The Way of the Surfer

The Way of the Surfer - Drew Kampion

focuses on the 'soul of surfing' and riding waves as a life path.
Profiles of eleven icons of modern surf culture reveal both both the
physical and the spiritual dimensions of surfing. Between these
profiles, a series of short essays describes the evolution of surfing
and surf culture."

One for the Christmas wishlist if you're into the zen of surfing.

Drew Kampion - The Way of the Surfer

Surfing Magazines Greatest Surfers of All Time

The current issue of SURFING magazine has a list of the 16 Greatest Surfers of all time; a list which focuses on the top PERFORMANCE surfers.

They say. 'No Dukes, No Blakes, No Freeths. No Docs. These are the 16 surfers who made history by leaving it behind...They're the guys who, more than anyone else, opened our eyes to what riding a wave can be at its very best'

So, in essence, it's a list of the most radical or innovative surfers of all time; kinda surfer as change agent. I was pretty critical of some of the entries in TRACKS magazines 'Top 50 Surfers of All Time' (see January 2004 postings) especially with Taj Burrow as the 5th best surfer of all time and also with Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson in the top 10. Of all time.

At least Surfing mag has dispensed with the need for history and is going for performance. Their list (I can't detect that it's in any order):

• Phil Edwards
• Nat Young
• Wayne Lynch
• Gerry Lopez
• Michael Peterson
• Larry Bertlemann
• Shaun Tomson
• Mark Richards
• Tom Carroll
• Tom Curren
• Martin Potter
• Christian Fletcher
• Laird Hamilton
• Kelly Slater
• Andy Irons

There's a lot to like about the list; especially with my 2 all time faves MP and Lynchy, but Christian Fletcher? What the *#KD*IED#@!!

Silver Surfer

Californian surfer blog with a nice personal voice and a good down to earth account of what it's really like to surf those joints.

Silver Surfer

SMS

Got this message from a mate down the coast. I was sitting at my desk catching up on some work, after a hot day in the office:

Centre crack offshore and one and a half metres got a barrel insane

I was glad for him!

Windiest Surf Ever

Went down the coast for the weekend and got a small but fun surf in clean little beach break waves before dark on the Friday night. Later that night, around 10.00PM while we were having a few beers out beside the caravans, the cool change hit and it rained all night.

Next day the swell was a giant seething mess but we thought that maybe the north end would be a little sheltered and a bit of fun. Not that we'd bothered checking it out for a couple of hours.

So it was a bit of a shock to hit the beach and feel the strongest onshore I've felt for years, maybe ever, howling out of the SW. It was so strong that we could hardly walk on the beach with out surfboards and when the big gusts came you had to stop, brace yourself and try to point the nose of the board into the wind. It was so strong that if you let the board go it would have sailed into the sky. We had to hid our thongs down a small crack in the rocks so they wouldn't blow away. And this was before we paddled out.

Out in the water it was a weird feeling. I've surfed Port Phillip Bay plenty of times in gales but this was different. Howling onshore wit spray blowing off the top of the waves towards the shore. It was a decent size too, maybe a couple of metres with the waves falling forwrads and starting to break long before they normally would. Strangely, the faces of the waves were smooth. It was hard to see anything though, with spray driven like pieces of metal into our eyes. We all lasted one wave each.

Surfing Mysteries #29391291

The cover of June Tracks (the one with the airbrushed looking shot of Kirra) proudly states, 'All-Time Kirra! Best photos ever of Australia's best wave', yet there are no shots of Kirra in the mag!!!

Time was that Tracks was the most important publication in the world for me. This month, even the free pack of surf spot playing cards couldn't convince me to buy it.

Spindrift

He gets a sore back occasionally, doesn't know whether to stick to a long board or get on to a hybrid, doesn't like crowds much, but likes the look of unbroken and unridden waves, there's a bit I can relate to in this surfing blog by an American guy called Chris Fox who lives on the West Coast of USA somewhere.


Spindrift

Dale Webster

Dale Webster is the guy featured in Step into Liquid who surfed every day for 25 years. It's pretty amazing to think about doing that. The article below is from surfer.mag, and there are some other articles I found while having a bit of a look around this morning

Daily Dale Webster Achieves Goal

by Jake Howard

Dale Webster: Immortalized through fortitude.

He did it! 10,407 days after beginning what is now the most legendary streak of consecutive days surfed, Dale "Daily" Webster has achieved his goal. On February 29, 2004, on a cold, gray winter morning at Doran Park in Sonoma County, California, Dale paddled out for his ritualistic "three waves to the beach." Everyday for more than 28 years Dale has taken a bare minimum of three waves to the beach. Rain or shine, storm swell or flat spell...every single day. It started with the Monster from New Zealand swell of 1975. From there, Webster set his heart to "never missing waves like that again." As he surfed day after day in 1975, Dale pondered what to do with his surfing streak. It turned into the quest to surf for an entire lunar cycle, 28-plus years according to Dale's original research (once the Internet was invented he came to find out a lunar cycle was only 18-plus years, but true to his conviction he stayed the course on his original date of 2-29-04, that and he was already more than 20 years into it).

With that being said, the next obvious question is what does tomorrow have in store for Daily? As he reckons, "I can't really see not going surfing tomorrow. It's another day, and that's what I do, surf everyday."

Webster, featured star of Dana Brown's Step Into Liquid, hasn't missed a day of surfing since September 3, 1975. He's holds the Guiness Book of Records for most confirmed days surfing (the last edition-printed 18 months ago-recognized him for 10,000 days). He also makes any streak Joe DiMaggio, Cal Ripken, Bill Romanowski or any other professional athlete endured look like tiny baby steps. After getting out of the water on February 29, 2004 he humbly commented, "Anybody can do what I did. If you love it enough you can do anything. All you have to do is start surfing today, and not stop until 2032."

• Dale Webster - Man of a Million Waves
• Surfer Celebrates the Ride of His Life (AGE)
• Dale Webster (surfing mag)

Step into Liquid

Finally got to borrow this from the ol' video-ezy place last night, after last week choosing Johny Depp's way over-rated Secret Window ahead of it. One more shot of the owl-eyed Depp emerging dishevelled and writerly from another long nap on the couch and I woudl have finished the story anothe way myself.

Meanwhile, Step into Liquid is pretty good fun in the old-school surf movie style. It's firmly and unashamedly in the Endless Summer tradition (made his Dana Brown, his son) and moves quickly from some obligatory heavy shots of Pipe, to Tahiti and even a section on Taj in OZ. There's still a little about the discovery of fun waves like the original but this is heavily laced with the NBT (next big thin) tow-in boarding, with Laird and the boys from Jaws getting together with the manic boys from Mavs in what seems way too orchestrated a meeting of surfing bro's to me.

There is a nice bit on chick's surfing, including big barrels, a feel-good bit on Catholic and Protestant kids in Ireland coming together and getting stoked in a surfing lesson with the Malloy brothers, and an ex Vietnam vet returns there with his son looking for (and not finding) waves. Probably the most interesting thing for me in the film was the articulate way that guys like Rob Machado talked about surfing, and the bit on Dale Webster, an ordinary surfer who decided 25 years ago that he was going to surf every day, and did. I'll post some stuff about him later.

Meanwhile, Step into Liquid fills a fun void in surf movies, has a sense of soul and never hangs around one bit long enough to get boring. I bet that ol' Owl Eyes Depp wouldn't have slept so much if he'd been into surfing.

The Lines of swell into the bay....

Fave Place: heading down to fave place ever (sounds a bit like Dolly magazine talk doesn't it) next week and maybe some good weather and waves. Took this shot last time, of the lines gently pushing into that beautiful bay.

Santa Barbara Surfing

Another surfing blog; this one a newsy style one from Santa Barbara with a heap of other links and pics.

Santa Barbara Surfing | Special Fall Issue

Surfboard to ward off shark attacks...

Good news if it works!

Surfboard to ward off shark attacks. 03/11/2004. ABC News Online

Worse Places to Be

Had a pretty ordinary surf this morning, after hearing how good it was yesterday, but things had got worse. Swell had dropped a lot, sun had gone, and worse, the wind had gone around a little so that, even though it was only light, it was a bit crumbly.

Still, sitting out there with a couple of friends by ourselves, looking up and down the coastline, not a house in sight, and the kelpy rock-pools all exposed in the low tide, we all thought there are worse places to be.