Go surf: Israel!

Israel has waves? It sure does and not just in some oblique theoretical way. Pull out that old school atlas and swing into the Middle East. See how much fetch there is in the Mediterranean west to east? Over four thousand kilometres. Enough to create swells that’ll hit, at times, eight feet plus and light up one of the most wonderful collection of reefs, breakwalls and beaches you could ever imagine.

And this is the Middle East. It’s desert that hits the sea. In summer the water will be 30 degrees, in winter only a scratch below 20. But this isn’t Indonesia. Or Australia. Or Mex. You know all about ‘em. You’ve seen the photos, the movies. It ain’t a surprise.

This is Israel, a country only 76 years old. The most insanely rad, bravest and loveliest country in the world. An experiment without precedent built on the rocks of the desert and on the sands of the moody Mediterranean.

Just recently, I took a magazine trip to Israel and brought along a pack of pro surfers. And it’s interesting, important even, to note that all of ‘em wanted to swing to Israel for the experience of… being there.

The hottest spot on earth, politically, culturally. The surfers were going to come even if it meant 36 hours of planes, lounges and airport hotels. Craig Anderson flew from Sydney to LA to New York and then on to Tel Aviv with barely time to change planes.

And, yeah, we waited for swell. This is the Med, after all, and even if it at its most eastern point and therefore open to enough fetch to deliver waves that’ll make your heart race you make sure there’s going to be waves unless you wanna play bat and ball on Hilton Beach.

And you land at Ben Gurion airport, a stunning, hyper-modern creation made with Jerusalem stone and you drive along highways as perfect as anything in Singapore and you see the Tel Aviv university and the Opera house and the green fields and the rad mix of Brutalist concrete and art deco architecture.

And you go to surf and amid screams of “Op! Op! Op! Op! and drop-ins and the happiest of chaos, we surf. We surf in raging onshores and in dead glass. Six-to-eight-foot burgers, four-foot wedges and in between beachbreaks that behave like the dreamiest D-Bah.

We take pastries, dates and beer on the beach after floating in the salty Dead Sea where our wet hair drips into our eyes and causes the most excruciating pain.

We drive and we drive but there are no roadhouses or billboards just cherry blossoms and fields of green with water pumps painted in lavender and past that Israeli prickly fruit of the cactus, the Sabras, also the name of Jews born in Israel, and all under the loveliest of winter sun.

“I like the Jewish steez,” says Creed.

When I leave, the prettiest teen customs gal, one of many serious Sabras working security, looks at me as she searches me and says, “I believe someone may have tried to get you to carry a bomb on board the plane.”

If only she knew! I’m in love with Israel. It gives me surf, it enriches my brain. What’s not to love?

Go surf: Israel!