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Hawaii & Surfing as we know it
Surfing, as we know it however, stems from Polynesian origins and not primarily from the Hawaiian development of the sport. As part of the general marine adaptation pioneered by the first people to enter the open Pacific, papa he`e nalu became a recreational activity that was most highly developed by the Hawaiians. The first Polynesian settlers to land in Hawai`i were probably already skilled in simple surfing, and perhaps after a few hundred years of riding Hawai`i's waves the uniquely Hawaiian form of the sport emerged. So, actually, that first ride or first stoke could have been as early as 2000 B.C., at the outset of Polynesian migration from the Malay archipelago.