Big Wednesday (aka Ride the Wild Surf)

If you enjoy surfing, or mysteries, or surfing mysteries, this is a great story? urban legend? myth? I don't think she was Emma Claudine Spreckels.

Perhaps one of the Coney sisters - Lizzie?


A Gay Queen Of The Waves
ASBURY PARK - Did a "Sandwich Island Girl" surf Asbury Park the summer of 1888?

The mystery, which started in 2006 when a wood-cut illustration of her was found, is still unsolved but a recently found personal ad placed in the The Daily Press, the predecessor of the Asbury Park Press, may lend more credence to her being historical fact rather than fiction.



A group of summer loungers on the beach at Asbury Park, N.J., were watching the extraordinary antics of a dark eyed, bronze-faced girl in the sea a few mornings ago.

The object of all this interest and solicitude was beyond the line of breakers and standing on a plank that rose and fell with the swelling waves. Her bathing dress was of some dark material, fitting close to the figure, the skirts reaching scarce to her knee. Her stockings were of amber hue, adorned with what from the shore seemed to be vines and roses in colored embroidery.

She wore no hat or cap. Her hair, bound across the forehead and above the ears by a silver fillet, tumbled down upon her shoulders or streamed out upon the wind in black and shining profusion.

Her tunic was quite sleeveless, and one could scarcely fail to observe the perfect development and grace of her arms. As a wave larger than those which had gone before slowly lifted the plank upon its swelling surface, she poised herself daintily upon the support, her round arms stretched out and her body swaying to and fro in harmony with the motion of the waters.

As the wave reached its fullest volume she suddenly, quick as thought, and with a laugh that rang full into shore, drew herself together, sprang into the air, and, her hands clasped together and clearing her a way, plunged into the rolling sea.

There was a little cry from timid feminine watchers on the sand, but the smiling face was above water again while they cried, and the daring Triton was up on the plank again in another moment and waiting for a second high roller. So she has been amusing herself and interesting the mob for three mornings. She is as completely at ease in the sea as you or I on land, and the broad plank obeys her slightest touch.


Philadelphia Press - National Police Gazette : Sandwich Island Girl, 1888.
www.surfresearch.com.au/1888_Police_Gaztte_SIG.html

NJ history: Asbury 'Sandwich Island Girl' clue may upend East Coast surfing history
www.app.com/story/news/local/culture/2018/08/01/new-clue-hunt-asbury-parks-sandwich-island-girl/796828002/

Gay Queen of the Waves
imagesofoldhawaii.com/gay-queen-of-the-waves/

Asbury Park Sandwich Island Girl 1888 surfing history mystery solved?
www.thebharatexpressnews.com/asbury-park-sandwich-island-girl-1888-surfing-history-mystery-solved/