As I was skipping through surfline.com one day, recently, I came across another article about recent events around the world and personal watercrafts pissing people off. Ok, I get the fact that they are needed SOMETIMES when the waves are too big to paddle into but on days when there are paddle surfers present and getting waves they should be banned. There have been attempts to regulate the use of these PWCs but how successful have they been? People are still using them in crowded line ups like at Kirra a couple weeks ago and at Tres Palms in Puerto Rico. This is not only taking away from the actual sport of surfing but it is dangerous more than anything else.

The purity of surfing is at stake right now because surfing is a sport in which it should be man and ocean. The purest, and still my ultimate favorite, type of surfing is bodysurfing. Swimming into the wave and using your own body strength to catch up to mother nature and then letting her take you for a ride, there is nothing better. Having boards does not take away from this feeling it just adds to the difficulty as well as style that one can have. When you bring a PWC in the picture it takes away from the aspect of the man and ocean connection. Not to say I don’t respect the men and women who do tow into waves because I would never be able to have the courage to do that but it is just not how surfing was meant to be.

There are many ways to solve this problem and I am sure all have been discussed so I will just give me thoughts on the ones I think would work. First off the tow teams should have to get licenses to be able to use the PWCs in allowed areas. This will at least make the use of them safer. Secondly, have a global set of rules regarding when people can use PWCs. This will be tricky because there is no real wave height where people just stop surfing unless it is obviously too big.

That is all for now. You will be hearing from me again soon.

Aaron Moss is The Extreme Scene's official intern, and does a fine job doing it.