The irony of surfing at Tamarin Bay

I was patiently waiting for waves at Tamarin Bay on the island of Mauritius when a middle-aged man paddled over to me. At about ten feet of distance, it seemed like he was looking straight through me, not at me. I honestly couldn’t tell if he was trying to get my attention or was admiring the details of the tropical mountains behind me. He was older, maybe in his mid 50’s, with a slight build and a balding head of grey hair. Or was it completely bald? The details of his appearance have faded after our quick encounter.

I do remember the white rash guard that he was wearing, proudly boasting his local status with all capital letters in the colors of the national flag, “TEAM MAURITIUS”. In a typical surf lineup, it’s rather evident who the locals are. And on an island like Mauritius where they speak a unique form of French Creole, there’s no blending in as a local. Do you really need the shirt to state the obvious?

After a few seconds of staring and observation, he finally spoke up.

“Locals only,” he firmly stated with a finger pointing to the beach, apparently the direction that he wanted me to go.

I had a feeling this would happen during my first surf at Tamarin, so I wasn’t surprised. I acknowledged his demand with a head nod, but didn’t budge right away. If I was getting sent to the beach, I was at least going to wait for a wave to take me in.

After he was done with me, he paddled over to another foreigner, a French guy, and gave him the same message. He made sure to turn back towards me one more time to reiterate his demand.

I caught a weak, knee-high wave to the inside and paddled to the beach.

~~~

The localism in Mauritius is no secret. I first heard about the aggressive, blatant form of localism practiced on the island from a friend who had visited more than ten years prior. He had told me stories of watching perfect lefts and rights peeling into either side of a bay, and locals who wouldn’t let him surf, or even watch from the channel. He told me it was the best wave he had ever seen.

Anyone who surfs has experienced — or will experience — localism at some point. But what he told me of his time in Mauritius seemed extreme. Not even allowed to sit in the water and watch?

So I stored that anecdote in the back of my mind and subconsciously put Mauritius on the list of places that I should never waste money to visit on a surf trip. However, as I was aimlessly bouncing around the globe over the past year and a half, picking my next destination only as my experiences led me there, I found myself on the isle of Mauritius. As my EU visa was set to expire on Reunion Island, I needed to pick a new destination. I hopped on the quick 45-minute flight over to Mauritius to get a fresh visa and experience another country. I knew I might never be back in this far-away corner of the world again.

And it was well worth it. Mauritius is a beautiful country — an ancient, dormant volcano that has slowly been eroded into the seas over the millennia. Dramatic escarpments of towering lava rock dot the tropical island. Coral reefs line the island’s coast, creating postcard-esque lagoons where electric blue water laps onto shell-speckled white sand.

It’s a paradise, as long as you aren’t a visiting surfer. The locals have built a global reputation for being unwelcoming to foreign surfers. They have formed a mafia of sorts that they call the ‘White Shorts’ to enforce their localism policies.

Thus, when I bought my ticket to Mauritius I knew what I was getting into. I was expecting the worse, but hoping that it was somehow exaggerated. It only took about 20 minutes of sitting in the lineup at Tamarin to see, unfortunately, it was true.

~~~

I paddled out with low expectations. The swell was barely big enough for Tamarin, but the few sets that did roll through were perfect, open left-hand tubes.

I was expecting to sit on the inside and surf the scraps, but I noticed that I was not the only foreigner and the level of surfing was really… uninspiring. There were four locals at the top of the point, and a bunch of intermediate-level surfers deferring to them on the inside, so I jumped in the mix.

I figured I could push the envelope a little and at least get in the mix of the middle of the pack, still not bothering the guys who had established their dominance at the top. However, it didn’t take long for a local to paddle over me and give me a warning.

“I don’t care if you surf here,” he said in English after noticing the puzzled look on my face when he first spoke French. “But you need to go sit down at the bottom of the point with that guy on a SUP because some of the local guys will kick you out of here.”

Ok, so I had probed the boundaries and found them relatively quick. I did as he said, catching an inside ankle-biter to reposition myself at the end of the wave. Soon thereafter, one of the four locals surfing at the top paddled over to the aforementioned SUP surfer and had a few choice words for him.

“It’s best that you enjoy the day on the beach,” the goofy-footed local emphatically told the SUP surfer.

I was internally giggling at the dramatic approach. It sounded like scripted reality TV that he had been practicing on various foreigners over the year, delivering a witty, but totally serious punchline.

Not allowing StandUp Paddleboards in an advanced surf spot is not uncommon around the world, so I wasn’t surprised. I figured that since I had passed the first round of cuts I might actually get to complete a full session.

Not more than five minutes later the white rash guard gentleman appeared and squashed those thoughts.

~~~

As I walked down the beach and turned my head back toward the spot that I had just been banished from, I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the hypocrisy of it all. On the inside of Tamarin Bay, where a river meets the sea, there is a playful sandbar that is great for learning how to surf.

Dozens of foreigners were learning the ropes of surfing on rented soft tops, smiling as they caught their first waves and experienced the joy of the ocean. I saw how a local surf shop across from Tamarin had no problem taking tourists’ money to rent them boards and give them lessons. But I couldn’t help but notice the irony. What if these people you are teaching to surf actually learn and progress to the point where they want to surf the reef on the outside? The locals very well may tell them to leave.

As I was leaving I crossed paths with the other foreigner who was expelled, a French man who has lived in Mauritius for five years. We chatted a bit about what had just transpired. He explained to me that, apparently, I had bad luck. On a day this small it was rare for the locals to bother paddling out, and I just happened to come across the worst local of them all.

Another local approached me soon after and told me that he could take me to many surf spots by boat for a fee of about 70 euros. He said that he could fit paying guests into the lineup.

“But what about Tamarin?” I suspiciously responded.

“That’ll cost you more,” he uttered through the crack of a smirk.

I rode my scooter home that day knowing that I had got the classic surf tourist experience in Mauritius. I did a search on Google, only to discover several stories on discussion boards that mirrored my experience, or even worse.

To be fair, I returned to Tamarin several times over my three-week stay and I wasn’t told to leave again. However, I was selectively choosing my surfing windows, usually during working hours or when the conditions were not ideal (i.e. low tide) to avoid the aggressive locals. I would even go as far as to say I had fun during my last session at Tamarin, where there was ample, consistent swell, enough to go around for everyone.

It’s safe to say I have no intentions of coming back to Tamarin Bay anytime soon. The locals won in that respect (even if the sheer distance of my home from Mauritius wasn’t already a big enough barrier).

But I genuinely am curious to get a thoughtful, intelligent explanation from these locals as to why they act the way they do. I never got a chance to get that point of view. They probably will say something about protecting their island from overdevelopment, not wanting to become the next Bali of the Indian Ocean.

And the fears of unmitigated floods of tourism are not unfounded. That can be a problem, but is this really the way to deal with it? I have a hunch that the mindset of the man who kicked me out of the water was more selfish than that — fewer tourists, more waves for me.

Localism in surfing is a touchy subject. In a way, I get where they are coming from, but I don’t agree. And it’s not just Mauritius. I’ve seen it around the world. My fellow Californians can be among the worst offenders.

But at the heart of it is an egregious misunderstanding of who the ocean belongs to. It’s close-minded and shortsighted. And in a country where the white minority controls a disproportionate amount of the land and industry, the locals I told this story to rolled their eyes when they heard about a white Franco-Mauritian acting as the boss of the ocean.

There’s no way around it. The growth of surfing in Mauritius will be extremely hindered if these practices continue, and maybe they don’t care. But they are also robbing their fellow citizens, who have nothing to do with surfing, from tourism income — a sector that employs 15% of Mauritians. And again, maybe they don’t care.

It’s certainly a small minority of surfers who are enforcing these localism rules, but the rest of the local surfers I spoke to seem rather indifferent, as if that’s just the way things are and the way they will always be. I wonder if any of the locals feel strongly against this practice, but are afraid to speak up.

Opening a surf spot to tourists doesn’t mean it has to get overrun. You can respectfully enforce your rules, while still giving the locals the priority for wave selection in the lineup. Maybe as this backward-thinking generation phases out of the sport, a more rational, global-minded Gen Z will usher in a new era for Mauritius. I don’t even care about ever coming back, but I genuinely think it’s in their best interests. But what do I know?