If there’s one place surfers aren’t expecting to find a perfect, peeling left, it’s the coastline caught in one of the world’s most consequential geopolitical flashpoints.
But a video shows Google Earth sleuths zooming into southeastern Iran and apparently uncovering a soft, remarkably ruler-edged lefthander peeling along a strip of coast near Chabahar Port. From above, the lines look inviting: one set after another, the sort of discovery that makes surfers start checking flights before checking the news.
Watch the video uncovering the wave, linked here, and below.
“Let’s go to Iran,” the narrator say, adding colorful language. “But we’re not talking drone strikes in the Strait of Hormuz or f*cking oil. We’re talking packing Persian points on the Pakistani border. Let’s zoon the f*ck in. Have a look at this little setup. What’ve we got? The Ayatollah’s secret f*cking lefthanded getaway!”
There’s a geographical catch. Chabahar isn’t actually in the Strait of Hormuz. It sits about 185 miles to the east, on the Gulf of Oman, where the Makran coast faces swell rolling north from the Arabian Sea. Its dry, rugged headlands and curved bays are strikingly different from the palm-lined surf destinations typically featured on Instagram.
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And its location is anything but ordinary.
The Strait of Hormuz, connecting the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, normally handles roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil shipments. Since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began in February, the region has been at the center of a conflict involving shipping attacks, military strikes and an American blockade of Iranian ports. As recently as November 10, Reuters reported continued attacks on commercial vessels.
Chabahar is strategically important precisely because it lies outside the strait, giving Iran direct access to the Indian Ocean. It’s not exactly a straightforward surf-trip destination.
But Iran’s waves aren’t entirely secret. In 2010, Irish surfer Easkey Britton explored the Chabahar coastline; later she helped cultivate a local surf community at nearby Ramin Beach alongside Iranian pioneers Shahla Yasini and Mona Seraji. Britton once recalled: “There was a lot of looking at Google Earth before I went!”
The same curiosity is playing out again. Nobody has verified this particular wave’s precise location, whether it breaks consistently, or whether locals have already surfed it.
Still, the image raises a tantalizing question: How many more unridden-looking waves are hiding along Iran’s remote coastline?
Perhaps a surf exploration is in order…once tensions calm down, of course.
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