Youngsters from Arugam Bay swap fishing for surfin...
July 21st, 2010 by admin received No Comments »From fighting the waves to riding them
By M Naushad Amit
Sri Lanka has some excellent up-and-coming professionals in the sports field who are making a name for themselves as players, trainers and coaches. Cricket and rugby top the list while many in the track and field sports have also come into the limelight recently. Strangely a bunch of youngsters from Arugam Bay are on the verge of swapping their traditional profession of fishing to take up to surfing, an internationally popular sport hitherto alien to Sri Lanka and confined mainly to occasional glimpses of foreign events on television.
The Arugam Bay surfing break which was recognised by the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), the global governing body in surfing has now developed to be a popular destination for international surfers. Many in Arugam Bay who were battered by the ethnic war and the raging tsunami are now gradually picking up the threads of their shattered lives and moving on by taking to surfing along with the unceasing number of international surfers who come here on training or holiday.
We are the recently formed Surfing Federation of Sri Lanka. Our mission and purpose is to create, for the first time in our history, a national body that will oversee and govern the development of the sport of surfing in Sri Lanka for all men and women.
We face a unique situation in that we must unite several cultures, religions and languages into our quest to become a surfing nation. Not an easy task, but one that we feel is worthwhile in order to create a sustainable, active, responsible and competitive future for present and future generations of Sri Lankan surfers.














