Luke Williamson and Grant Dyson: New Zealand Surfers

By MARGIE THOMSON

All sorts of people surf, it turns out, and Williamson (who began carving out this frothy little niche with his best-seller Gone Surfing) and Dyson here profile 25 of them: businesspeople, professional sportsmen, broadcasters, poet (Gary McCormick, who else?), and even novelist Lloyd Jones contributes the foreword, and a photo of himself in his hunky, topless days.

The point is, though, that despite surfing's image, there isn't a no-hoper or a genuine dropout among them. Says John Kirwan: "I surf for my soul"; businessman and chairman of boards Wayne Brown, who manages somehow to live in Mangonui, says: "It amazes me that people get up in the morning and drive into an office to do what they could have done at a desk in their room. I've got plenty of stuff going on but time for surfing is the priority."

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