MacRumors Giveaway: Nomad Celebrates International Surf Day With an Apple Watch Prize

In honor of International Surfing Day, we're teaming up with Nomad to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win an Apple Watch Series 6 and a $200 Nomad gift card. Nomad is celebrating International Surfing Day by highlighting just how useful the Apple Watch is when surfing. In fact, Nomad believes that the Apple Watch is the ultimate surf watch.


The Apple Watch is highly water resistant, and it's more than durable enough to stand up to sand and sea water. It can be worn in the water while surfing, especially when you have the right band, but make sure to rinse your Apple Watch with fresh water after it's been exposed to salt water.

nomad apple watch surfing
Nomad had big wave surfer Matt Bromley wear the Apple Watch and a Nomad Rugged Strap while surfing huge waves at Jaws Surf Break in Maui and Mavericks in California. He found that the watch was resilient to wipeouts, even when he was pushed into deep water.

Apple offers a native surfing Workout option on Apple Watch, but there are also useful third-party surfing apps like Dawn Patrol. Dawn Patrol is able to track number of waves caught, wave speed, distance paddled, time spent riding waves, and surfing session length.

nomad surf app
Dawn Patrol also provides custom watch faces that can tell surfers swell height, direction, period, tide, water temperature, and more, plus with the watch's GPS, location is synced so swell forecasts update for the closest breaks.

The Apple Watch is, of course, tracking activity data like movement and heart rate, plus it also has other uses for surfers. An LTE Apple Watch lets surfers communicate while out on the water, plus in an emergency, it can be used to contact emergency services with the built-in SOS feature.

nomad apple watch surfing 2
Nomad has a series of Apple Watch bands that are perfect for activities like surfing, including the black rubber $60 Rugged Strap, the $80 Active Strap Pro with waterproof leather, and the sleeker $60 Sport Strap, all of which are great for water sports and sweaty workouts thanks to their waterproofing. Make sure to check out Nomad's site if you need a durable Apple Watch band that also looks great.

nomad apple watch band activity
If you want to try surfing with the Apple Watch, Nomad is providing an aluminum Apple Watch Series 6 and a $200 gift card to one lucky MacRumors reader, with the winner to pick the color and size. The gift card can be used to purchase any of Nomad's Apple Watch bands to go along with the watch.

To enter to win, use the Gleam.io widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, following us on Instagram, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.


The contest will run from today (June 17) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on June 24. The winner will be chosen randomly on June 24 and will be contacted by email. The winner will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before a new winner is chosen.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Nomad. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

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Top Rated Comments

Bazooka-joe Avatar
53 months ago

Finally - my two non-human loves converge – Apple products and surfing! The Apple Watch works well for surfing. Been using Dawn Patrol with it pretty seamlessly. Only issue is that I sometimes activate a session when I’m not surfing…
Yep I’m another one for Dawn patrol. It’s a great app
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sfsurfer Avatar
53 months ago
Finally - my two non-human loves converge – Apple products and surfing! The Apple Watch works well for surfing. Been using Dawn Patrol with it pretty seamlessly. Only issue is that I sometimes activate a session when I’m not surfing…
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swrobel Avatar
53 months ago
I wear my series 4 almost daily for surfing. Almost 3 years and still going strong with no problems.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gotluck Avatar
53 months ago

Surprised to see so many wear these during a session. One of the best part of surfing for me is to get off the grid for awhile.
I hear you and I don’t always wear mine, but it lets me get out while on call midweek stress free. Nice to play a bit of hookie;)

i can stay out longer if I know noone is looking for me.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jony Ive and Co. Avatar
53 months ago
It's very easy to scratch and shatter the screen because your arms are often paddling near the sides of your surfboard.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gotluck Avatar
53 months ago

Nice! Do you use a third party surf app when you surf?
Actually no! I don't use any of the fitness features on the watch, no surf app either. I do keep wind speed/direction as one of my main complications though.

You actually lose alot of the features when running in wrist detection off mode. If the wrist detection gets flaky say during a wipeout, the notification could end up going solely to the phone and I would never know out in the water. Wish apple would give us the option to send notifications to both the watch and the phone without having to disable wrist detection. That and the ability for more apps to work over LTE solo mode (like outlook) would make the watch perfect in my book.

I really use it as a communication device. A few weeks ago I was able to extend my liquid lunch by another hour and a half on a day with beautiful conditions because I knew noone was looking for me at work. excellent ??
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)