![[bodyboard]](images/bodyboard23.jpeg)
This month
sees the second edition of the The Bodyboard Pro-Am, an
event that added a new dimension to Puerto Escondido's surf scene. In
its inaugural last summer. The Bodyboard Pro-Am, which will take place
from Oct. 21 through 24 at Punta Colorada, matches professional
bodyboarders with talented amateurs in a two-category contest: Open and
Drop Knee.
The tournament will demonstrate the thrilling levels of performance this discipline has achieved in recent years.
While the sport of surfing has seen enormous growth in the last decades, it has been eclipsed by the bodyboard, or the boogieboard, to the point where for every surfer there are ten bodyboarders practicing today.
The reasons are simple. The boards are cheaper and easier to use and they are fun. As one's skill level develops, the greater maneuverability of the small boards allows such moves as the barrel roll, the tube, the spinner, the aerial, the 360 and reverse 360.
On that fateful day, staring out at the surf without a board to ride, Morey borrowed an electric carving knife and a household iron, whittled some scrap polyethylene foam into a small rectangular mat and covered it with newspaper.
He found his invention easy to produce and even easier to navigate. In 1973, he trademarked the name "Morey Boogie" for $10 and scrounged together enough money to place a quarter-page ad in Surfing magazine. Demand for Morey's boards was incredible. By 1977, he was producing 80,000 per year.
Here was an activity that, unlike surfing, offered a gentle learning curve and could be enjoyed immediately by even the most sedentary of people. Boards were affordable - less than $100 for the top of the line and 10 bucks for a drugstore special - and the sport caught on worldwide.
At first, as lineups became congested with bodyboarders, many of them incompetent, resentment toward the sport quickly grew. Most surfers looked upon them as second-class citizens, refusing to yield on a wave and creating derogatory monikers such as "spongers" and "speed bumps."
But like it or not, body-boarding was here to stay, and it soon found its way into competition and spawned its own pro-tours and professional organizations. The most important are the BIA, the Bodyboard International Association and the GOB, the Global Organization of Bodyboarding.
Eight-time U.S. champion Mike Stewart from Hawaii was the sport's first superstar. A master of the big-wave barrel, he rode the famous Pipeline deeper than any other human and launched unfathomable aerials and barrel rolls on sections many stand-up surfers avoided completely.
In contrast to surfing, which remains dominated by the United States and Australia, bodyboarding has acquired a more multicultural presence. Many of the world's top bodyboarders now hail from Brazil, South Africa, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama and Mexico. Guilherne Tamega from Brazil set the pace by rising to topple Stewart in 1995, becoming the first Global Organization of Bodyboarding World Champion.
![[big bodyboard wave]](images/bodyboard28.jpeg)
What makes this contest so appealing is the fact that Punta
Colorada is the ideal environment for bodyboarding. It's a little
visited, pristine beach around the point at the far end of Bacocho
Beach. It consistently offers perfect tubes, left and right a-frame
breaks, one to two meters high. And, because the water there is shallow,
it isn't suitable for regular surfing, but it's a bodyboarder's dream.
The first Bodyboard Contest Pro-Am helped establish Puerto Escondido as a mecca for this sport nationally and internationally, a status it already enjoyed in the world of stand up surfing. Punta Colorada has been pretty much kept under wraps. The land is owned by the state of Oaxaca, which has floated various tourist development projects in the past, but its present status is undetermined.
Access to Punta Colorada is by a dirt road at the state tourist office, at the second entrance to Bacocho and by the road immediately opposite the airport entrance.
The Prone contest will offer $US8,800 in prize money, with another $US1,200 for the Drop Knee, a style of bodyboard riding in which the surfer begins in the familiar prone position, but then goes into a one-knee stance to achieve his maneuvers.
Contestants will be judged by the following criteria: 1) Size and duration of the wave; 2) Style of the individual rider and 3) Level of difficulty of the attempted maneuver. Entry Fee is $US100 for the Prone event and $US50 for the Drop Knee.
There will be beach games, music and other entertainment during the contest, including the Miss Bikini Contest (11 a.m., Sunday 24). And there will be a Surfer Fiesta to close out the festivities Sunday night at the Esplanade of City Hall.
A pre-tournament Meeting will be held at 6;30 p.m., Wed., Oct 20
at the Hotel Posada Real. More information is available at tournament HQ:
Central Surf Shop. on Zicatela (582-2285).