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ASSOCIATED PRESS The Malloys -- Chris, left, Dan and Keith -- sat on the beach yesterday in Oxnard, Calif. Keith, a surfer, helped organize a fund-raiser last week for Asia's tsunami victims.

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Surfers rush
to aid victims at
world-famous breaks

Coastlines ravaged by the
tsunami included reefs renowned
on the wave-riding map

Surf contest to benefit victims A surf contest will be held at Sunset Beach this month to benefit victims of the southern Asian tsunami. All proceeds from the "Wave Riding Vehicles' Surf for Sumatra Benefit Contest" will be sent to SurfAid International, said contest organizer Reid Inouye. The event will be held Jan. 22-23 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on both days, wave conditions permitting. If the waves are too big, the event will be pushed back to the weekdays between Jan. 24 and 28. "There are no winners or losers. It's just to go out there and have fun," said Inouye. A donation box will also be set up on the beach. The contest is broken down into eight categories: longboard opening for men and women, amateur open division, celebrity division, junior men's division, bodyboard men and bodyboard women, and a corporate division. Cost for each participant is $35 and $300 for each company. Entry forms can be picked up at any surf shop on Oahu, or e-mail Reid Inouye at rinouye@heavywateronline.com. Star-Bulletin staff

LOS ANGELES » Long before Asia's devastating tsunami, many of the hardest-hit coastal communities of Sri Lanka and Indonesia were beloved for a different kind of wave: the perfect breakers that draw surfers from around the world.

Now, the bond that surfers feel with those remote villages has prompted many to dig deep into their board shorts to raise money for victims of the catastrophe.

"Almost all the main places that were hit are places where we've been and met people," said Keith Malloy, a Southern California surfer who helped organize a fund-raiser last week that generated about $14,000. "It kind of hit home for us."

One organization, SurfAid International, which ran a health program in Indonesia's Mentawai islands even before the disaster, has collected more than $500,000 -- a figure expected to grow after a trade show this weekend. SurfAid has used the donations to dispatch a medical team to the Indonesian island of Nias, a renowned surfing spot where the tsunami killed at least 340 people and left 10,000 homeless.

"There is a feeling that surfers get so much enjoyment when they go down there, and now is a good time to put something back in," said Sean O'Brien, editor in chief of TransWorld Business, a trade magazine in Oceanside that covers the surf industry.

The Dec. 26 quake and tsunami hit a region that forms part of a far-flung surfing circuit. When the disaster struck in the Indian Ocean, the world's surfers were among the few to have firsthand knowledge of places that many people cannot even pronounce. Appeals for aid quickly spread by e-mail and on surfing Web sites.

"There has been a groundswell of support from the surfing community beyond anything I could have imagined," said Robert Gerard, a Laguna Beach lawyer who is chairman of SurfAid's board of directors. The group was founded in New Zealand in 2000 and has its U.S. office in Encinitas.

Malloy, a professional surfer from Ventura, helped organize the fund-raiser, which included a silent auction of surfboards donated by local shops.

"We've had some of the best times of our life there," he said. "It's a special place."

Because SurfAid was already active in Indonesia, it has become a conduit for disaster relief. The group has collected between $500,000 and $750,000 in money and in-kind contributions from individuals, surf-wear companies such as Quiksilver and Billabong, and the government of New Zealand, Gerard said.

The total is expected to grow after this weekend's Action Sports Retailer convention in San Diego, where industry groups plan to sell black bracelets made of neoprene -- a material used for wet suits -- to raise money for tsunami victims. Organizers hope to make the bracelets available at surf shops and on the Internet.