On a Rising Swell examines legendary surfers from a legendary stretch of coast. Like Kelly Slater. Photo: (R) WSL
Just over 50,000 people live on the Florida barrier island between Sebastian Inlet and Cape Canaveral. Yet this small region has produced three world surfing champions — a statistical oddity that author Dan Reiter explores in his book On a Rising Swell: Surf Stories from Florida’s Space Coast.
“There’s an energy here that creates this super surfer,” he says.
Reiter never set out to write a book about Florida surfing. But after landing assignments with The Surfer’s Journal, Eastern Surf Magazine, SURFER, and local papers — covering everything from indigenous waterman heritage to sand dredging to Kelly Slater — he realized he’d unintentionally built the foundation for a larger project. He pitched the University Press of Florida, added 20,000 more words, and the stories became a book.
While surfers will appreciate the depth, Reiter says the book also reaches beyond the surf audience. He says he borrowed techniques from Barbarian Days author William Finnegan to explain surf concepts clearly without boring surfers.
The book explores what it means to surf in Florida and on the East Coast, including how fragile coastal environments can be. Sebastian Inlet — long the hub of Florida surfing — changed dramatically after its jetty was reengineered in 2003, permanently altering the break that shaped generations of surfers.
“(Florida surfers) were forced to adapt,” Reiter says. “These breaks don’t last forever.”
Reiter also traces the shortboard revolution — which unfolded globally but also at Sebastian Inlet — and links its timing to the moon landing era, when engineers moved to the Space Coast and their kids took up surfing. According to Reiter, those two revolutions are more connected than people realize.
Some of Reiter’s favorite moments in the book include Kelly Slater’s win at Pipeline at age 50 and the 1991 Halloween swell, when a 100-foot wave was recorded off Nova Scotia and massive surf hit Florida.
All the history circles back to one remarkable fact: three world champions — Kelly Slater, CJ Hobgood, and Caroline Marks — grew up along this small stretch of coast.
Caroline Marks: gold medalist, world champ, Florida native. Photo: Tim McKenna // ISA
“I don’t think you can say that about any other sport,” Reiter says. “It’s like if Ali, Tyson, and Foreman all came from the same small town.”
Since its release, the book has quietly earned strong critical praise, including a starred review from Kirkus and an Editor’s Pick nod from Publishers Weekly.
“It’s small. It’s niche. It’s idiosyncratic,” Reiter says. “Books are kind of anachronisms now. This might be the last gasp of print culture. I put this in paperback so reading it is satisfying in a physical way.”
He hopes surfers experience the book the way they enjoy riding a custom board.
“What I really tried to do was to make it feel like a local, handmade shape — something someone spent a lot of time on, but you have a feeling of intimacy with.”
