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For nearly two hours on a windy Sunday in February, Henry Hurren took a beating in the waters off a largely uninhabited island in Hong Kong, trying to surf a short wave for a few moments at a time.
The half-hour ferry ride there from the Chinese territory’s main island was bustling with day trippers. Mr. Hurren, 32, passed outdoor restaurants and families who had camped overnight as he hiked to the spot he paddled out from in a wetsuit.
But in the water, he was alone, trying to prove there are new places to surf in a city without a lot them.
The wave off Tung Lung Chau is known as a slab, a quick one that breaks on a rock. It is not the kind you picture a surfer riding smoothly toward shore in a world-class surf spot like Bali. Over and over, Mr. Hurren caught it for a few seconds before tumbling back into the chilly water.
Many surfers never surf slabs, said Mr. Hurren, a nature guide who teaches surfing and shares some of the waves he finds on his Instagram page. “It’s like a really concentrated version of surfing,” he said.
The surf scene in Hong Kong — a territory that includes more than 250 islands in the South China Sea — is concentrated at a few beaches that lack consistent year-round swell. But those beaches are relatively accessible to a city of about 7.5 million people.
