“You Surf Like a Clam!” Is that supposed to be an insult? A compliment? Most of the time it’s easy to tell what another surfer is insinuating; “Barney” and “Kook” are pretty straightforward.
On an isolated beach in Ecuador I once heard a local tell a tourist he surfed like, “una bolsa de peces muerto.” Translation: “You surf like a bag of dead fish.” No ambiguity there, you just knew the guy was a disaster on the water. He didn’t just surf like a dead fish, more like a whole bag of them. But what exactly does it mean if someone tells you you surf like a clam?
It turns out that there a species of coquina clams, Donax variablis, that not only surf, but are experts at wave selection. A marine biologist by the name of Olaf Ellers first recognized that clams must utilize some type of locomotion to follow the tides. As any good surfer knows, the sweet spot changes with the tides. For clams the sweet spot is the swash zone, which is the area in the surf where the sand is perfectly mixed by the waves to ensure plentiful food, or detritus, for a filter-feeding clam. Ellers figured out coquina clams must be surfing the waves into the beach on incoming tides and then surfing the wash out on outgoing tides so that they could continually stay in the swash zone. Coquina clams can surf by using their large muscular foot to kick their shell-covered bodies off of the bottom sediment and into the water column to catch good waves – the clam equivalent of paddling for a wave. The clams have uniquely shaped shells that are perfect for catching waves: a broad flat dorsal or back surface, to surf. Picture a small multi-colored lined clam shaped like an airplane wing bouncing through the surf, unfortunately they have yet to develop a fin. If you take a bunch of coquina clams, put them in an aquarium in the lab, and play recordings of waves crashing on the beach, they all get stoked when they feel the vibrations, in the form of sound waves, of a killer wave and jump in unison. Apparently, every wave is a party wave for clams.
Surfers share the waves with a wonderful assortment of sea creatures, many of which have amazing skills in the water that put the best of the best (human) waveriders to shame.We get to watch dolphins leave us in their wake during a typical surf session. We share waves with playful seals, who can bodysurf inverted while doing barrel rolls across the face of the wave. Maybe it is time to recognize the hard charging clam, the scallop pitted in the green room, and swash riding coquina.
The next time you paddle out and find yourself in the sweet spot as the tide is changing, perfectly in sync with the vibrations of the sea, know that you’re totally surfing like a clam.