SURFING ON MARS

[Trev]

Found this short story on surfing on Mars in the future after terraforming has been in effect long enough to form substantial seas.
It's 2500 words but here's a taste.
From "The Martians" by Kim Stanley Robinson. He's a California resident and he displays quite a surprising understanding of surfing and surfers (wanting to get out of the rat race).

AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEPLOYMENT OF ALL SAFE TERRAFORMING TECHNOLOGIES

A Short Story from “The Martians” by Kim Stanley Robinson

THE OXIA RIVER RUNS heavy with silt after storms on Margaritifer Terra, and the muddy water pours through the sandbars at the river's mouth and stains Chryse Bay as red as blood, in a bloom extending three or four kilometres out toward the archipelago on the horizon. When the flow recedes, and the silt settles to the bottom, the river's channel is almost always changed. The mouth might have moved all the way to the other end of the beach. The old channel then silts up, its underwater banks continuing to serve as point breaks for incoming waves, until the waves wear them down.
It's all new, week by week, storm by storm - except for the elements involved, of course: sun, sea, sky; the bluffs nosing out into the sea- the river canyon between them; the river's final beach-dammed lagoon, the dunes, the river water rippling over the tide bars to slide under the waves of the shore break. These are always there.
'Always' in the relative sense, of course. I mean that for years it had been this way. But on Mars the landscape is a matter of perpetual change. Punctuated equilibrium, as Sax once said, without the equilibrium. And the cooling of the 2210s, the years without summer, was such that if something were not done, this river mouth scene would not exist like this for many more years.
But the methods that seemed to contain any hope of stopping the cooling trend sounded drastic indeed. For someone who loves the land, the idea of a million thermonuclear explosions in the deep regolith is a shocking thing, an ugly thing. You can make all the arguments you like about the containment of radiation, about the necessity for heat from below, even about the disposal of old Terran weapons, and still it doesn't seem like something an environmentalist should approve.
And it didn't help that there were advocates using the stupidest
language possible to argue for the various heavy-industrial methods being proposed. These were people who did not understand the power of language. They would speak casually of a 'manifested destiny' for Mars, as if this phrase did not come from a determinate moment in American history, a moment inextricably tied to imperialist wars of conquest, idiot yahoo patriotism, and a genocide that most Americans still did not like to admit had occurred. So that to use that horrible old phrase to describe the rescue of the Martian biosphere was insane; but some people did it anyway.
And other people, like Irishka, were extremely put off by it.
And all because of words. I sat through the whole of that session of the global environmental court, listening to the arguments pro and con, and though my work is in words I thought to myself This is absurd, this is horrible. Language is nothing but a huge set of false analogies. There has to be a better way to make one's point.
So when the session was over I got Irishka and her partner Freya to come with me, and we took the equatorial piste west to Ares Fjord, then drove northwest up the shore of Chryse Bay to the gravel road that went out to Soochow Point, above the Oxia River's broad beach of a mouth. Early one summer morning we drove around a turn in the sea cliff road, and all was clear. The horizon was a clean line between sea and sky. Both were blue: the sky a very dark blue with purplish tinges, as if there were a red shell above the blue one; the sea a blue almost black, its water on this day transparent to a great depth. The land was the usual red rock, though here tinted blackish, as it tended to be through this region, darkening as you move east towards black Syrtis. There was no wind, and the stillness of the water was such that the waves broke as in a wave tank in a physics class peeling cleanly across their breaks, purring in, leaving white tapestries fizzing behind them, until the shore break foamed up the wet red strand.
I saw right away that the bottom had changed again in the most recent storm. There was a new point break to the far left side of the beach. And this offshore sandbar was angled perfectly to the morning's incoming swell, which was fairly big. Probably there was a big wind blowing down Kasei's great canyon and fjord on the other side of Chryse Bay, creating these waves some thirteen hundred kilometers away. We could see the swells right out to the horizon, crests perfectly spaced and slightly bowed toward us Iike arcs of a circle bigger than the Chryse Sea itself, sweeping in to curl around Soochow Point and onto our beach, one after the next. all pitching over first at the new point break, then breaking in a continuous clean line all the way across the beach to the new river mouth, far to the right. The break was swift but not too swift, and each was slightly different, of course, shallow bowls giving way to quick walls, or long tubular sections purling over in perfect clear waterfalls. Conditions could never be more perfect. “Oh my god,” Irishka said. 'Heaven has come.' We parked on the bluff just above the beach, got out of the car and put on our wetsuits, then walked down the path and across the beach with flippers in hand. The shore break foam ran over our boots and we hooted at the cold water seeping into our wetsuits at the calves - it was about eight or ten degrees, but quickly warmed up. We walked out to where it was waist-deep, then put on fins and pulled up our wetsuit hoods, and dived under the next breaker.
to be continued............

[Freshie Boy]

Kim Robinson. He's

i stopped reading here

[Trev]

Kim Robinson. He's

i stopped reading here

Sorry. Didn't mean to stretch your intelligence.
Try sounding out the words one syllable at a time.

[Kunji]

Kim Robinson. He's

i stopped reading here

Sorry. Didn't mean to stretch your intelligence.
Try sounding out the words one syllable at a time.

Nice.

[Damage]

Choice story. Surfing as we know it is only just getting started.

[Trev]

Choice story. Surfing as we know it is only just getting started.

In part 2 they catch and ride waves in their special wetsuits which aid their manouverability.

[puurri]

The sequel to "The Martian Chronicles" perhaps?

[wanto]

He's a California resident and he displays quite a surprising understanding of surfing

...

We walked out to where it was waist-deep, then put on fins and pulled up our wetsuit hoods, and dived under the next breaker.

[Nick Carroll]

Then bravely grasped our Space Boogie Boards and did a few Galactic Belly Spins.

[Damage]

^ Smntl is not often predictable. But just occasionally he is.

[oldman]

Aye, it'd be cold up there. Must be good wetsuits, that's be 8 to 10 degrees Kelvin wouldn't it.

Or has the terraforming heated the planet up?

[Trev]

Aye, it'd be cold up there. Must be good wetsuits, that's be 8 to 10 degrees Kelvin wouldn't it.

Or has the terraforming heated the planet up?

Too technical for me - I just love a good scfi story. But I admit to being fascinated by the idea of terraforming Mars - have read a few science articles (New Scientist?) where the so called experts have said it is possible in theory but would of course take several centuries at least.

[Shaunm]

KK will be up for it as they found a good supply of untapped ICE

[dUg]

I just finished Red Mars a few months ago, and it's a bloody cracking good read ( and I am not given to reading a lot of sci-fi books ). I was just patting myself on the back for plouging through the 680 odd pages, when I discovered that Kim Stanley Robinson has written a trilogy ( Green Mars followed by Blue Mars ).

In the first one the whole colony goes ballistic and attacks the multinationals that have bought up all the infrastructure... sabotaging it, and releasing all the water in frozen aquifers in the process.

That'll be where the surf comes from.

I gather from reviews and stuff that it takes them 100's of years to Terraform the planet, and there are even eco terrorist "Reddies" trying to prevent it.

OK I am going to look for the next two on ebay now...

[Trev]

I just finished Red Mars a few months ago, and it's a bloody cracking good read ( and I am not given to reading a lot of sci-fi books ). I was just patting myself on the back for plouging through the 680 odd pages, when I discovered that Kim Stanley Robinson has written a trilogy ( Green Mars followed by Blue Mars ).

In the first one the whole colony goes ballistic and attacks the multinationals that have bought up all the infrastructure... sabotaging it, and releasing all the water in frozen aquifers in the process.

That'll be where the surf comes from.

I gather from reviews and stuff that it takes them 100's of years to Terraform the planet, and there are even eco terrorist "Reddies" trying to prevent it.

OK I am going to look for the next two on ebay now...

Yes Dug, the Trilogy is great and then there is the collection of short stories where I got this from - follows most of the same charcters in situations between the Trilogy. All a good read.

[vb]

Sci fi fine but the truth is mind boggling. What sort of geniuses can not land this phoenix but get the orbiter to take a snap or two of it on the way down? Pic is in APOD four or five days ago

[northeasterly]

If you're into Mars there's an interesting book called "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. He's ex Nasa, and he's mapped out the whole future of landing on, exploring, colonizing and terraforming the planet.

The above story may not be far from what's possible in the future, except they will have had the sense to have banned boogie boards by then.

[Nick Carroll]

Aye, it'd be cold up there. Must be good wetsuits, that's be 8 to 10 degrees Kelvin wouldn't it.

Or has the terraforming heated the planet up?

Too technical for me - I just love a good scfi story. But I admit to being fascinated by the idea of terraforming Mars - have read a few science articles (New Scientist?) where the so called experts have said it is possible in theory but would of course take several centuries at least.

God! I mean just because WE like Earth, we INSIST on making every other planet just LIKE IT.

What happened to Space Environmentalism?

I bet youse guys wouldn't try it on Saturn.