Origins of the paddle-out ceremony

My essay is part literary journalism and part memoir. The main narrative traces the origins of the paddle-out ceremony by following the surfers who developed this unique tradition in the late 1970s. The creation of the ceremony reveals an important aspect of surf culture: not only honouring a select group within the culture – big-wave riders – but enacting a mutual desire for cultural unity between Hawaiians and Californians. The ceremony also charts the growth of surfers over the past few decades from countercultural figures to community-minded activists. Paddle-out ceremonies have been held to support such varied causes as Vietnam veterans in Southern California, the protection of dolphins in Japan, and saving Kirra Point in Australia. A complementary narrative (the memoir aspect) tracks my realisation as a writer trained in Western scholarly traditions that I would have to acknowledge the limitations of textual evidence – the written word – if I was to understand a ceremony that began in a culture that relies on oral histories to carry on their traditions. My goal in writing this essay is to try and reflect the cultural unity that created the paddle-out ceremony by combining written and oral histories that evoke key aspects of surf culture identity.