As Trident winds down towards the tradesmen’s entrance of 2024, please give us one good reason for a Surf Science article that is serious, hard science and no fun whatsoever. We’ll wait. Oh, you’d like to know more about the likelihood of a shark attack? Or more about how climate change is affecting surf breaks, not to mention the world around us? Uh well, okay. I guess we’ll look into topics like that for next year… ?
But for the last Surf Science topics for this year – uh, serious articles are a hard no. Instead we are to discuss the ubiquitous, odd, and often weird permutations of the classic surfer tan.
Your skin goes darker in the sun, full stop.
To begin with, every surfer will experience some degree of skin darkening from the sun. Truth: regardless of ethnicity and skin type. So unless you’re an orc, or you are Batman – you’ll notice them hard lines where your skin is covered. To be absolutely clear, we mean the areas of your skin covered by your wetsuit, boardshorts or Viking helmet surf hoodie. Or indeed, if you are Batman (how about a loan Mr Wayne), you’ll have a serious tanned mouth and chin area. Well, you would have the world’s weirdest facial tan if Batman went out in the day, but he doesn’t.
We digress, but our point is obvious – the degree and placement of surfer tan lines will depend on season and location.
You live in sunny KZN? Well, lekker – depending on ethnicity, your summer tan consists of any area covered by bikini or boardshorts being the colour of cottage cheese or the hot chocolate you forgot about in winter. As for the areas exposed to the sun? Well, you’d think a surfer on the east coast will have a tan like any other beach goer. Nothing distinct from anyone else soaking up the sun. But wait! Unless you’re a leashless hipster with a brain the size of a lentil, you should have a definite tan line on the left or right ankle.
Indeed, that leash strap tan line marks you as a surfer in sunny climes. Also, the fact your skin’s texture will resemble medieval parchment by the time you’re 36 marks you as a sunny clime surfer.
And in colder climes?
In South Africa at least, the further west you go the colder the water temp becomes, Sure, you can hack it in a springsuit a bit in J Bay and surrounds over summer. Sometimes even in boardshorts, as the water can be pleasantly warm, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever have the surfer tan of an East Coaster.
Instead, surfers from East London to the Weskus will have tanned faces and bodies paler than Casper’s tighty-whitey’s. Oh, let’s not forget the colder climes’ surfers’ hands. Even when you’re young, pretty and barely into your twenties, a surfer in colder areas will have lithe skin everywhere but on their extremities. These surfer’s hands resemble those of the Blair Witch.
The most obvious surfer tan in colder climes though, is the lynch mark. Or, in more PC terms – the distinct line on a surfer’s neck not covered by their wetsuit. Yes folks, to the average non-surfer, it looks like an attempted hanging scar. Badass.
