THE JAMAICA national surfing team will take to the waves in Chile today when the eighth Pan American Surfing Games begin in Iquique.

The Jamaicans arrived in the South American country last week Wednesday but suffered the misfortune of being deprived of their surfboards.

"We had a bit of bad luck with our boards not making it to Santiago with us so we were forced to continue on to Iquique without them," said Jamaica Surfing Association president Billy Wilmot.

"We were hoping to arrive early and get acclimatised to the very cold waters of the South Pacific but with the delay of the arrival of our surfboards and wetsuits it has been very frustrating for the team," he said last week. "We can only look on as other teams who arrived early take advantage of the pre-event training on location."

Jamaica will compete in five events at the Games - Open men's short-board, Junior men's short-board, women's short-board, men's bodyboard and men's longboard.

The island's team will face stiff competition from other competing nations including Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela, Mexico, The Bahamas and Aruba.