Chasing Waves: A Surfer's Tale of Obsessive Wandering

by Amy Waeschle

* First surfing adventure narrative by a woman

* Sales benefit the Surfrider Foundation



Amy Waeschle became a surf addict shortly after catching her first wave. To her, surfing is more of a feeling than a sport, combining the mental quest for exploration with the physicality of riding a wave.



Hunting down waves in remote corners of the world, from Morocco to Fiji to Canada, Waeschle has found unique and fascinating cultures that have changed her views and fostered her surfing mission. Chasing Waves is her collection of interrelated stories based on these adventures and a chronicle of her evolution from nervous newbie to self-confident and skillful surfer. Anyone who has ever longed for a daring diversion from day job and doldrums will connect with these tales of wanderlust, vagabonding, and riding the surf.

Genres: Womens, Outdoors, Travel

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2009

About the author

AMY WAESCHLE is the author of the bestselling Cassidy Kincaid mystery series, the Meg Dawson Murder Mystery series, and the standalone books Going Over the Falls, Feeding the Fire, and the surf memoir Chasing Waves.

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and after a career in outdoor education and traditional teaching, she dedicated her energy to writing. As a fan of mysteries since childhood, creating sassy, brilliant female characters solving crimes has been a natural fit.

Amy likes to surf, run mountain trails, travel, and spend time with her family. She and her husband live in Poulsbo, Washington with their two daughters.

Reviews

[audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew we were onto something good when we passed a disquieting bit of voodoo--a molding cloth doll with fraying yellow yarn hair and no eyes nailed through the head to a baby fir tree. The path was lined with salal shrubs, ferns, the occasional spiky devil's club, salmonberries, and a mixed canopy of alder, fir, and huge cedar. When I first heard the surf, filtering through the thicket, my heartbeat quickened.

Synopsis: A collection of Waeschle's musings about learning to surf around the world.



Amy Waeschle is a good travel writer.

Each of her pieces are detailed and personal, and she's got a knack for bringing exotic locales to life with vivid natural description. Her style is breezy and conversational ("...The minute I began paddling [my heart began:] ramming so hard against my chest that I wondered if it was trying to break free.I imagined it crying out to the other organs, 'Get out now! Save yourselves!'") and her story, that of learning to surf in various countries with her husband, is immediately relatable to me as an athlete and a woman.

But the sum of these things does not a great book make.

The problem is simply too much of a decent thing. Taken individually, each piece provides a sun-soaked glimpse into a woman's journey to master the art of surfing. And I mention gender here explicitly because a lot Waeschle's pieces center on emotions and experiences I've heard from other outdoor adventuring women: fear of looking foolish in front of other athletes, being denied access to a resource by a group of men, feeling responsible for everyone's happiness on a rip (to the extent of sacrificing your own, just to make sure you fit in and don't seem greedy).

But the recounting of these experiences, while they struck a sympathetic nerve--at least with me--lose their punch after 150 pages.

By the end of the fifth piece, "Canadian Girls Gone Wild in Baja", Waeschle's piece about an all-women surf/yoga camp in Mexico, I felt like I'd gotten from the book everything it had to offer. Yup, she's still learning to surf. Yup, things go wrong when you travel. Yup, it's kind of tough but thrilling when it goes well.

And I still had another hundred pages to go.

There are a couple of standout pieces, namely the two set in Costa Rica, "Why Boyfriends Make Terrible Surf Instructors" and "How to Surf Your Brains Out in Costa Rica", which seems to be the place Waeschle loved the most, and perhaps not coincidentally where she learned the most, both about surfing and about group expeditions. But overall, the collection is largely forgettable. They're nice, sunny pieces about surfing, but there's no burning passion, no hardship and overcoming, no true adventure.

Which is why the last piece in the book, "And Baby Makes Three", blew me away. It's the only piece that focuses on Waeschle's struggles to maintain her itinerant surfing lifestyle with her newborn daughter in tow. In the piece, Waeschle and her husband take turns surfing and watching the baby in Portugal, and there's this genuine, lynchpin moment where Waeschle returns from a set of truly mind-blowing waves to find her baby daughter screaming and her husband staring shell-shocked off into the middle distance. It turns out she'd been gone for five hours.

That one moment of realization, such a vivid example of how the weight of responsibility has shifted, is what's missing from the rest of the book. Each essay, while prettily written, contains no other crystalline moment of transformation and concomitant analysis.

But because of that last piece now I'm dying to find out if she's still surfing. And if she's planning on teaching her daughter.

[Allie Northey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of the only female surfing books out there, so I was excited to read it. I enjoyed hearing about her travels but overall the writing wasn’t great :(

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing is terrible. She tries so hard to make it interesting it makes me wonder if she had a thesaurus next to her while typing.

Aside from the writing the author has an inflated ego when it comes to her surfing stories that made me despise her near the end of the book.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“By then we were both tired and cold, but sitting in the lineup together beneath a hazy winter sun, listening to the birds and the swish of pounding surf, I felt as if a key had slid neatly into a lock, opening a door that revealed a whole new world.”

[Jo Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful escape.

[Helen Cooley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely read for a fellow obsessed surfer girl. Enjoyed this very much.

[pianogal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice little read but it didn’t really hit me with anything new. Not bad but nothing groundbreaking.

[Margot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chasing Waves follows the author as she first learns to surf, the resulting obsession, and the surfing adventures that subsequently lead her around the world in search of great waves. This memoir reads more like a collection of short stories about her surfing adventures (albeit, in chronological order) than a cohesive narrative. I wish there had been a little more about how surfing fit into or affected her regular life. Instead, each chapter is only about the next surf expedition. Waeschle does a great job, though, of conveying both the awe and joy of surfing as well as the fear and imminent danger. Her story both made me want to surf and also made me never want to surf.

[Gigi · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s interesting to read Amy’s journey about surfing. As someone new to surfing, I wanted to understand how she became an advanced surfer. Amy’s writing skills aren’t the strongest, so the book can get pretty boring at times. I wished she dived deeper into her weaknesses, and how she overcame them. This is a book about her surf vacations, while cool doesn’t really speak to her journey.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

My niece, Amy, wrote this book. She is an amazing, adventurous young woman! I'm bringing several copies to book club this month.

[Dylan Roadie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Related to the premise very much and it made me want to surf so bad!