoy surfing the waves, as do the white-winged blackbirds, which, when resting on the ocean, float a twig they have been carrying in their arms like a long board and ride the waves.

When surfing, they often surf with fish swimming in the waves.

There is surfing as a natural activity.

In the next article, we will discuss “Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast,” a memoir by Daniel Duane describing his life surfing in California.