Bonnie Tsui was born in Queens, New York, and raised on Long Island. She has been a competitive swimmer, rower, climber, snowboarder, surfer, an author of multiple books and has won numerous awards and accolades. One of her more recent books, “Why We Swim” celebrates the role water has played throughout history and across the globe. It covers everything from Olympic champions, a Baghdad swim club that meets in Saddam Hussein’s former palace pool, modern-day Japanese samurai swimmers, and even an Icelandic fisherman who somehow survives a wintry six-hour swim after a shipwreck and becomes a national hero. She has also just released “Sarah and the Big Wave: The True Story of the First Woman to Surf Mavericks,” a new children’s book that tells the story of the legendary Sarah Gerhard and her journey to becoming one of the first female surfers at Mavericks. Bonnie is our guest on this episode and what follows is a fascinating conversation. We hope you enjoy…

Swell season Surf Radio is recorded by the Newsstand Studio at Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan and is distributed by WAX.Radio

Opening Song: The Swimming Song
Artist: Loudon Wainwright III
Album: Attempted Mustache