News: Long Beach Surfer Goes Missing
(Long Island, N.Y.) A thirty-two-year-old surfer from Long Beach went missing amidst a six-week summer surf trip along Southeast Asia. He embarked on the trip with his wife and friend, and had been traveling since June 30th when he arrived in Sri Lanka. He went missing this Sunday off a beach in Indonesia.
The last beach he surfed was along a remote stretch near southern Sumatra’s coastline in the Indian Ocean. The search began in the area and included round-the-clock dive teams, helicopters, and fishing boats. A mile or two of reef was searched, and reports stated that helicopters were employed for a two-hour time frame.
According to sources, a lot of people have gone missing along the same stretch of beach, and it’s possible that the surfer may wash up within forty-eight hours. The area, which is extremely remote, is a six hour drive from the nearest airport. It took rescuers a day to reach the spot where he was last seen taking on a twelve-foot wave.
Because of the lack of resources in the area, friends and family members of the surfer have sought help to aid search efforts. Requests are being made to the American Embassy in Jakarta, and New York politicians and assemblymen have taken part in ensuring that the surfer is found. Reports stated that the search is largely dependent on the tide, whether the swells die down, and that it cannot be conducted at night.
The surfer is a math teacher at Long Beach High School, drummer in a punk band, and co-founder of the Long Beach Surfer’s Association. He is a surf instructor and head coach of the Long Beach High School Surf team, the first ever organized in New York State. Friends describe him as extremely passionate about surfing, stating that he’s known to remain in the water for eight hours at a time.
With two decades of surfing experience, the Long Beach teacher decided on one last big trip before settling down with his wife of three years and starting a family. Ever conscientious of the water, he is an environmentalist who helped stop a sewage plant from dumping in waterways. He disappeared around nine in the morning from the Krui Damai Bungalow Surf Camp, located in Indonesia’s West Lampung province.
Reports stated that his surfboard washed up immediately after he went under, revealing that his leash had snapped. He surfed left-“goofy”-footed and sources claimed that another surf board struck him as he was coming out of the wave’s barrel. His wife, a twenty-nine-year-old social worker at Long Beach Middle School, believed he’d show up further down the beach and return to the camp.
His students were among the two-hundred people who attended a beach candlelit vigil in his honor and raised money through fundraisers to aid the search. A separate event will be organized where his wife originated in Orlando, Florida. Funds are being collected through PayPal to aid his father and stepmother, who had been visiting Costa Rica, make their trip to help with the search.
A Facebook page, set in his honor, has already attracted over three thousand followers. He was set to return to the states this August. He had previously traveled to places like Hawaii, South America, and Bali on surfing trips with his wife. Many wonder why he was overtaken by the wave, stating that it wasn’t especially rough and that there was nothing abnormal about its size.
