18-year-old Ruby Berry is making her professional surfing debut
18-year-old Australian surfer Ruby Berry is competing on the professional surfing tour for the first time this year. She trains on the beaches near the town of Augusta in Western Australia, about a three-hour drive south of Perth, according to ABC News Australia.
Augusta is located near Cape Levin—the southwesternmost point of Australia, where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. The town is also bordered by the Blackwood River. According to the ABC, about 1,400 people live in Augusta, and many locals spend their time in the water.
Berry showed a reporter one of the beaches where she trains and explained that women’s surfing is growing rapidly. According to the athlete, she still feels nervous before heading out onto the big waves, but remains calm once she’s in the water. Berry started surfing at an early age: her father also rode big waves.
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The ABC report also covers the collaboration between representatives of the Wadandi people and researchers at the University of Western Australia. In 2022, Zach Webb and his father Wayne were invited to serve as cultural advisors for a project to map the seafloor using high-tech equipment.
The Webbs wanted to see if the detailed seafloor maps would match the traditional songlines and stories of the Wadandi people. According to Zach Webb, older generations have passed down stories about ancient campsites, fishing grounds, and hunting grounds that are now underwater but remain their land.
As the article notes, the maps revealed places where rivers once flowed. Afterward, Zach and Wayne Webb began pointing out to researchers the underwater gorges that were once the banks of the Blackwood River. They also visited a cave in the interior of the region, which the Wadandi people consider sacred.
