How 3 Hawaiian teen princes brought surfing to the mainland
toggle caption Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
The mouth of the San Lorenzo river in Santa Cruz, Calif., isn't a great place to surf. Rocks, pollution and swift currents make it precarious almost year-round. But before the construction of a harbor in the mid-1960s altered the surroundings, the spot was a surfer's paradise, with easy, consistent swells. "They looked very much like the breakers in Honolulu," said cultural historian and longtime surfer Geoffrey Dunn.
Dunn said this reminder of home is what inspired three teenage members of the Hawaiian royal family, in 1885, to unleash a sport then known as "surfboard swimming" on an unsuspecting American public.
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