Back in the day, before Sun Bum had much extra cash to splash around on sponsorships, they came up with an idea to spread the word and have a good time. “We grabbed some of our friends, called ‘em ‘judges’ and posted up at some of our favorite beaches to watch the locals tear up their home breaks,” Sun Bum explained. “No applications. No qualifiers. No entry fees. Thirty minutes after the horn sounds, somebody walks away with a fat check for $1,000.”
They called it the Bum Rush Tour, and it was such a good time they decided to keep right on doing it. It is, in Sun Bum’s words, an “ambush surf contest series that celebrates ordinary surfers everywhere.” The most recent ambush? Jamaica, which might not seem to be an obvious choice. But the Sun Bum team had their reasons, and they’re good ones.
“There are probably more surfers in Encinitas than there are in the entire country of Jamaica,” the Sun Bum team wrote. “When you paddle out into the lineup, it’s like slipping into a time warp. Sort of what we imagine surfing in California was like back in the ’50s, when you knew everyone out there because they were the same few dedicated locals, day after day.”
Jamaica’s surf culture is relatively small, but that’s not a bad thing. There are two basic areas for Jamaican surfers: the north coast and the south coast. Since the south has quite a few more waves and is close to Kingston, it’s a little more well-known. The north coast needs a very precise swell direction and is more of a rural area, but when the waves get good there, they get good. North and south coast surfers have a bit of a friendly rivalry, and Sun Bum hoped they could find a way to bring them all together.
“After days of debating on where to hold the event, Icah (Wilmot) suggested posting up at a free-surf session before one of Jamaica’s National Qualifying Series events in Portland, on the north coast,” Sun Bum wrote. “We pulled up to this perfect right-hand cobblestone point lined by coconut trees as Jamaica’s best paddled out and knew we made the right call. Within a matter of minutes, the horn was blown and the heat was on, whether they were warmed up or not.”
Since the surfers generally involved in the Bum Rush are just everyday surfers, the criteria isn’t just about performance. It’s as much about how the surfers are surfing as it is about how well they’re doing it. And in the end, a surfer named Ellim Beckford was the one who walked away with a surprise check and a huge smile on her face.
