Dune Boarding

By Rupert Isaacson

Surfin' it ain't: Board the dunes (David Morinelli)

It's pure and utter insanity: The seaside town of Swakopmund, where the Namib desert falls into the sea, has become southern Africa's dune-boarding capital. You're driven out to the foot of a mountain-sized sand dune, given a large oblong sheet of hardboard, some furniture polish, a pair of heavy industrial gloves, and some welding goggles, and next minute you're flying almost vertically downward. It feels suicidal; even on the easiest descents the board can pick up speeds of 60 or 70 km/hr. Steeper ones are much faster. Then you graduate to jumps, finally ending the day with the "Knucklegrinder," an 800-foot whoosh down to a hard gravel plain.

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