ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON WAS NOT A SURFER BUT HE WAS A LONG-HAIRED REBEL WHO UNDERSTOOD THE URGE TO SUCK THE NECTAR FROM YOUR ALLOCATED TIME ON EARTH

Were he alive today, the author of Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll would no doubt be bearded and barrel-mad in some remote corner of Indonesia. But Stevenson was born in Edenborough in 1850 to a family of engineers, lighthouse builders and po-faced preachers. Long before he became a famous author and travel writer, Stevenson was a striving artist and his family’s oddball.

To justify his defiant life choices he penned a provocative essay called An Apology for Idlers.Substitute ‘idlers’ for ‘surfers’ and it provides a handy set of excuses with which to enlighten those who would stand in the way of your next surf adventure. Though highly educated,Stevenson railed against formal learning.“Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life,” he wrote, praising instead the virtues of truancy, self-learning and pleasure. “A happy man or woman”, he reasoned, “is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill.”

After a life of travel and adventure, LouisStevenson finally laid roots in the hills aboveApia on the Samoan island of Upolu. Not long after Britain had ceased overseas convict transportation, the Scotsmen was ticking off jaunts to America, Hawaii, Australia, TheGilbert Islands and Tahiti. Places that are not short of beauty and intrigue and yet he ultimately chose Samoa. Why Samoa? It’s a question that follows me around like a stray dog when I spend a week exploring the islands. The primary concern, however, is: Where are all the waves hiding?

Samoa has always felt a bit shy and enigmatic tome. I’ve heard many and varied reports about ...