Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Finnegan develops a theme on tourism and privilege as he analyzes his travels through the South Pacific, Australia, Africa, and Europe as both a surfer and a journalist. Finnegan critically examines his own attitudes as a young man who was reluctant to appear a regular “tourist” like the other Westerners who came to increasingly popular tourist places such as Bali. He recalls that even in 1979 the place was already “overrun” with surfing tourists “who, together with legions of nonsurfing Western backpackers, smoked daunting quantities of hash and pot” (237, 239). Finnegan found this “collision of mass tourism and Indonesian poverty […] grotesque” (237). He recalls the discomfort of working on assignment for a travel magazine, which had tasked him with reporting on Indonesian massage. He remembers, “Massage ladies were everywhere in Kuta, with their pink plastic buckets of aromatic oils. I was too shy to approach one on the beach, where pale bodies were being kneaded by the dozen all day long” (240). His friend Bryan also noted the power imbalance between locals and tourists in his writing, sarcastically saying that tourists in Bali could “‘hire a board carrier and experience the dizzying thrills of colonialism’” (237). These memories highlight the guilt Finnegan felt about being a relatively privileged, middle-class American in an impoverished part of the world.

Finnegan ties his theme about privilege and surfing into his criticism about the privatization and commercialization of some of the world’s premier surf and natural beauty spots. He emphasizes his opposition to making waves exclusive to those who can pay high prices to access them. For instance, the island of Tavarua was especially near Finnegan’s heart after he and Bryan surfed there during their South Pacific trip. He guesses that at the time only about nine surfers in the whole world were aware of it as a surf spot. Finnegan emphasizes his love for the island by calling it “empty, immaculate coral reef left, breaking in Edenic abundance,” which “existed out of time” for him and Bryan (223, 228). He was disappointed to learn that it had been purchased and turned into a private resort by Americans: “It would be a private wave. Book now. All major credit cards accepted. There was even an ad for the resort in the same issue of the mag” (315).

He points to the development of previously rural Madeira, a Portuguese island in the Atlantic, as another example of how development can ruin natural coastal beauty and the surf that comes with it. He recounts how the construction of a seawall changed the coastline he was accustomed to surfing, and laments how the decisions of a few politicians and development companies can permanently alter beaches and surf:

Still, I found it hard, staring at the destruction in Jardim, to grasp its finality…the ravishing beauty of the shore as seen from the water—the cliffs and terraced fields of banana, vegetables, papayas and sugarcane between the point and the cove—had been expunged, replaced by a sinister industrial wall. (402)

Finnegan presents this development as an exploitive decision: “The brute fact was, the authorities had decided to build the project for their own reasons, financial and political, and the villagers had had no say in the matter” (403). These passages demonstrate Finnegan’s complex relationship with travel and surfing, revealing the personal connections he feels with surf spots around the world, which he wants to remain wild and accessible, not overrun with people and development.