Who knew the queen of cozy murders had a side hustle shredding waves?

Yes, before wetsuits were a thing and surfboards looked more like wooden planks from a pirate ship, Agatha Christie was carving waves like a total legend. In 1924, while gallivanting across South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand with her archaeologist husband, Christie ditched her typewriter long enough to become one of the first British women to stand up on a surfboard. Not content with just revolutionizing crime fiction, she also casually helped blaze a trail for UK surfing—because why not?

Picture it: prim and proper Agatha, balancing on a surfboard with better posture than most of us have at our desks. No murder weapons, just saltwater and guts. Meanwhile, her peers were sipping tea and fainting at the idea of athletic exertion. Christie? She was busy proving that writing murder mysteries and dodging sea foam are not mutually exclusive pursuits.

And this was no tropical Instagram holiday, folks—this was gritty colonial travel, wooden boards that weighed a small elephant, and waves that didn’t care how famous you were. There were no surf schools or beachy selfies. Just raw ocean and one dauntless Dame-to-be hanging ten.

So the next time you’re struggling to finish a sentence or commit to dry shampoo, remember: Agatha Christie was surfing before most Brits knew what a bikini was. The woman didn’t just kill off characters—she slayed.