COASTAL OBSERVER

A group of Waccamaw High School athletes competed against Socastee, Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach on Saturday.

But it wasn’t on the football field, the baseball diamond or the basketball court. It was in the Atlantic Ocean.

The school’s surf club competed for the second time since it started in May.

“I just love the community aspect of it all. Bringing everybody together and spreading this sport that really is historic in this town,” said Brody Rainbolt, a Waccamaw senior and the club’s founder. “That’s why I started this. I love this sport.”

The high school competition was at the same time as an Eastern Surfing Association event sponsored by Surf the Earth.

Rainbolt gives surf lessons for Surf the Earth during the summer so he asked his boss, Scott Benston, if they could host a high school competition at the same time as the ESA event. 

“To get such a great turnout is incredible,” Benston said. “I expected three schools not four and the representation from each school was awesome.”

Dylan Lake, a sophomore at Waccamaw High, said when she’s competing she has a mindset that she needs to win

“You need to do your very best,” she added. “When you’re just surfing you feel free.”

Rainbolt started thinking about starting a surf club at Waccamaw High when he was a freshman. He decided to wait until he was an upperclassman. The first club meeting was in May. 

“Since then we’ve hit the ground running. It has been so much fun,” he said. “The best thing is giving people something to be a part of. That’s why I do it and that’s why I love it and I’m having a great time doing it.”

“Brody has done an outstanding job of putting this thing together. He kind of came into this, spearheaded it and got all the energy going,” Benston said. “Hopefully there’s so many young kids out there it keeps the enthusiasm going.”

Sarena Flewelling, who teaches science at the school and is the girls lacrosse coach, is the club’s faculty sponsor.

“Brody had the whole idea, everything planned out and he’s been full throttle on this,” she said. “I’m literally just the adult.”

Flewelling seems an unlikely sponsor since she has never surfed in her life. But Rainbolt approached her because she teaches marine biology.

“There are no teachers at Waccamaw that surf,” she said. “I taught him this past spring in marine biology and we do a lot of environmental stuff. He said I’d be the perfect fit.”

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Since the mid-1960s Pawleys Island has been a surfing hub. The island even had two rival clubs: the Pawleys Island Surf Club and the North Pawleys Island Surf Club.

In 1965, a Ron Jon Surf Shop opened near the pier on the island. Before then the only place in the county to buy a surfboard was Fogel’s Department Store in Georgetown.

Competitions on the island started around 1967.

For a time, Pawleys Island Surf Club members manufactured and sold surfboard wax called Con-Trol Competition Wax. The proceeds funded the boys’ trips to competitions.

The surf shop closed in 1972. Today you can buy surfboards at Surf the Earth and the Village Surf Shoppe in Garden City.

Benston said surfing is something passed down through generations. He often sees men in the ocean off Pawleys Island with their sons and grandsons.

“It’s always been a family-oriented beach,” he added.

Rainbolt has been surfing since he was in preschool.

“As soon as I could stand up and swim and do it, I was out here,” he said.

Lake has always loved surfing.

“I like the ocean in general and I like being on the water,” she said.

Alexander Hume Ford, the man who is credited with saving the sport of surfing, is buried at Prince George Winyah Episcopal in Georgetown. He was born in 1868 in Florence but grew up on a rice plantation on South Island in Georgetown County.

Ford discovered surfing when he moved to Hawaii in 1907. At the time interest in the sport had waned.

A year later Ford founded the Outrigger Canoe Club to revive and preserve “surfing on boards and in outrigger canoes.” In 1915, beach volleyball made its debut at the club, which is now the world’s oldest surfing organization.

Ford also introduced author Jack London to surfing and helped advance surfing on the East Coast of the United States and in Australia.

His surfing photographs were the first of the sport to be published in a magazine.

After traveling the word for many years, Ford died in 1945.

For many, surfing is not just a sport; it’s a passion and a lifestyle.

“You’re one with the ocean and nature. It’s a connection with Mother Nature,” Benston said. “Surfers and snowboarders and skiers, we all get the same kind of vibe. It’s just you and nature going at it.”

Benston was thrilled to see the number of competitors on Saturday.

“This is the most young kids I’ve seen in a long time,” he said.

Flewelling said she’s “having a blast” as the faculty sponsor of the surf club.

“Everything we do is outside and for the most part it’s always beautiful weather,” she added. “It’s just a different vibe. Everybody’s in a good mood; everybody’s just happy to be out here.”