Word: surf
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...storm shutters as recommended options and more as mandatory responsibility. It's like seat belts, one local official told me. They used to be optional, but now wearing them is the law. Already some communities are changing their thinking about this; some Florida cities now charge people who surf during hurricanes the cost of their rescue if they get in trouble...
...belt themselves into their seats--a process that would take a good six hours. With Columbia turned rump forward, the commander would then fire the main maneuvering engines, slowing the spacecraft and easing it toward the upper wisps of the atmosphere. Once he turned the ship around, he would surf the currents of the steadily thickening air, fishtailing this way and that until, just an hour or so after the deorbit engines were lit, Columbia's tires would make their smoking contact with the Cape Canaveral runway and the shuttle would come to a rolling stop...
...Other foreign observers have been surprised at how quickly Tongan girls have learned to surf - from being scared, at first, to paddle out beyond their depth, to within weeks showing competence, upright on a board, 100 m out to sea. They feed, suggests Australian visitor Amber Mercy, off the enthusiasm of their friends. Many Western boardies regard surfing as a largely solitary, internal experience. "But Tongans are a very social people who like to do things in groups," says Burling. Between sets one morning the girls are whooping it up. Tongan Idol is back on television and they...
...where nearly everyone could lose a few pounds without keeling over, Burling's students are among the fittest-looking folk around. Lavinia Sunia, 15, had no interest in sport until she started mucking about on a board seven years ago. "I just watched TV," she says. Now she'll surf two hours every day if conditions allow it, and her toned body would be the envy of teenage girls anywhere...
...Vason was 24 when he tried to bring Christianity to Tonga. Burling was just a year younger when he brought the country his own gift of surfing - nothing so profound, of course, though along with golf there's no other sport that stirs such zeal in its disciples. And Burling wants to keep spreading the word. Though a shortage of boards and passable surf spots will limit surfing's growth on the Friendly Islands, "If a kid comes up and asks me to teach him to surf," says Burling, "I'm never going to say no." With salt in their...