Windsurfing

  ... is something more than a hobby, something less than a religion,  although it has been noted by more than one observer that the votary devotion of the board boy recalls that of an acolyte.  The windy beaches of Aruba, of Maui, of the Canary Islands and other blessed venues are home to a tribe of windsurfing monks, ascetics who have shed the trappings of  bourgeois existence and dedicated themselves to the wind and sea. Unremarkable, in a sense - just another of our world's innumerable subcultures.  

  Few suspect, however, that fellow travellers of the wind worshipers live and work among us in the offices, clinics, factories and knowledge vocations, indistinguishable from and undetected by their associates and neighbors. The astute observer soon learns to discern these closeted heretics, taking note of the calloused hands, the unexplained absences from productive labor and life's milestone events, the unexplained orthopedic injuries and peculiar investments in climatic monitoring.  

Like many an advanced life form throughout the galaxy, these beings assume a form similar to ours so that we will be comfortable interacting with them, but in their native mode are at home broad reaching along  the faces of mast-high swells  miles out in the open ocean, astride naught but a tiny sliver of plastic, propelled at breathless speed by a monofilm wing and taught sinews. The wonder of it is that they are able to sit with us in our lounges and salons, conversant with our workaday concerns and interests . . . .after all that.