Does anybody surf?

I was watching a program about shark attacks in Ixtapa/Zihuentenejo area of Mexico in 2008. Pretty interesting gory stuff. Bottom line, you will never get me on a surf board, I don't care what the odds are. All it takes is one horrific event and the chumb around me will not be of fish gutts and or chicken blood. I'd probably drown from fright. I don't want the thought of having my feet dangling from a surf board only to be placed into a meat grinder and then having to swim the gauntlet back to the beach before you bleed out or get hit again on a return bite.


Well, they were mentioning early surf boarders in Hawaii with depictions, you can see on the internet. I just can't place surf boarding in the 1700's or even 1000 years ago polynesians riding on waves on a plank of wood. Is that cool or what? So even King Kamehameha was supposedly a very skilled surfer. Imagine a piece of plank giving you a ride over a portion of the ocean. These had no fins so apparantly the plank slid from left to right at times and could only ride straight. But these Hawaiian surfers made their own boards from Breadfruit trees and took alot of pride in their boards by letting it dry in the sun, then putting coconut oil on it to perserve the wood. How cool is this? I wonder if they used canoes to get ditched out there to ride the waves, or did they paddle it like the do today over the waves, and I also wonder how many of those guys lost a limb or two surfing to the sharks. Does anyone know?