Who Was South Africa's First Surfer? The Story May Surprise You

I never imagined how much I would learn during my research for my book, "Women on Waves: A Cultural History of Surfing." It was one eye-opening discovery after another. Women in every corner of the globe at the forefront of surfing's history.

None was more surprising than discovering the first stand-up surfer from the continent of Africa. It is well-known now that Africans were riding short wooden planks centuries before Europeans explored the continent. From as early as 1915, surf crafts was starting to gain popularity in the beautiful beach town of  Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town. Agatha Christie, the famed  mystery writer and world-record best-selling adventuress, experienced her first wave-riding thrill on one of the long wooden planks. South African sunbathers were riding  in a manner much like California rubber beach rafts of the 1950s.

South Africa’s Cape Peninsula Publicity Association brochure had the following to say about the local vibe: “In the Pacific, the islanders have made it an art. At the Cape, it has become a cult. The wild exhilaration is infectious. It steadies the nerves, exercises the muscles, and makes the enthusiast clear-headed and clear-eyed.”

Clearly the colonials were stoked, but these rides were all experienced in the prone position. Did anyone guess then that the first person in South Africa to stand upright on a surfboard would be a female? And how, 11,000 miles from the source in Hawaii, did she learn the trick of popping up?

Heather Price, South Africa’s first surfer, took her place in history (albeit unknowingly) as the first-ever person recorded to standup surf. A photo of  her appearing in a local newspaper in 1919 clearly shows her doing the dance.

So, who turned her onto the thrill of stand-up? While on a holiday in Cape Town, Heather befriended two U.S. Marines stationed in Cape Town after World War I, who happened to be in possession of two ‘Hawaiian style’ solid wood surfboards. She reportedly borrowed one of the boards from two men who were kind enough to introduce Heather to stand-up wave-riding and taught Heather to surf at the beach known as “The Corner.”

There are pictures of people riding prone on old wooden planks in South Africa as far back as the late 1800s. One of them was George Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish playwright, looking like a randy, old pirate. But the earliest record of someone riding a surfboard at the Berg belongs to Heather Price, the great aunt of big-wave charger Ross Lindsay’s wife, Kay.

In later years, Ross Lindsay’s wife Kay (Heather’s niece) visited her in Zimbabwe before her passing. At that time, Heather gave Kay the images that document the event. She said emphatically that “she surfed standing up” and made it clear that she advanced beyond laying down flat on the board.

Heather’s riding at Muizenberg in 1919 was an isolated event and did not spark further interest in surfing in South Africa at that time. The Marines took their boards with them when their ship sailed back to the U.S.

But once again an entire continent had been introduced to surfing by a woman. Photographs of Heather Price surfing can still be found on collectable postcards from the era.