Chasing Waves: A Surfer's Tale of Obsessive Wandering

by Amy Waeschle

Overview

* Sales benefit the Surfrider Foundation

* First surfing adventure narrative by a woman

With a fresh voice and surf-saturated daydreams, this author celebrates the joys of traveling to feed an addiction

Amy Waeschle became a surf addict shortly after catching her first wave more than seven years ago. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594853791
Publisher:	Mountaineers Books, The
Publication date:	04/13/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	521 KB

About the Author

AMY WAESCHLE is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared in publications such as Surf Life for Women, the Seattle Times, and the Bellingham Herald, among others. She also works with a close-knit group of writers and editors for the outdoor sportswear company Patagonia. Her short story, "Making a Pie with Grandma," was a finalist for the 2005 Zola Award.

Amy has a background in teaching wilderness skills, leading expeditions with adolescents for the National Outdoor Leadership School as well as teaching field courses in wilderness medicine. She has been a research assistant, a middle school science teacher, a very bad waitress, and a ski lift operator. Amy currently lives in Italy with her husband and two dogs. You can learn more about Amy on her website, amywaeschle.com

Editorial Reviews

Amy Waeschle has written a beautiful book that will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you go seek out a surfboard and the nearest ocean. Lyrical, heartfelt, and flat out entertaining, this book is one wave that you must catch.

author of Wicked Break and Killer Swell Jeff Shelby

I also have spent much of my life dreaming of bikinis, boards, and green waves; hence, I followed a very similar quest to Amy's, that of becoming an efficient and competent surfer. Her book left me in stitches! Enjoy it as an armchair adventure read, and marvel at how conquering our fears makes us stronger, more confident people in every day life.

World Champion extreme skier and award-winni Alison Gannett

Any person who has ever daydreamed about traveling the world to conquer her personal goals and passions will love Amy's chronicle. From the first chapter to the last page, I felt as if I was reliving my own past surf travels. A sense of freedom, overcoming fears, discovering new cultures, dealing with love, the exciting, unexplainable feeling of riding a wave -- this is what Chasing Waves is all about.

pro surfer and co-author of Surf Sister Mary Osborne

Like a big, smooth wave peeling towards everybody who loves a good story, Chasing Waves takes you along on the surf-obsessed walkabout you've always dreamed of, but never had a chance to do. The people, the places, the loves, the losses, and the aching curiosity about one's own destiny and motivations-it's all rendered here in strong, fresh prose. This beautiful, worthy book has a place in every surf-literature home library, and is doubtless just the beginning of a great writer's career.

author of Caught Inside Daniel Duane

Chasing Waves is the first book I've read that actually gives the reader a realistic look at what it feels like to be a surfer. Amy Waeschle cuts through all the clichés about surfing to reveal an amazing life journey by a bold yet cautious woman who decides to dedicate her life to this exhilarating sport. (Who else could explain why surfer's crave waves like women crave chocolate?) Her writing is so vivid that I feel as if I just traveled to places like Fiji and Costa Rica; I can almost feel the mud on my feet and smell the salt in my hair. After reading this book, surfing will no longer feel like such a mystery to the non-surfer. Pack this book on your next adventure!

Jenny Stewart

I was lost in these tales of the failures, successes, and passions of a surfing life. Truthfully funny and warmhearted, Chasing Waves is about a surfing odyssey of which most of us can only dream. It's inspiring to know that it can become a reality!

pro surfer Belinda Peterson-Baggs

With love and respect for the ocean, Chasing Waves captures the soul of surfing and the search for adventure from a female perspective.

founder and co-owner of Surf Diva S Isabelle "Izzy" Tihanyi