Surfin' USA

It just looks like fun, but is it more dangerous than the naked eye can detect?

My parents will be most happy, should they read this, to know that I'm airing the dirty laundry of people who are related neither by blood nor by marriage to my family. Furthermore, I will leave out identifying factors so that unless you know these people well, you won't now of whom I write.

The husband in this family is a surfer. He belongs to a large and exclusive surfing association that meets in various locales once or twice a month to hone their skills and enjoy their sport.  In this association are surfers who would be considered among the top echelon or surfers around,  a few entertiners who surf, as well as paramedics and professional water rescue squad members.  If he has to surf, he probably couldn't be in better company. Also among the group are law enforcement members, and so the group is generally pretty safe from thug surfers. From the words of an ancient Beach Boys song (I can't remember what song, so I can't say), "The bad guys know us and they leave us alone."

The group is going to Hawaii in January.  The husband would like to go, but not without his wife. The wife has to work that week. she would have to call in major favors to get the week off, and she's not sure she should do that.  The wife says the husband should go and have a good time, and call her every night to make sure he hasn't been tossed into a coral reef or eaten by a shark. The husband won't go without his wife, so he wants to go the following week with her and not with the rest of the group. The wife thinks if he's going to go at all, he needs to go with the group because of the whole "safety in numbers" factor.

They're at an impasse, but they're civil people. They aren't mad at each other because they cannot agree on this one issue. They'll probably continue to have sex. They're just having trouble working through this. Incidentally, the wife would prefer that the husband not surf, period, but it was an understanding reached even before they became engaged.  He would surf -- not forever, as he knows that there comes a time to hang it up with certain sports, surfing being one of them, but at least through his twenties, he would surf.

The husband tossed out an idea to the rest of us while she was out of the room that he play a round of golf with wifey's boss and see what can be done about her schedule.  We were split on that one. I said she'll be furious when she finds out he's gone behind her back, and the females agreed with me.. The males present said "Go for it!"

He's going to do what he's going to do, and she'll react however she'll react, so it's pointless to take a poll as to which side is right.

My question is this: Just how dangerous is surfing as a sport if one doesn't take unnecessary chances? any ideas? I was thinking of trying it myself.