Rediscovering the Joy of Surf

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It seemed natural to Burling that he would teach his children - he and Sesika have had six of their own and adopted two others - how to surf, and it was their eldest son, Michael, who first showed promise. By the time he was in high school, having featured in the local press for excelling in overseas competitions, Michael had drawn a number of his friends toward this unfamiliar sport. None of them had a board of his own - one still can't buy surf equipment anywhere in Tonga - so they used boards donated over the years by guests of the resort, usually superseded old faithfuls. "If the surf was good, I'd pick them up from school and bring them back here for a couple of hours' surfing," says Burling. "Sometimes they'd sleep here and I'd run them back to school in the morning. On weekends they'd bunk in the dining room. After an afternoon's surfing they'd stay up late studying. They found that surfing totally concentrated their minds, like meditation, and they came to their study feeling fresh and 100 percent focused." Ha'atafu had become a special kind of boarding school.

Through the '90s, Burling's coterie of young surfers expanded and diversified - it took in numerous girls, for one thing - and in 1994 the Australian established the Tonga Surfriders Association, which now boasts more than 30 active members. As a surfer, Burling lacked champion qualities, but he was technically sound and adept at imparting what he knew about staying on a wave to these wide-eyed pioneers. "I don't know what I've done right, but I've just explained simple technique and the kids have taken it from there," says Burling. "With video, too, it's great these days: you've got the world champion in your living room. It's just play and replay . . . and Kelly Slater is showing them his moves." And Ha'atafu provides good learning conditions. "We get some world-class waves here," says Burling. "They're clean and a good size, though we don't get the huge waves you'd associate with Hawaii."

The tuition and practice have paid off. Michael Burling, now 21 and a medical student at Auckland University, is a four-time Oceania junior men's surfing champion, twice the Oceania open men's champion, and the current Oceania longboard champion. Steve and Sesika's 19-year-old daughter, 'Anau, has claimed similar honors, and the Tongan surfing team were overall winners at the 2003 South Pacific Games, stunning favorites Tahiti. "These victories raise the profile of Tonga," says tasanoc's Puloka, "especially in aquatic sports, which we're trying to get our kids into. Once they see Tongans on the international circuits, the kids will aspire to do the same."

By occasionally subsidizing their travel to overseas contests, tasanoc has helped some of the country's best surfers. But by virtually any standard its budget is small: its government grant last year was $T20,000 (about $11,000), and nothing for the two years before that. "In all sports, not just surfing, the raw talents are here," says Puloka. "Every time a coach visits Tonga he says, 'You've got the talent, they just need to be developed.'" Tonga's all-time brightest sports stars, rugby players Willie Ofahengaue and Jonah Lomu, both achieved fame playing for other countries, Australia and New Zealand respectively.

But the competitive success of some Tongan surfers seems less important than the joy the sport has brought to local converts. "It is pure soul surfing for most of them," says David Boardman, an Australian staying at the resort. For the idle Liava'a, it was friends' involvement in the sport and their brightly colored surfing magazines that sparked his interest. Having had two serious knee injuries playing rugby as a schoolboy, he appreciates how surfing can provide equal or greater thrills without rugby's bone-jarring collisions. "I love it," he says. "It is fun for hours."