You can't surf a tsunami because it doesn’t have a face. Many people
have the misconception that a tsunami wave will resemble the 25-foot
waves at Jaws, Waimea or Maverick's, but this is incorrect: those waves
look nothing like a tsunami. On the contrary, a tsunami wave approaching
land is more like a wall of whitewater. It doesn’t stack up cleanly
into a breaking wave; only a portion of the wave is able to stack up
tall. Since the wave is 100 miles long and the tail end of the wave is
still traveling at 500 mph, the shore end of the wave becomes extremely
thick, and is forced to run far inland, over streets and trees and
houses.
If you're a surfer, you know how little control you have if your
board is in whitewater. On a tsunami, there's no face, so there's
nothing for a surfboard to grip. And remember, the water isn't clean,
but filled with everything dredged up from the sea floor and the land
the wave runs over--garbage, parking meters, pieces of buildings, dead
animals. This is not what you want to be caught paddling around in. You
can't duck-dive because the entire water column is in motion, not just
the top few feet. You can't exit the wave, either, because the trough
behind is 100 miles away, and all that water is moving towards you.
Big-wave riders should save their talents--and their lives--for
big waves that are generated by massive storms. The only safe place to
be during a tsunami is far inland and up on high ground.
