From bodysurfing in the 1890s to today’s billion-dollar surfwear industry, this two-part series looks at how Australia’s love affair with the sea lies at the heart of our national culture. "Alongside rock and roll, surfing has emerged as the most important sub-culture of the past century. Surfing has the same teenage rebelliousness; the same lure of freedom and escape from the norm of everyday life. Like musicians, surfers have often been fringe dwellers, and regarded as a dangerous minority, even a threat to normal society. And within the surfing community, tensions have always existed between those pressing for change, and those content to maintain the status quo. In these early years of the 21st century the surf boom has now spread to all corners of the globe. The world is now buyin gthe surfing dream. What aws once seen as a passing teen fad like the hula hoop now crosses all generations and is measured in billions of dollars annually. But few of the millions of surfers who ride waves, and the millions more who want to and are attracted to it, know the true story of surfing.