jonoistall said..
Here's a review I wrote about the Garmin Forerunner 220 - which I use for Running and Kitesurfing. It's been great.
http://www.kitesurfing.com.au/kitesurfing-waterproof-gps-watch-review-garmin-forerunner-220/
I have a Garmin 910xt use it for kiting, cycling, swimming (it counts laps) and running but I bought originally to track and map the across the bay down-winder of 75km. Also can measure distance traveled while kiting, speeds etc.
It has a great website where you can compare your ranking among cyclists for certain road segments. Good for surfing as well since you always wonder what distance you cover paddling, and what speeds you get on a wave. Not sure it can do wave count though, but you could easily figure that out when you compare paddling vs surfing speed.