Surfer, mum, and entrepreneur

My name is Imogen (Imi for friends). I am a surfer, a mum and an entrepreneur.I was born and raised in the UK in the seventies, and my lifelong dream was to live an adventurous lifestyle.  At a very early age, I was propelled into living like a nomad and at the age of 11 I had already moved to France and back…twice!  At the age of 17, Point Break came out in movie theaters and I caught the surfing bug.I caught my first wave ever in Maui, Hawaii.  I was blown away by the exiliration, the sheer thrill of surfing and, of course, its values.Living in a landlocked city didn’t help, so I didn’t progress much in surfing, but I completely adhered to the surfing values, spirit and way of life.  I spent my first paycheck on a 7″2 yellow board that I found in Hossegor.  Unfortunately, I failed to use the proper straps to attach it on the roof rack and remember seeing the board flying away at 60mph on the Motorway!When I turned 18, I took a gap year and moved to the UK for a few months.  I was miserable there.  So to cheer me up, I would spend most of my weekends commuting from London to Devon with the The Stormrider Guide in my glove compartment. Most of the time, I would sleep on the back seat of my car, and overcome the dire temperatures of the British waters with my 4/3 Rip Curl wetsuit.  I managed to pay myself a ticket to Australia and back where I bought my very first shortboard, a Hot Buttered 5’8″ that I still have to this day (but that I never managed to surf properly because it is too short – lol).Towards the middle of my gap year I met my husband Jean-Marc and found  “l’Amour” (Love with a capital L)! I even turned down a job at Rip Curl in Hossegor.  I guess you could say it wasn’t yet time for me to join the surfing industry, but there’s a comeback… you’ll see.Fast forward a few months where I had the most terrifying surfing accident in the Canary islands.  I was over confident, under prepared and oblivious of safety (and yes, you can say stupid).  I ventured out on an empty lineup, in a tubular point break.  Obviously I got hammered, smashed my head on the reef, shredded my wetsuit with my fins, almost drowned and got a massive bruise that wouldn’t go away for months!  I donated my yellow board, went home, focused on getting a degree, getting a job in a big tech company, and starting a family, and didn’t really look back from there.PreviousNext15 years later, when my eldest son turned 7 we decided to go to Lacanau for a bit of fresh Atlantic air, and he looked interested in surfing.  When I saw how much fun he was having, I just had to try surfing again.  This time, I decided to take things slowly and seriously.I took lessons, and gradually ventured out of my comfort zone and somehow picked up surfing where I left it, but this time, on a softboard and clearly in a safer environment. When I got back home, I enrolled both my kids in surfing lessons and used them as an excuse to go surfing!This was their weekly torture:By this time, I had left the corporate world and was running a family construction and property development business.  For the first 10 years I spent doing it, the job basically sucked my soul away, but I do remember something striking a chord when we were in Lacanau.  There was this surf shop owner who would close his shop every time the waves were pumping.  It was the “sorry – gone surfing” cliché at its best and that cliché kept me going for another 5 years in my job.  Likewise, I would escape to the sea for my dose of medicine.Surfing changed my lifeFrom a dreary suburbal lifestyle, we decided to move to a seaside town by the Mediterranean (OK, OK, it wasn’t the Atlantic but it was a great place to learn).  It was as if I was 17 again!  In 2013, we made my adventure-seeking dream come true and took off to Bali for a sabbatical.  This is where I became a Green School addict.  Green School is the most incredible place for kids to learn about sustainability and for parents to make awesome connections. I learnt about permaculture, alternative medicine, superfoods and sustainable architecture.  Meanwhile, my surfing improved and I finally started to gain confidence in bigger waves.Over the months, things started to percolate in my mind and when I returned to France, I decided to leave my job at the family business.  I founded my own company importing organic health food from Bali and selling it online. I rapidly found out that organic or not, the food business is pretty ruthless.  I reached my goals but decided that the food business wasn’t for me. Besides, I never managed to fit surfing in my schedule and that sucked!It took me a couple of years to find my true calling.  I tried out art, rebooting my business, having a nervous breakdown…  But at the end of the day, the dream job was sitting in front of me the whole time! Today I have a freelance business creating websites, telling stories, translating them into French or English and sharing this podcast with you, you can find out more about my business here.You could say that hosting a podcast is a childhood dream come true.  As a matter of fact, when I was little, I was already recording fake interviews and spoofs of TV shows on my tape recorder.  About 40 years later, I’m finally living the dream!About The Oceanriders PodcastMy podcast is a series of weekly conversations with creatives, entrepreneurs, thinkers and dreamers who also happen to be surfers.  We discuss our shared love of surfing and how it shapes career choices and business decisions. In The Oceanriders Podcast, some of my guests have gone for an alternative way of life and strongly believe in downsizing, others however, are creating burgeoning businesses to give them the excuse to stay close to the ocean.Surfers have an odd and incomprehensible passion that leads them on weird and windy paths but that’s exactly what makes them the most interesting humans on the planet!  Surfers lead healthy lifestyles, tend to care about the environment, and they travel a lot.What I really want to achieve with this podcast, is to show my listeners that it is possible to have a balanced life where surfing does fit into the equation.  Most of my guests aren’t professional surfers, they’re just people like you and me trying to make a difference and find a balance.  I love receiving guests who are changing paradigms, whether they are old or young.  In the same vein, I hope that my guests’ shared experience will help you to find your own path and help you find your dream job.Today I live in Les Lecques, France, ride a Stewart 9″0 single fin longboard and if the waves are big enough, I’m on my Bali built Redz Wombat 6″0.See you out there!


nanoFlowcell, too good to be true

The invention of the internal combustion engine 130 years ago marked the start of automobile-driven mass mobility. There are now around 1.2 billion vehicles registered and roughly 90 million new vehicles are produced each year. Annual CO2 emissions from internal combustion engines are approximately three billion tonnes. The collateral damage inflicted on society and the environment are utterly incomprehensible.Sports cars may not have the best reputation for being environmentally-friendly, but this sleek machine has been designed to reach 217.5 mph (350 km/h) – using nothing but saltwater. Its radical drive system allows the (2,300kg) Quant to reach 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 2.8 seconds, making it as fast as the McLaren P1.After making its debut at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show in March, the saltwater technology has now been certified for use on European roads.The 920 horsepower (680 kW) Quant uses something known as an electrolyte flow cell power system to power four electric motors within the car. It works in a similar way to a hydrogen fuel cell, however, the liquid used for storing energy is saltwater. The car carries the water in two 200-litre tanks, which in one sitting will allow drivers to travel up to 373 miles (600km). No price or sale date has yet been revealed, but some experts suggest it could cost more than $1.7 million. The technology offers five times the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries of the same weight. Huge potential for energy supplies in maritime, rail and aviation technology.The liquid passes through a membrane in between the two tanks, creating an electric charge. This electricity is then stored and distributed by super capacitors.Since it was founded in 2013, nanoFlowcell has concentrated on the research and development of this innovative energy storage technology and is the pioneer in the technical adaptation of flow cell technology for mobile application in vehicles.Starting on the basis of a NASA patent from 1976, nanoFlowcell has achieved significant progress in the charging and conduction capabilities of electrolyte liquids that can justifiably be described as revolutionary."Our research and development team has shown courage by forging new ways in the research of flow cell technology that leading scientists dismissed just a few years ago as dead ends. We have proven ourselves in the face of all doubters and developed a technology that will change the world."They developed the first low-voltage sports cars powered by flow cell energy.Did anyone had contact with this company and can confirm their results? The past year they did no longer update their site and social media channels.


Nearly constant offshore breezes

December of 2019 marked twenty two years since six friends visited Nicaragua to scope out a piece of land for sale. They were introduced to a man named Antonio Granados, whose family owned the property. Sr. Granados personally showed them the rugged, sprawling 2,700 acres. As they walked and climbed and dined together, he shared his vision of what the ranch could be with time and with a community behind it. They were hooked.In the years to come, they remained close with Sr. Granados and his family. They worked together to build homes for themselves and their friends. Additional homes brought the need for infrastructure. Roads were built, water filtration systems and electricity were put in place. More homes, clubhouses, restaurants, and the riding stables soon followed. Casa Papillon perfectly blends the surrounding tropical landscape.Most recently, The Inn & Residences were created as a boutique luxury accommodation for visitors. The world took notice, and now you can find them among Travel & Leisure’s top hotels of the world. Direct BookingVilla Escondida has direct access to this secluded beach.Situated on the Southwest Pacific coast between the vast Pacific Ocean and Lake Nicaragua, The Ranch is located on one of the Pacific’s only isthmuses. Bordered on both sides by water,  Rancho Santana enjoys the distinction of nearly constant offshore breezes.An epic day in front of the clubhouse. Photo: @northatlanticcollectiveCover Image: Local artist, Augusto Silva painted this beautiful map of the Ranch which you can admire in el Café. Today, it’s time for your little ones to become artists. Download the map and get them some colored pencils. Alohainstagram.com/rancho_santana/Nicaragua’s southern Pacific coast offers some of the region’s best surf conditions, and at Rancho Santana you’ll find a variety of waves. The Beach & Surf Club at Playa Los Perros offers surf lessons and surf guiding. (Surfline Webcam / MSW 7 Day Surf Forecast). Rosada is right in front! This left-hand point breaks over a fairly shallow reef bottom and is situated in a gorgeous, private cove. Santana, a fast, barreling beach break, is just around the corner. The wave bounces off a rock headland and sends wedgy peaks down the beach. The Tola Province is a magic little slice of the Central America surf zone, one trip down there and you’ll see why. If you’re flying into Nicaragua, chances are you’re going to land in Managua, the country’s main international airport. If you rent a car or hire a driver it’s about three hours from the Augusto Cesar Sandino International Airport to Playa Gigante.


Jordy Smith. His breakout event.

There is a time in every surfer's professional career life when they burst onto the scene. Martin Potter was a great example, busting out and beating Shaun Tomson in a pro event in Durban when he was 15 years old.Jordy Smith didn't do too badly either, quickly launching himself onto the pro tour and elevating himself to the runner-up position in 2010. It was that very runner-up year that made Kelly declare that Jordy had multiple world titles in him, of which none have materialized as of yet.Photo: Yves Van den Meerssche/LiveTheLifeTVStill, his breakout event on tour in 2010 was his win at JBay. It was a good year for surf, not a great year, and the final day waves were contestable but poor in Supertubes standards. Still, it was a pretty wild day for many people, Jordy included.Bede Durbidge had Jordy locked down in their semi, holding a substantial lead, and with Jordy in combo, with four minutes on the clock. Jordy was trolling that bottom section, putting his shoulders into it and scooping large pockets of water as he tried to traverse up the point far enough to find a wave with some face on it. Jordy got one and popped a little credit card rail-grab, unimpressive by Jordy's standards, but a few more turns and a little swish over the rocks, and the judges gave him something respectable and got him out of the combo. He raced back up and grabbed another short brick-touching runner, and unleashed about five quick turns, nothing too special but speedy combinations, to get the score to win. Bede was not happy when I spoke to him on the beach afterwards. "Yeah, I couldn't hear what the judges were saying, but I wasn't surprised when he got the score," said the affable fellow, with just the right level of contempt in his voice to vent frustration but keep his demeanour cool. "I thought I had done enough, but obviously, I hadn't."Photos: Yves Van den Meerssche/LiveTheLifeTVThe find of the event thus far apart from Jordy, had been the young Adam Melling. He had flown down the line all week, finding reckless amounts of speed and throwing chunks of spray all over the shop to the continuous comparisons to Fanning. Much like Ethan Ewing's comparison to AI, Melling is very much his own surfer with an incredible and unique style. While the comments weren't harmful, they probably didn't do him any good in that fledgeling part of his career.Photo: Yves Van den Meerssche/LiveTheLifeTVHe started in the final with a few quick waves, but the conditions were deteriorating quickly in the freshening northeast breeze. Jordy was once again swarming all over the bottom section of the point. He was surfing oblivious to the sharp rocks that were popping up all over the shop. He could smell victory, the local crowd was whooping it up, and there were so many fucking vuvuzelas blaring out their painful blasts, drowning out the cheering and much of the commentating.In the dying minutes, Jordy stroked into this little wave and started racing along as fast as he could, keeping away from the rocks. The wave was an onshore mess, broken up, but it hit a bigger section further down towards Impossible and started growing. Jordy had so much speed that by the time the section formed up in front of him he had speed to burn, he quickly turned the momentum into a series of lightning-fast turns, fast and critical but nothing too massive. He needed to clinch the deal, and he knew how to do it. An excellent closeout move in the gully and every man and his dog knew that he had his maiden CT victory.It was a very cool moment. Jordy's mom lit a ciggie and shook her head, hands trembling slightly. The crowd were roaring, Jordy has a whole lot of duties to contend with before he got to the podium, with signings, posing and interviews and all the rest, but he did it all efficiently and headed up to the podium to receive his trophy.Photos: Yves Van den Meerssche/LiveTheLifeTVThe rest is history.


Death By Mosquito

While much has been done in malaria research, it still kills hundreds of thousands of people. In 2017 there was an estimated 219 million cases of the disease, and 435 000 deaths from the mosquito borne illness.Speak to any surfer or traveller who has survived a bout of the killer disease and you’ll quickly come to understand the dangers of the disease, the importance of knowledge regarding the disease, and the preventative methods and prophylactics utilised in fighting this killer.Malaria is a parasite; a protozoa that resides in human blood cells after being transmitted by the female  Anopheles mosquito. After a mosquito pierces into human skin, it salivates under the skin as a way of preparing for a facile blood feed. It is with that spit that the mosquito transmits the malaria virus into the human system. The malaria parasite (called sporozoites) enters the bloodstream and settles in the liver. At that time no symptoms appear, but the malaria parasite multiplies.Following its stay in the liver, the parasite enters another phase of its life cycle, the merozotes, which circulate in the bloodstream, penetrating and destroying red blood cells and reproducing again. The majority of symptoms are caused by the massive release of merozoites into the bloodstream, the anaemia caused by the destruction of the red blood cells, and the problems caused by large amounts of free haemoglobin entering circulation after the red blood cells rupture. After you contract malaria it takes a minimum of six days, and up to several weeks, before symptoms appear. Symptoms are a little baffling.It was 1997 and I was spending the night in Singapore’s Changi Airport – feral travelling, no money left etc - when I started to feel a bit of a cold coming onboard. I was about a week out of G-Land where I had taken my medication religiously and protected myself from the mosquitos with coils and cream and long-sleeved clothing. Before I knew it I started feeling really poorly and I was boarding for a long haul to Heathrow. I felt too nauseous to drink myself to sleep, and I had swallowed my last sleeping pill a long time ago. Before I knew it I needed to vomit in the plane.The airhostess, sensing that I was going to seed pretty quickly, organised me a row at the back of the plane to sleep on. I lay there, cradling my stomach and moaning in agony and sweating under a thin little travel blanket.It was about my sixth time in Indo. When I went the first time, many years ago, I took Lariam as the anti-malarial medication. Rough nights, but I never contracted the disease. Even after camping for sixteen days on an island in the Mentawais in the early 90’s, an area that is rife with the disease. The next time I was in malaria territory was in 1998 in Mozambique. I tried the combination of Daramal and Paludrine. On the second day of administration I experienced chronic side effects, like severe headaches, nausea, diarrhoea and fatigue. I stopped this medication when the toilet paper supply started getting really low.This time I had gone back onto Lariam. For some reason, the nightmares weren’t nearly as prevalent as the last time.As mentioned earlier, malaria attacks the blood cells and breaks them down.  At the very least, malaria brings on a high temperature as the body tries to kill the invaders. At worst, malaria kills by prohibiting the supply of healthy, oxygen-rich blood to the organs. Malaria can cause collapsed lungs, or liver, kidney or heart failure. Worst of all, malaria can cause a loss of oxygen to the brain, which brings on terrible convulsions and death. The disease thrives in enervated or malnourished people; which makes it specifically lethal in Third World territories.I had the classic flu-like symptoms. When I presented myself at Charing Cross hospital they immediately put me in bed and stuck a saline drip in one arm and a glucose drip in the other. They analysed my blood, urine and stool.The malaria belt extends around the world from the equator to 40 degrees north latitude, 45 degrees south latitude, and up to 2500 metres elevation.  Take a look at a map ... that’s a whole lot of the world’s best surf spots. Surfers are most likely to contract the disease in virtually every tropical place they travel, with the exceptions of Hawaii, Tahiti and Fiji - they are malaria free. Other surf spots such as G-Land, Nias, Mentawais, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Philippines and even Puerto Escondido are heavy risk areas for malaria, and surfers travelling in these areas without knowledge and protection are taking their lives in their own hands.The medication I was given back then was pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine (Fansidar) single dose, combined with a two-week dose of Quinine. The Quinine was a bit of a bummer. The side effects for me were quite debilitating. Quinine, obtained from the bark of the cinchona tree, is the earliest antimalarial drug, but is no longer used that much because of the frequently occurring side effects. I suffered nausea, headaches, loss of hearing and blurred vision, a group of symptoms known as cinchonism. I heard ringing in my ears, started hearing voices, thought I was finally going mad. Had to keep the radio on for 24 hours a day. Had severe insomnia. Got about four hours sleep a night, if I was lucky, but hey, I made it.Next time prevention will be paramount. A mosquito net everywhere I go. Loads of mosquito coils to be burning all the time. Long sleeve cotton shirts and pants. Anti- mosquitos spray and something to rub on your body.. But I’m definitely going back to a malaria area in the near future, so I suppose that means I consider the mission worth it. So if you’re about to launch on that dream trip to Centro America just remember not to slack off with the anti- mosquitos protection. If you do slack off, at the least it could mean an early and uncomfortable end to your surf trip, at worst it could mean your life.


Planet of the Humans

Michael Moore presents Planet of the Humans, a documentary that dares to say what no one else will this Earth Day — that we are losing the battle to stop climate change on planet earth because we are following leaders who have taken us down the wrong road — selling out the green movement to wealthy interests and corporate America. This film is the wake-up call to the reality we are afraid to face: that in the midst of a human-caused extinction event, the environmental movement’s answer is to push for techno-fixes and band-aids. It's too little, too late. Removed from the debate is the only thing that MIGHT save us: getting a grip on our out-of-control human presence and consumption. Why is this not THE issue? Because that would be bad for profits, bad for business. Have we environmentalists fallen for illusions, “green” illusions, that are anything but green, because we’re scared that this is the end—and we’ve pinned all our hopes on biomass, wind turbines, and electric cars? No amount of batteries are going to save us, warns director Jeff Gibbs (lifelong environmentalist and co-producer of “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Bowling for Columbine"). This urgent, must-see movie, a full-frontal assault on our sacred cows, is guaranteed to generate anger, debate, and, hopefully, a willingness to see our survival in a new way—before it’s too late. Featuring: Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Richard Branson, Robert F Kennedy Jr., Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Vinod Khosla, Koch Brothers, Vandana Shiva, General Motors, 350.org, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Nature Conservancy, Elon Musk, Tesla. Music by: Radiohead, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Blank & Jones, If These Trees Could Talk, Valentina Lisitsa, Culprit 1, Patrick O’hearn, The Torquays, Nigel Stanford, and many more.


Designed by Nike's first employee

The Sunburst logo was originally designed by Nike's first employee Jeff Johnson in 1974. In 2019, with the intent of embodying the concept of circular design – and with the blessing of Jeff – Nike used the brand marker for Nike Sustainability. Today, it is exclusively the Move To Zero logo and denotes sustainable product on Nike.com/sustainability Move to Zero is Nike’s journey toward zero carbon and zero wasteFrom creating innovative ways to recycle shoes nearly 30 years ago to recent measures that address climate change, Nike has long been committed to helping protect the planet to create a better future for sport. After all, there is no finish line. Nike is now launching a new program that makes it easier to search, shop and learn about the sustainable features. They will now display a Sunburst on product made with sustainable materials. This pilot is launching with apparel products and featured apparel made from at least 50 percent sustainable materials by fabric weight (either recycled material or organic cotton), excluding trims.Sustainable Blend: Combining recycled polyester and organic cotton creates a performance material that reduces carbon emissions, water and chemical inputs compared to blends made from virgin polyester and conventionally-grown cotton. Organic cotton is grown without synthetic chemicals and uses less water than conventional cotton. Recycled polyester reduces waste and reduces carbon emissions by approximately 30 percent compared to virgin polyester.Recycled polyester: This material in Nike products is made from recycled plastic bottles that are cleaned, shredded into flakes and converted into pellets. From there, the pellets are spun into new, high-quality yarn, delivering peak performance with a lower impact on the environment. Recycled polyester reduces waste and reduces carbon emissions by approximately 30 percent compared to virgin polyester.Organic cotton: Created without synthetic chemicals, organically-grown cotton requires less water than conventional cotton to produce. Conventional cotton farming can have an extraordinary environmental impact due to water and pesticide use. More than half of the cotton is sourced sustainably, and Nike is one of the top users of organic and recycled cotton in the world.Follow "Sustainability" in the Nike App to learn more about sustainable design at purpose.nike.com.


Not just a bunch of escape artists

Tony “Doc” Van Den Heuvel wasn’t the first person to surf Jeffreys Bay, but there is no doubt that he surfed it the longest. In the early sixties, Tony was the original South African competitor and by the late 60’s he was the original South African rebel. For most of his surfing life, he has gone against the grain of the Afrikaner establishment in Jeffreys Bay. He was a bootmaker and that gave him financial independence and endless hours of surfing with only himself to answer to. The passing of his treasured dog Faith left a void in his life that was never filled His gaze was that of a surfer who has seen it all since he first surfed J-Bay in 1962. He is now sorely missed.© Jared AufrichitgBruce Gold, Clive Barber, Christine Moller and Shorty Bronkhorst. All being Doc’s true ‘partners-in-crime'. A lifestyle, an attitude and interpretation of living to surf, staying on the beach and staking a claim and right to live and die on the dunes overlooking one of the worlds most hallowed surf spots. Think about it, to be able to stake your claim to a piece of prime surf real estate and get away with it, you’d have to have lived a life like Docs.© Jared AufrichitgChristine and Doc were two of SA’s first representatives charging the North Shore of Hawaii, whilst Bruce and Shorty go as far back as surfing itself and have shared Doc’s path.Shorty was one of the original South Beach crew who lifeguarded and surfed in the late 1940s to 1950s. He was one of three South African lifeguards — with Cliff Honeysett and Bobby Burdon — who hitch-hiked through Africa, fending off stone-throwing monkeys in the Congo, surfing at Alexandria in Egypt until finally introducing surfing to the English Channel island of Jersey in the mid-50s. He was a founder of the Jersey Surfboard Club in 1959, returning to the island 10 years ago for the club’s 40th anniversary. He worked with Atlantic Waves surf school and inspired a generation of grommets with his boundless energy, love of surfing and tales of the Skeleton Coast. Shorty moved to J-Bay to run the Salt Rock Lodge. He was a fixture in the water and never missed a good swell, often hanging out at ‘the office’ under the Supers boardwalk with cohorts Ant van den Heuwel and Bruce Gold. Shorty is now missed by all his friends and family in J-Bay, South Africa and the rest of the world. Rest in Peace Shorty, Hamba Kahle Mfwetu!Clive Barber filmed South Africa’s first surf movie, African Vibrations. Clive was also an intrepid photographer and traveller who documented his journey around Australia. There are many iconic images from Byron Bay to Mauritius, and all over South Africa, my favourites are the one of old Seal Point and Jeffreys Bay… Rest in Peace Clive.Back in 1964, a young 17-year-old Van Den Heuvel was the youngest member of the adventurous crew who discovered the world’s best righthander. Their discovery came just six months after the Endless Summer crew had unknowingly passed it by on their way North towards Durban after their discovery at Cape St. Francis. “The Last Camper” was a quiet tribute to Van Den Heuvel and his amazing saga, which has been playing out in J-Bay for more than four decades. Van Den Heuvel, or “Doc” as he was known, was South Africa’s 1965 national surfing champion.


Custodians of the SA surf culture

A friend of mine — a hot underground local surfer called ‘Roosta’ (Andrew Lange) has written a fine piece on Ant, helped by Bruce Gold and some of Ant’s other friends. To reflect Doc’s true message so he has enlisted three other ‘custodians’ of the South African surf culture; Bruce Gold, Christine Moller and Shorty Bronkhorst, to help weave this one down the line and into some proper sense! Ant Van Der Heuwel was one of the pioneers of the surf lifestyle @ JBayAL: You and Doc were cruising together on your first trip to J-Bay, right?Shorty: It was in 1966 when he came back from competing for South Africa in Peru and ah, we actually did a trip to Cape Town and stopped off here in J-Bay on the way, and then stopped again on the way back. Then I had to get back hey and Doc said: “I’m staying a bit longer!” (laughs) and of course, there was nothing here I mean not a house in sight. We all camped in the dunes down the bottom of the point.AL: What was the story with Doc when they wouldn’t give him his Springbok colours?Shorty: He didn’t actually get them because there was John Whitmore you see, who told him that if he didn’t cut his hair he couldn’t surf and he just wouldn’t cut it! So they never gave him his colours. That tells you a lot about Doc hey? Rather than cut his hair, he’d rather not have his Springbok blazer! (more laughing)Christine: “ Well, I also knew Tony since he was sixteen. It was during the Durban Lifesaving Club days, he was with Pirates and Shorty was at South Beach then Tony became a pro lifeguard as well.AL: So then how did you two end up meeting in Hawaii?Christine: I was over there from California and he came over from South Africa to stay and surf the North Shore, it was before all the contests started happening. Just before we left they started having one or two events, it was around ’66 I think.AL: Were you guys like partying hard? What was the whole Hawaiian social scene like back then? Did you guys chill out in hammocks and drink weird smoothies or what?Christine: No, it was quiet, I mean we’d go home, make dinner, go to bed n’ get up early the next morning! There was no nightlife, there were some youngsters from San Francisco and they got a light show going in Honolulu, that was about it.AL: What about that really solid wave Bruce was telling us about what you and the Doc shared at Sunset when it was big?Christine: We had a lot of waves at Sunset, I suppose, well it’s different the waves over there and I had my semi-gun, that was a beautiful board from Greg Noll, I could ride it in three-foot surf or ten-foot surf.”AL: What was the story?Christine: I dunno, the waves got bigger and bigger the way I hear it! (more laughter) I don’t think they were that big, I dunno I suppose you don’t think about it when you’re young and strong, you just go out there and you surf!AL: Young and stupid hey? Just like me! Bruce, where and when did you first meet Doc?Bruce: End of ’68 hey, right here at the point.AL: Were you guys camping or what?Bruce: Ja, we came out here on a surfing trip and Doc was staying here in a half a bus, half a silver bus. He’d been here for a while. He had a sore back from doing a flick-flack on a tiny green 5'6" surfboard, I even saw him shaping a board on the beach with some Aussie. Gavin Rudolph rode it the first time, I remember that was J-Bay in 1968.AL: How would you describe Doc’s style of surfing?Bruce: Very controlled, very powerful. Precise and considered surfing, stylish.AL: What era suited his surfing best?Bruce: Longboard surfing for sure. Mickey Dora came back here and he only rode longboards and he inspired us more or less to stay on the longboards.AL: Tell us a cool story about the Doc.Christine: Many years ago with my blue Kombi we went over to St Francis, we were actually looking at the pictures today, and Tony says “This is how you go in here,” as he waxes his board. There are all those stones there and he goes climbing over the stones and jumps on his board and starts paddling and knocks his skeg off! (heaps of laughter)It was around ’92 when I first heard from an Aussie that the infamous Doc was on the scene again, having moved out the Pellsrus township. Staying at Koffie’s Surf Camp keeping the coals blazing around the fire and telling the tourists’ surf stories. I had to see it for myself and thus started my friendship and ‘tutelage’ with the Doc, Supertubes and the politics of Jeffreys Bay. Since all I’d ever heard through grommet hood was the name, like he was one of the pioneers of J-Bay or something, respect came naturally. You see Doc was as respected as he was hated at times. Animo-city is not a place in Disneyland, it lives and breathes in the lungs of spoilt antagonists in towns just like J-Bay. Doc lived the way he wanted, which was not without confrontation. Negativity as a result of his actions, habits and attitude came and went like the tide, like the two sides of Doc; one unequivocally cool, the other on edge, disillusioned and angry at the way things had become with the scene, crowds and the reckless overdevelopment of J-Bay.Physically, at 59 ripe years of age, it was a challenge to camp in those dunes. For a while, he had his dog Faith and then Socks and all the crew in the ‘office’ under the boardwalk and things were rocking. Tight people, good times and bad. I’m sure a heap of us have spent many a day watching the show between sessions; Christine knitting Bippo beanies on one side, Bruce doctoring the Doc’s back on the other while he grooved to his radio, crafting leather boots and sandals and dogs and pups ran around your feet like crazy! Doc’s work was renowned the world over, check the old Art Brewer photo of his thigh-high Ugg boots, custom-built for the infamous Bunker Spreckles, not to mention Mickey Dora’s politically incorrect sealskin boots! (Still in the possession of one B. Gold) You just had to have patience and order your boots long before you left J-Bay. And so he eked out a few bucks from the leatherwork, did some interviews for surf mags and generally survived in a style one could only survive on in a place like J-Bay with its history as a surf-travel mecca and international meeting place for all forms of tube riding.“You can spend your whole life trying to figure out how to make a million or you can spend your time doing what you love and what you’re good at!” — Doc quoted in South African Surfer magazine.


Vela. A web tv series from JJF ...

Between surf events, John and a group of friends have spent the last few years testing the limits of smaller sailing craft around their home in the Hawaiian Islands.  Looking to push their comfort zone further, John and crew begin to prepare VELA for an open ocean voyage larger than any they've made before.Cover Shot: Ryan Miller / Red Bull "Line Islands, here we go."  It's a week at sea, with no land in sight.  John and crew develop their lifestyle aboard VELA as they cover 1200 miles from Oahu to their first destination, Palmyra Atoll.  They catch their dinners, race paddle boards around the boat, and face the realities of the doldrums and sea sickness."This is truely eye opening. Instead of constantly hearing the "complaints" of us human destroying planet earth, now seeing how the planet would look like and how the ecosystem would work when we wouldn't interfere the circle of life. Absolutely amazing, 13 minutes is way to short but it opened my eyes that we are on one hell of a mission."Episode 4 | Washington Island and Fanning Island"This is some National Geographic level series. Seriously, the composition on every shot is beautiful, the voice over, the narrative, the colors, the sound design and music selection, everything adds up to a masterpiece. Such and inspiration! Keep these type of series coming please!"


Transkei Dreaming

The wild coast – a beautiful stretch of deserted beaches and friendly people – isn't that wild after all.The rain had kept a constant chatter on the corrugated iron roof. We were thankful for the rain because it had filled up the tanks from their somewhat dry levels. Still, it had woken me up early, with the constant ratatat of hard rain falling. The rest of the house was still sleeping.I walked to the end of the musty bedroom, pulled the curtain aside to peer out at the drenched landscape and my heart quickened. A man was standing mere metres away, under the low branches of a tree. He was dressed in a yellow raincoat and was staring at the house intently. I watched him for a minute. He was unaware that I had seen him. Suddenly I saw another person in a tree a little bit further away. Then another. I looked again, and still, they stood there in dawn's wet early light. I stood on the soaking wooden balcony in my bare feet and asked the nearest guy., "What? What do you want?"He slowly walked forward towards me and pulled a bag from under his raincoat and pulled out the most massive, plumpest crayfish I had ever seen. He placed it flapping on the wooden balcony by my feet. Then he took another, slowly pulled it out of the bag, and set it next to the first. The other guys all walked out from under the trees with their sacks and placed them in separate little piles in front of me. I burst out laughing, at the appreciation of this precious moment. Big toothy grins opened up in front of me, and we all had a communal chuckle. Welcome to the Transkei.We had heard about a legendary wave around the next headland and our mission after breakfast was to go and find it. We set off for the nearest hill. We climbed straight up for a little while until we were all breathless before we summitted the hillock. A beach vista stretched before us. A few rondavels in the foreground covered the corner of the picture. The rest was taken up by a vast bay of white sand, and clean blue waves. In the distance, we could see a headland, with our secret destination just beyond it. We started down the hillock, walking alongside a sloshy little riverbed. It opened up onto the wide, white beach, littered with seaweed, but untainted by human influence. Not even a footprint anywhere.The tide was low, so we slogged away on the relatively hard sand for about five kilometres, until we reached the base of the headland. We walked past gin-clear rock pools and wind-blasted caves, climbed over some rocks, and came around the corner. In the distance, as far as the eye could see, was a rocky coastline with waves smashing against it, and no sign of an indentation. This stretch of the coast wasn't a surfing stretch, that was obvious. Someone had sold us a dummy. Good waves don't come easy these days. We turned around and started back, remembering seeing some fun waves on the main beach.When we got back, some local girls had gathered around our house, and instead of more crayfish, they had placed their wares on the wooden deck. Handmade jewellery fought for shelf space alongside an array of beautiful, finely-polished shells. Six or seven girls all jostled alongside each other, giggling and smiling, as they showed us what they had. Old clothes sat loosely on them in the warm afternoon sun, and although they were all smiles, you could see that they were desperate for sales. Some of us bought a few shells, some of us bought little pieces of jewellery for loved ones. The girls left smiling.The sun was setting as we sat comfortably around a fire. We soon had the fire at optimum cooking temperature. A massive fish took dominance on the braai grid, surrounded by the crayfish tails. Nothing beats seafood done on the fire, with a dash of hot sauces, and some grainy spices. No dainty hors d'oeuvres here-no crepes or canapés or sausages on a stick. We were in the heart of the Kei, and it looked like it might rain again.Ricky Basnett, Emma Smith and Avuyile "Avo" Ndamase set off in their Mitsubishi Triton bakkies to find waves off the beaten track in the Transkei region (now the Eastern Cape) of South Africa. Along their journey down the wild coast, they visit renowned surf spots like Mdumbi, Lwandile and Coffee bay, but spend a fair amount of time exploring unknown nooks along the rugged coastline, many of which require a 4x4 to reach. A visit to the Transkei wouldn't be complete without a visit to the iconic Hole in the wall, and the trio of professional surfers find something special.Photo: mamiwatasurf.com"The Transkei is an unspoilt, rural area of the Eastern Cape of South Africa, North of J-Bay, South of Durban. A temperate zone between the sub-Tropics of KwaZulu-Natal and the more Mediterranean climes further to the South. Here there are few roads and even fewer bridges connecting the rolling hills, meaning that there is no easy access to many of the beaches. The mythical waves of Lwandile, a fast, right handed point break that unfurls and races across its reef like an African freight train, in a similar fashion to that most famous of African point breaks, Jeffreys Bay, a few hundred kilometres back down the road. Lucky for you, Lwandile is often empty. and for good reason. First it’s hard to reach. Although just across the river mouth and in the next bay from a small tourist area, the drive will take 3 to 4 hours on the cattle tracks, winding over the hills, through the valleys and across the rivers, to spill you out on the hill overlooking this gem. A short boat trip is the easiest way to access the wave, but good luck finding a boat in this part of the world if you don’t bring your own on the tow-hitch of your Landcruiser. The other thing that keeps the crowds down in Lwandile, beyond the inaccessibility, is the every present thought of sharks. Big ones. The Transkei is far enough South to make a chance encounter with a Great White possible, and far enough North to mean that you could also bump into a short tempered Zambezi, Bull or Tiger shark." mamiwatasurf.comA former South African surfing champion named Justin Saunders has gone off the grid and set up a surf camp, sandwiched between a series of perfect points on tribal land. Swell Eco Lodge offers accommodation set within the rolling hills of Mngcibe (North side of the Mdumbi River). +27 84 943 3947Salty Waves at Coram Deo in Coffee BayWild Lubanzi is located in a little Xhosa village close to the surf.


There are no shortcuts to joy

Before Under An Arctic Sky was even an idea or a film it was a love affair with surfing in cold water. Over the last decade Chris Burkard (Director &) Ben Weiland (DP) traveled across the globe seeking out waves in some of the coldest and most remote conditions on the planet. Why would anyone ever want to surf in cold water one might ask? Simple.. to thrust ourselves out of the safe and the routine, the familiar and known, and to hopefully create a space where the unknown can occur. Under an Arctic Sky was this unknown.Photos: 500px.com/chrisburkardWe endured the largest storm Iceland had seen in 25 years. We began to question whether this trip was doomed for failure.There were so many moments while filming for where we should have called it quits. Like when our car got stuck in an avalanche, Renan Ozturk got 25 stitches from a drone or when the surfers had ice forming around their wetsuit while surfing at 1 am in the Arctic Circle. The best projects always require you to suffer a little bit, and that is exactly what we did.Presented by: Sony, Chris Burkard Studio & Sweatpants Mediachrisburkard.com/ sweatpantsmedia.com/ underanarcticsky.com/Director - Chris BurkardDirector of Photography - Ben WeilandEditor - Dave PhelpsProduced by - Andy BellChris Burkard is an accomplished explorer, photographer, creative director, speaker, and author. Traveling throughout the year to pursue the farthest expanses of Earth, Burkard works to capture stories that inspire humans to consider their relationship with nature, while promoting the preservation of wild places everywhere.Layered by outdoor, travel, adventure, surf, and lifestyle subjects, Burkard is known for images that are punctuated by untamed, powerful landscapes. Through social media Chris strives to share his vision of wild places with millions of people, and to inspire them to explore for themselves. instagram.com/chrisburkardHis visionary perspective has earned him opportunities to work on global, prominent campaigns with Fortune 500 clients, speak on the TED stage, design product lines, educate, and publish a growing collection of books. Along with his team, Burkard is based out of his production studio and art gallery in the Central Coast of California.


A roll through the Sunset machine

You're always told that it's cool to push your limits a little when it comes to big waves, to paddle out and give it a go if you're feeling a little nervous and that it is all part of the learning process of being a surfer and of being a human.It's not all true.It's sometimes very foolish to paddle out when you're obviously out of your depth, and two elements come into play when it comes to big surf and having a go.The first is the bravery of youth. Totally cool, the only way to learn is to experience it, so go out and have a go, get your beatings, lick your wounds and reassess. This only works on the young.The second is that discretion actually is the better part of valour. We waited all day for Sunset Beach to pick up. I didn't want it to pick up, and I wanted the afternoon to fly into the night so that I could grab a beer and chill on the deck at the house overlooking Phantoms and Velzyland.Late in the afternoon, real sets were coming through at Sunset, and the entire household headed out, including me on a borrowed 7'6 blade that did not feel comfortable under my arm.The West Peak. All my life I have head about and read about the west peak at Sunset. I grew up in fear of this loathsome, lumbering miscreant lump of water that would materialize in the channel, hit a chunk of coral, and do a sharp left turn and bore down on hapless surfers, mowing down anyone in its way. I grew to dread the west peak, and whenever I got caught inside by any wide set at any surfing location in the world, I would consider it a 'west peak' moment.The first wave of the set looked like the wave I had been waiting for all my life. Ten-foot solid, with a wall stretching all the way to Waimea. I was in the perfect spot, it even seemed like there was a chip-shot forming as I paddled. This was going to be a cinch. There's nothing like a ten-foot wall with an easy take off….I missed it. The wall of water passed underneath me. The opportunity for the wave of the day, of my year, possibly of my life was gone. I turned around and saw that the next two waves were quite a bit bigger than anything I had faced so far in my life, and they were going to break in front of me.With the perfect vision of hindsight, I could have dealt with the situation way better. I could have paddled further into the channel to try and get away from them, or I could have paddled in as hard as I could to get away from the imminent explosion of them breaking. Instead, I paddled straight out.I scraped over the first one and fixed my eyes on the next wave. It was that very instant, as I put eyes on it, and as I understood that I was not going to make it, my brain did that little wobble.I had a split second to decide. Stand up on my board and dive off to try and get as deep as possible, or quietly take the biggest breath; hold my nose and slip underwater. Either way, I was about to enter a world of unhappiness.I probably could have made it under the wave. I perhaps could have slipped under the breaking lip. My timing was totally wrong. Waves move fast in Hawaii, and they seem to carry more weight.I could have died out there that day. My borrowed board disappeared in the most violent thrashing I had ever experienced the instant the lip hit the spot where I had slipped under the water, and I was sent deep and tumbling.These days I think things through a bit more, and when I feel like it when I'm not feeling the surf for whatever reason, I just go the beer option on the deck.A picture perfect day at Sunset Beach, Hawaii.


Transformed by the Sea. Fishpeople

Fishpeople tells the stories of a unique cast of characters who have dedicated their lives to the sea. Filmmaking. Some people follow the storyboard, some follow their gut. Keith Malloy? Ten parts gut, zero parts plan. Well, I take that back. He’s got a plan, it’s just hard to discern it behind that beard. Fortunately, he’s got some friends (and a legendary wife) who know how to organize, use cameras, record sound, scuba dive and put out fires. It takes a village to create a piece of cinema worth remembering, and someone with gut instinct. Such is the case with Fishpeople, Keith’s latest film."I’m watching a herd of white Arabian horses running through a steep Tahitian valley. Those deep green valleys you see from the lineup of Teahupoʻo are so dramatic they look as if they’ll topple over. Fishpeople character and professional surfer Matahi Drollet brought us up here. It’s his uncle’s property. An elder of the community with deep Tahitian roots, Peva Levy’s hospitality extends into telling the vivid story of his homeland and the early origins of surfing Teahupo’o which was supposedly first ridden by a woman. It is through these moments with his family that the inherited reverence (and confidence) Matahi has for the ocean is founded." patagonia.com


Lynne Boyer

Lynne resides ten months of the year in Hawaii and two months in Hungary. Her favorite medium is oil on canvas and linen. She was born with a keen interest in visual arts and started drawing and painting at an early age. Lynne grew up on Oahu and became a World Champion surfer winning the titles in 1978 & 1979, even though her interest in the arts never waned. "You could say she was a more radical surfer than I was," rival and four-time world champion Margo Oberg of Hawaii recalled. "She was pretty, she had wild red hair, she painted her boards up . . . she sure looked radical."She placed third in the 1973 state championships, won in 1975, and turned pro the following year, just out of high school, flying to California to win the Hang Ten Pro Championships at Malibu, earning $1,500. The women's world tour made its debut in 1977, and for the next few years it was essentially a two-surfer showcase. Boyer won three of nine events in 1977, but Oberg won four and took the title.In 1984 she won the World Cup at Haleiwa, but had otherwise all but vanished from the surf scene, revealing years later that she was addicted to cocaine and alcohol, and that her reticence as a pro had been determined in large part because she'd been a closeted lesbian. "It was lonely at the top," she told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1997. "You have all these secrets, and you can't let everyone know who you are because they might get an edge on you."She continued to surf, but as she said in 1997, "It took 13 years of being sober to make it fun again." A successful full-time artist, Boyer's paintings are now sold in galleries throughout Hawaii and through her personal website. (Source: EOS)This is for all the ladies who brought surfing to the world.Video by Doug Walker. photos by SHIRLEY ROGERSArchival footage courtesy of Ted Adegawa, Ronnie Romero and Mary Pille


Dungeons, Dragons, and Duckdives

The Red Bull Big wave Africa ran from the first tentative steps in 1999, up until the extravaganza that was the 2008 event, won by Grant 'Twiggy' Baker.One of the years, I decided to surf this beast of a wave, to be able to report on it and understand more about facing big waves. Hawaiian big wave charger Jamie Sterling lent me one of his guns, and we all headed out there for a session. Jamie was a small guy back then, and in hindsight, I probably could have done with a bit more foam under my chest.Photos: Alan Van Gysen/Red Bull Content PoolMost of the activity was happening way out the back, with some of the big wave surfers heading out to the outside peak to get a few of the big ones. I chose to sit closer in, on the edge of the channel, to have a look.The sets weren't that big. It was about 12 to 15-foot, with a few bigger outside sets, but at Dungeons, that's not that big. It gets a whole lot bigger.I remembered Davey Stolk, Rudy Palmboom, Jamie Sterling and Richard Sills getting a few, with Jamie having some fun out there and going left on a few of the sets. Going left can be extremely dangerous. If you go left and a big set comes through on the main section of reef, you are going to get them all on the head. If a big west set comes through, you're going to have to paddle hard to get out the way. Both options were scary, even on a lesser day such as this.Jason Ribbink – another big wave surfer from Durban – caught a set wave and kicked out near where I was sitting. I waved at him."Nice wave," I said."Listen. You don't want to be sitting down here," Jason said to me. "This is a gnarly spot. If the inside section opens up, you're going to get caught inside. Rather come up to the top."I wasn't interested in 'going to the top' and told him so, that I would rather chill down here, in what I thought was the channel.He tried a few more times to entice me before paddling off.I sat a bit longer, and unbeknownst to me, I was drifting while watching these guys ride massive waves. On cue, everyone in the photography boat started shouting. At me, at the ocean, at life in general. I started paddling, rattled by the screaming, and as I crested the first wave, I saw it. It was a monster double-up of a wave heading for the 2.5 reef (2.5 meters deep) which is where I was sitting and where you don't want to be.I never really managed to assess how big the wave was, but the spectators reckoned about 12-foot. The problem was that it was doubling up, over the shallowest part of the whole reef set-up, and aiming itself for my head. I paddled, arms shaking from fear, breath wheezing. The 10'0 picked up a bit of momentum, and for an absolute split second, I thought I might have a chance. The very next split second I realised that I had no chance of getting past this beast and that I needed to opt for plan B. Stand on my board, jump off and swim deep.The lip hit the water, and I felt he shock wave deep underwater. It landed behind me and pushed me away and up behind the back of the wave. I was deep for a long time before I emerged, with some anxious faces on me. I grabbed the board and started paddling. More waves were coming. I chose to go around the left side of the set, and everyone started yelling again."Go! Go! Go!" It was Jamie screaming at me. I think he was more worried about his board than anything else, but he got me over the next wave as adrenalin coursed through me.I was well clear of the next wave, the final wave of that mean set, and I could finally get my breath back after a panicky rush of paddling and hyperventilating. Rudy Palmboom paddled up to me and gave me a high five, and everyone just carried on surfing.When we look back at the origins of modern surf culture, we often identify three countries: Brazil, Australia and the United States. However, if you dig into the past a bit deeper, you'll find South Africa right up there amongst the progenitors.In Episode 1 of Made In South Africa, filmmaker Jason Hearn explores the rich, diverse surfing possibilities of his home country's "Mother City"—Cape Town. We go for a high-octane free surf with local boy Mikey February, and Jordy Smith. Then it's over to one of the world's best big wave breaks, Dungeons, for a rare summer session with Frank Solomon, Josh Redman, Matt Bromley, and Dale Staples. In Episode 2 of Made In South Africa, filmmaker Jason Hearn heads from Cape Town up the coast to Durban, to Cave Rock. Lifelong local and former World Championship Tour competitor Ricky Basnett gives us an insider's look at the rough-around-the-edges. tight-knit crew of surfers whose lives have been shaped around, and defined by, Cave Rock. From true OG Rudy Palmboom to world-renowned photographer Chris Van Lennep to World Champion Shaun Tomson, the wave that ties their lives together is Cave Rock. Next week, Hearn spends some time with one of the first — and still the best — free surfers on the planet, Frankie Oberholzer, and his ultra-stylish son, Koby.In Episode 3 of Made In South Africa, filmmaker Jason Hearn finishes his exploration of his home country with one of surfing's greatest characters, Frankie Oberholzer. Hearn revisits the story of Oberholzer's rise to fame after Derek Hynd put him on Rip Curl's The Search alongside Tom Curren. Today, Oberholzer leads a quiet, contented life near Durban, where he fishes and surfs, along with his son Koby, whenever possible. The Search might have been a long time ago, but Oberholzer's style in the water has not faded a bit. He was, and remains, one of the best free surfers on the planet.When filmmaker Jason Hearn finished Episode 3 of Made In South Africa, there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. So he decided to put together this bonus edit from one of the best days of the year, featuring Frankie and Koby Oberholzer.


Lockdown Dream. Hugo Boulenger


Fujifilm X-T4. Jolt to the Industry.

The Fujifilm X-T4 is a mirrorless camera with a split personality – on the outside it's all retro dials and analogue chic, but inside it's packed with more advanced features than we've seen from any Fujifilm X-T camera so far.The X-T4 fills the last gaps left by its predecessor, the X-T3, and is now one of the most wanted cameras on the market. Fujifilm added IBIS and a flippy screen but the mechanism is arguably inferior for those who like to quickly shoot from the hip. A more discreet shutter and improved autofocus, now that's great. Yes, it’s the same image sensor (and processor) as the X-T3, but if it fits your photography style, the X-T4 is a leap over its predecessor. So should you upgrade?The X-T4 retains the X-T3’s excellent video recording capabilities, able to capture 4K clips at up to 60fps with a maximum bitrate of 400Mbps. You can record 10-bit F-Log straight to the SD card. There’s also now a 240fps super slo-mo mode (in 1080p), joining the 120fps frame rate that’s available on the T-3. Here’s a nice touch: movie mode gets its own placement on one of the X-T4’s dials, and the camera separates your settings (and Q button preferences) for stills and video. You can switch between the two without having to mess with menus each time. Now that's a killer feature!The Fujifilm X-T4 is the natural evolution of the X-T series, but it’s evolved into a space that's more hotly contested than a jalapeño eating contest.But really, when it starts to shine is when you put it in the hand of an artist.Daniel Malikyar from the US explores Los Angeles to capture moments in the city with the X-T4. fujifilm-x.com/x-t4/


Vincent Duvignac, 20 years later ...

Vincent Duvignac's new film tells the story of his last trip to Morocco, on a spot he first surfed 20 years ago."With optimistic predictions and after a year of injuries, it was finally time to return to that part of Morocco that I love so much. The day before the departure, when I was picking up the tickets, I realised that it had been exactly 20 years since I had the privilege of making my very first trip and discovering this wave, thanks to my sponsor at the time. I then had the impression that I had learned more about life and myself in one week than I had in 12 years of existence, a nice slap in the face!The swells were exceptionally chained this year, and after months of good surfing in France, the obvious call from Morocco was received by many European and even American surfers. It was an opportunity for the young teenager from Mimizan Noa Dupouy to embark with me on a trip he won't forget any time soon."


Amid all the clouds of foam dust

On paper, shaping yourself a surfboard by hand would seem like a giant pain in the ass. Shaping bays are small, dusty, sweat-inducing spaces. Planer whirs are not anyone's preferred soundtrack. You'll make a lot of shit surfboards on your way to the first one that rides at all like you want it to. But when you stick it out, the journey changes you and it changes your surfing in some wonderful ways, and you realize that the thing that seemed like such a pain has become something incomparably fun. Case in point: Alex Knost, Ellis Ericson, Andrew Doheny and Shyama Buttonshaw. These four surfers, the stars of the film, started their handshaping journeys many years ago. And amid all the clouds of foam dust they learned a thing or two about how their equipment works and what feelings they wanted to chase in their surfing. It's had some profound effects on their style of riding waves, but more importantly, they'll be the first to tell you that it's been a ridiculous amount of fun.Press play above to get some insights into the unique surfing and surfcraft of these DIYers as they test out self-shapes in pulsing Indonesian surf.


Pedro Winter x Ed Banger Records

If you haven't heard of Pedro Winter, you must hate electronic music, have no access to the internet, or else live in a cave! If this doesn't apply to you, you will have listened to one of the artists on his label Ed Banger Records without maybe even knowing it.Cover Image: Kevin MilletDJ, producer, art director, and boss of the Ed Banger Records label, Pedro «Busy P» Winter shifted from being an emblematic figure of the Parisian underground to the Frenchman who makes the whole World dance.At only 34 years old – 12 of which spent managing Daft Punk (six millions albums sold) – the man who discovered Justice is established as the golden boy of electronic music. Yet, this former skateboarder, fan of hard rock, stumbled upon his career by chance.As a real club kid in the early 90's, he went out every night. David Guetta soon spotted him and gave him a chance at the mythic Palace club where he held his first parties in 1995. In that temple of Parisian nightlife an impressive list of talents with a bright future were to be found. Daft Punk of course, but also Mororbass, Dimitri From Paris, Dj Cam and more.The "French Touch" was born and Pedro was already a major part of it. One year later while Daft were recording their first album, they asked Pedro to become their manager. His career was launched.His rise to prominence may echo that of the "American dream", but his success has not produced a shark-like manager, nor a hardened businessman. Available and friendly, his energy is contageous. "A lot of people think I plan everything, but I never had any career plan. If I worked a pose, a cool attitude, it would be blindingly obvious. All that happens to me is actually a mixture of chance and luck. I was at the right place at the right moment, the rest is work. And it has paid off."As a good artistic director, he was one of the first to realise the potential offered by the Internet and to appropriate these new modes of communication " Today the kids come back home and don't turn the T.V on anymore, they dash over to their computer and choose for themselves what they want to watch or listen to. The advantage with the web is that there is no more buffer between the artist and the public. That's what really makes the difference… "


Joaquin Phoenix Drops F-Bombs

When Joaquin Phoenix won Best Actor in a Drama at the Golden Globes for his role in “Joker”, he managed to drop a few f-bombs in his acceptance speech. Unfortunately, the imprecise nature of the bleep button (or, in this case, the mute button) means it was pretty difficult for everyone at home to know what the fuck he was saying.“We all know there’s no f—ing competition between us,” Phoenix said of his fellow nominees in the category. “I’m your f—ing student. I can’t believe the beautiful mesmerizing, unique work that you’ve all done this year, but I really do feel honored to be mentioned with you.”Later on, the actor continued his foul-mouthed ways and kept the NBC censors busy. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t want to rock the boat, but the boat is f—ing rocked.”Phoenix ended his speech with a (profane) flourish. After a mea culpa for past mistakes he didn’t bother to detail, Phoenix called for the other rich and powerful people in the room to do something about climate change.“It’s great to vote, but sometimes we have to take on that responsibility on ourselves and make changes and sacrifices in our own lives and I hope that we can do that. We don’t have to take private jets to Palm Springs,” Phoenix said as the seriously-stop-talking music began to swell around him. “Thank you so much for putting up with me, I’m so grateful.” The only people more grateful than Phoenix? NBC executives who opted to air the show on a slight delay, which allowed them to keep their airwaves clean and the FCC off their backs.Director Todd Phillips “Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen.  Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society.  A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him.  Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.


Mavic Air 2 for next-level content

Featuring 4K/60fps video and 48MP photos, Mavic Air 2 is the ideal creative tool for next-level content. Fly longer and see farther with a max flight time of 34 minutes and 1080p video transmission at distances up to 10km. Take advantage of 8K Hyperlapse, and a whole collection of intelligent modes to create stunning content. It's the next big thing in aerial content creation. With intelligent features like FocusTrack, SmartPhoto, and QuickShots, this hyper-intuitive drone puts cinematic masterpieces right at your fingertips.The big news in this update is the new larger imaging sensor on the drone's camera. The Mavic Air 2's camera ships with a half-inch sensor, up from the 1 2/3-inch sensor found in the previous model. That should mean better resolution and sharper images, especially because the output specs haven't changed much. The new camera is still outputting 12-megapixel stills, but now has a bigger sensor to fill that frame with more detail. There's also a new composite image option that joins together multiple single shots into a large, 48-megapixel image.At the heart of the Mavic Air 2 is Quad Bayer CMOS sensor that’s capable of recording 4K video at up to 60 frames per second (fps) with a 120Mbps data rate. When dropped down to 4K/30p, the Mavic Air 2 can record HDR video while a slow-motion mode can max out at 240 fps when shooting at 1080p. DJI has also included a new Hyperlapse feature that will result in 8K video.DJI announced an update to its popular Mavic Air quadcopter today. The Mavic Air 2 will cost $799 when it ships to US buyers in late May.


JoJo’s legendary energetic DJ sets

JoJo De Freq’s DJing career has taken her across the globe from Manchester to Moscow, Brazil to Berlin and beyond. She has played the smallest of sweaty underground venues to events of 5000 people at FIB in Benicassim. An unknown girl, a music obsessive from Vancouver, who worked behind a counter in a record shop who relocated to London and became an internationally in demand DJ in just one year.

JoJo first arrived in London January 2001, to begin the new millennium. Her night Nag Nag Nag, a Wednesday night weekly, heralded one of London’s most seminal electronic scenes since the days of acid house. As one of the founders of Nag Nag Nag, she hosted the capitals electro explosion, a place where it wasn’t always clear who was gay or who was straight, where art students rubbed shoulders with celebrities and JoJo’s legendary energetic DJ sets were the soundtrack to the dance floor’s fervour and an amped-up euphoric atmosphere. JoJo remained the weekly resident there until the clubs closing in 2008 (RIP).It was in 2003 that JoJo caught the attention of Bugged Out, one of the UK’s longest running most respected club nights, well known for breaking up-‐and coming artists and booking some of techno’s biggest and best names.

She was approached to become resident at their influential monthly night, held at The End club in London. It was here that she was able to play to a wider audience and expand her sound in a larger venue. JoJo became renowned for her skilful taste, making three hour closing sets where she explored a deeper more psychedelic sound.

In the pre YouTube days of heavy manuals, expensive hardware, and long hours of trial and error, JoJo had quietly been building a home studio setup and teaching herself to produce music for several years. She finally made her first release ‘Make Some Noise’ on Bugged Out Recordings in 2005 to critical acclaim. Shortly after, JoJo was asked by friend and mentor Miss Kittin to remix ‘Kittin is High’ the resulting ‘Beauty is Terror Remix’ was an underground hit. She later went on to remix one of her favourite acts Man Like Me (before you found them in the kitchen at parties!).

In 2007, at a time when the physical sales of music were at a sudden decline and the record industry was looking to new ways to distribute music digitally JoJo launched Mythic Records, a download-only label. Through Mythic she released three double-sided originals ‘Saturn Returns’, ‘Feel Your Mind’ and ‘Welcome to Dalston’. The logo featured an iconic unicorn and the sound referenced early 90’s techno and house, hence the name Mythic. On these releases JoJo was responsible for every level of the production process, from writing and recording her own vocals to mixing and mastering.


Art is the frontend, and DeFi is the backend.

An NFT marketplace where artists digitally sign, verify and use their own unique minting contracts? What if every artist has their own minting contract?We're a DAO network of designers, visual storytellers, NFT collectors, artists, and web3 devs. We're using a creator-owned NFT minting smart contract, allowing creators and DAOs to become their own platform where Artists and collectors alike can mint, collect, and sell rare digital art. The idea is to create a project more ambitious than any single artist could do on their own. Artists receive a percentage of sales based on the art they contribute. No platform should get in between members, artists, and collectors. How it startedWe have been exploring NFTs as early as  2017/2018, mainly to develop NFT royalties and the 1st NFT platform. This year we connected with Dimitri Daniloff, the master behind the Daft Punk artwork and the iconic Playstation ads. For over a decade, the award-winning photographer Dimitri Daniloff has been among the top 10 advertising photographers in the world. Around the Millenium, Dimitri Daniloff pioneered the switch from analog to digital. Some of the brands that bought his work are Absolut Vodka, Air France, Audi, Carlsberg, Land Rover, LG, Longchamp, Nike, and Sony Playstation.He represents the exact reason why we got excited about NFTs in the first place. He lost control over his images when David Bowie shared a remix in the media with no attribution. "I only found out recently that Bowie used the Daft Punk image in 2014, during the 2014 London Music Awards. I found it very flattering that people use my images all around because it means that they like them but I do not agree when it comes to what magazines do so without my agreement. When I discovered the Bowie story, I decided to mint them. NFT was the answer, a unique proof of authenticity and ownership. I will mint the entire Daft Punk series as NFT. So, copyrights in the art world are an issue and NFTs seem to solve it. I believe royalties in the secondary market is a great innovation in this respect from the previous art market where artists will get a percentage of the sales."Image: Dimitri DaniloffHow is it going?We are thrilled to announce that member Dimitri Daniloff has gifted us an iconic award-winning photo to add to the DAO vault. As soon as the image is minted and deployed on mainnet, it will serve as the access token to both our website and Discord server. Additionally, we are exploring the idea to add a special Vault (a sub-DAO) that will be “owning” rights for an artist. Important is the difference between an agent and the DAO: An agent is looking for new jobs for the artist, while the DAO will only concentrate on monetizing the existing work in the DAO collections with the ability to organize online exhibitions (in the metaverse), printing T-shirts, posters, limited edition books, etc. The artist gives full power to this sub-DAO through a minion smart contract. The DAO uses its network to generate on-chain revenue and its primary goal is to make the artist's life easier so he can focus on creating. This experiment is an attempt to bootstrap a treasury that can be used by the DAO for the creation of long-term value and can be further developed with other art curated by the community, especially art from under-represented artists.Proof of EngagementNFT drops are inverting the venture model and becoming better versions of fair launches. Drop NFTs to early adopters (discord snapshots). Raise capital via auctions,  and build products and services with and for the community. This will be an invitation-only DAO at the early stages to reward active members of our Discord. We have been tracking engagement the past few months to form a genesis squad to shape the project before we go public. Join our Discord. What is still needed?The DAO has the ambition to use the NFT bank feature of DAOhaus to create, curate, and collect iconic NFTs and represents our fire to empower artists by leveraging smart contracts to mint NFTs with a focus on giving artists more control over the licensing terms. We are living the “cyber renaissance,” life, which is at the intersection of Defi, DAOs, and NFTs. The perfect environment for any community to thrive, rise to power, create value, and decide their faith together is distributing the voting power and governance rights amongst the artists and NFT holders themselves. Future goalsIt would be cool if royalties for secondary market sales were paid out to artists and all collectors of their work! Financially rewarding a creative's supporters gives them even more incentive to promote them and hold their tokens.Collecting NFTs with historical and intrinsic valueReleasing and selling NFTs that fund other DAO initiatives Projects and investments proposed by and voted through by DAO members.Launch of a unique avatar series with no roadmap.Rewarding a creative's supporters, add incentive to hold the NFTCollab with the Odyssey, BanklessDAO, DAOhaus, etcOur MVP🎉 150 screens in Figma, the frontend code is now ready (see below reactJS). GitHub - unbanksytv/shoyu: A gas-optimized NFT trading platform that supports NFT artists and collectors via a franchised store and personal gallery launchpadA gas-optimized NFT trading platform that supports NFT artists and collectors via a franchised store and personal gallery launchpad - GitHub - unbanksytv/shoyu: A gas-optimized NFT trading platform...GitHubunbanksytvAs fee revenues explode there will be pressure for more open community curation and community earning models. A decentralized OS run by a DAO with proper tokenomics incentives can return fees to NFT holders. We will focus on onboarding the artists that will make all the difference and focus on art curation, fractionalization, and custom minting contract types (split profits, generative collections, open editions, the ability to set royalties on OS contracts, ...). We work on tokenomics that give higher rewards to both collectors and artists.As an owner of a custom collection as well as the creator, you can set your own commission rates when you sell. You can even create your custom smart contract. You can set your secondary sale fee since you are the owner of the smart contract.Our goal is to create a custom metaverse. We will invite 3D artists to create 3D destinations to empower our community to display their art and create our very own bit of the Cyberverse. LFG


The idea would never leave them.

Emmanuel and Maximilien Berque are twins. Born the 10th of January 1950 in Casablanca, five minutes apart. They spent the first 3 years of their lives in the mountains of the moroccan atlas, then 2 years in Egypt and 2 years in Lebanon.In 1957, at 7 years old, they return to Paris as their father Jacques Berque is named professor at the College of France. They have a lot of difficulty integrating as they are the odd ones out, while excelling at gymnastics, drawing and music.At the age of 12 they developed an interest in photography. And, they develop a real passion for the design and construction of boat and plane prototypes.Before long, the results came, and all of a sudden they were high level students obtaining many rewards, mainly in Mathematics and Physics. Maybe a reaction against their father and brother or sisters, to their taste, too literary.In 1968 and 1969 they successfully and easily pass their secondary exams in science. Maximilien goes into Superior Mathematics, then studies cinema while Emmanuel continues science at the university of Orsay before continuing in Oenology in Bordeaux.Choice of life...A rapid decrease of interest in their studies become apparent as their thirst of the liberty to travel and surf grew. They discovered the surfers life in 1964, and are the pioneers at Contis Plage where their family has an ancestral house. This allows them to devote themselves to the joys of the Sea-Sex-and-Surf movement, just like the Californian hippies. Whereas Maximilien works on television reporting, Emmanuel becomes an oenologue in Corsica.Photos: Emmanuel and Maximilien BerqueLater on, Maximilien becomes a professional deep sea diver for COMEX in the north sea. He was selected for the world record Janus IV at 510 meters but left the company in 1976 disliking the idea of "human guinea pigs".The two brothers subsequently discover the, (at that time new) practice of sport catamaran sailing and continued surfing most of the time. One day they decide to try and make their fortune in Saudi Arabia by leaving from Marseille with a friends’ sailing boat for Djedda. To make this possible they learn astronomical navigation over a few weeks and become rather obsessed by it. Unfortunately the voyage has a tragic ending when the boat is destroyed during a cyclone in the Red Sea.Around 1978 they are the first surf photographer journalists in France, revealing their beach-boy adventures.In 1979, to make a film, they attempt to gain sponsorship for the first crossing of the Atlantic with a Hobie-Cat 18, eight years before Laurent Bourgnon managed to do it. Unfortunately, the American manufacturer refused to lend them the boat reasoning that it was too risky.The idea would never leave them.Liberty and wave waiting, not being big bread winners, pushed them into a life of surfing hermits until 1983. To rise from their misery they decide to make a film. A film of adventure, of a real adventure. They who had never been to America, decide to cross the ocean on an unreasonable contraption. The ocean would be the scenery, the film in real time would be a «Happening».Instigating journeys...So they build a small 4m80 trimaran, traced by eye, without a plan, diagonally across the entrance of their old house and call it Micromegas in reference to Voltaire and his theory: the relativity of everything in existence.They do four instigating journeys and end up spending over a year in the elements, at 25cm from the water, on the 8m2 net of their tiny boat, which has no cabin for shelter, and looks more like a raft.Imprisoned in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, they surfed 8 meter waves and came back completely burnt by four days spent in the salty sea water. They make a short film that they never managed to sell.With a girlfriend from Berlin they arrive in the Canary Islands, very thinned down and completely broke.For a few years they abandon the idea of crossing the ocean and spend a couple of winters in Berlin rebuilding their spiritual and financial health and of course to spend the summer surfing.The mutineers of the sea...During the winter they worked a lot on analytical geometrics and conceive a totally original and personal boat design program. They go back to the manufacturing of surfboards and with their freshly recuperated motivation undertake the conception and construction of another and even smaller boat of 4m made of varnished wood equipped with ancient rigging…the Micromegas 2.It’s a genuine toy !In June 1995, after 37 days on their boat they reach Guadeloupe. They gain a certain success with the media and sell 13 pages in VSD (a weekly news magazine) and a documentary of their Atlantic crossing in 37 days entitled “ Les jumeaux de la mer” broadcasted on Canal+. They appear in the Guinness Book of Records and received numerous adventure awards including the one from the festival of Dijon, presented by “ The Guild of Raid and Adventure”. A prize also from The Festival of Adventure of Angles. Guy Drut, at that time the French Minister of Youth and Sport decorated them with a medal for their performance.Autoportrait / Photo: Emmanuel and Maximilien BerqueIn 1996 they continue and finally arrive in Miami, Florida. Considering they left from their south-western French beach, Contis, the journey represents 11000 Km. The whole voyage without motor, any electronics, life raft or distress beacon. The smallest sailing boat in the history of the Atlantic to succeed in this crossing without any assistance and without sponsors. In spite of the purity of their efforts the media, nevertheless loose interest and once arrived in the USA, broke and in total anonymity they abandon their boat against a quay. Working on some millionaires’ yachts they manage to pay their airfares and return to France in incomprehension and paranoia.They insist a great deal on the fact that their sailing boat is a real vessel opposed to a lot of floating apparatus exclusively consecrated to breaking records, incapable of manoeuvring, entering or exiting a port.In 2001 they publish with the editor Robert Laffont «Les mutins de la mer».Autoportrait / Photo: Emmanuel and Maximilien BerqueThe tribulations of two non-conformists searching for freedom, if it exists.With the royalties from their book they design and make [  Micromegas 3 ] in their attic. A small 300 Kg varnished wooden outrigger canoe with which they will once again cross the ocean, only this time without any instruments aboard! Meaning no compass, no watches or maps or any documents and of course no sextant. This means apart from food and water…nothing!Micromegas 3 / Contis Plage / Photo: Emmanuel and Maximilien BerqueSo in this way at 53 years old they want to try a truly archaic crossing, like the Maoris crossing the Pacific around the 5th century well before the Viking, Arab or any other navigators. For the love of the art of navigation, the purity of fraud less individual achievement, to return with beautiful images and a film, live something unique. If we ask them why they do it they simply reply: «It’s stronger than us !»If this story does not make you daydream, nothing will. For now, we highly recommend reading the book. We will soon follow up with an in-depth interview. Aloha.Update: We now published an uncut version of this incredible story. #longreadA 65-year long surfing adventure.It is funny to think that Laird Hamilton reinvented that type of surfing fifty years after. In 55, when the twins were only five years old, they had their first SUP surf experiences. I suggest we hear them out, it’s a story that reads like a movie script.LTL EditoYves Van den Meerssche


1984 De Tomaso Pantera GT5

Ben Branch has had his work featured on CNN, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, and many more. He founded Silodrome in 2010, and his site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector. Photo: SilodromeThe De Tomaso Pantera is the blue-collar version of the Lambo Countach, with a mighty V8 designed to compete with the best from Ferrari and Lamborghini, but at ~50% of their sticker price. The GT5 has a sweeping wedge-shaped profile, big wings, flared wheel aches, and more horsepower than half a dozen family sedans. The surviving GT5 cars are the most desirable members of the Pantera family. Read more and above all enjoy the pure art project below. Check the credits!Directed by Victor VangerMusic : Scratch Massive ft. Koudlam « Waiting for a Sign »Cast : Roxane GlineurEditor : Vincent MarchandDirector of Photography : Sylvain FreyensVisual FX : c/o Mathematic.tvSound Design : Lorris GisanaSound Record : Philippe VandendriesscheSound Mix : Adrien SchockertAssistant Director : Manu KamandaCamera Operator : Patrick Otten SBCAerial Cinematographer : Mikko PaillotFocus Puller IT : Amaury DuquenneFocus Puller BE : Jean Van GutteSecond camera assistant : Florent FreyensClapper Loader : Katelijne LoixGaffer : Denis AntheunissensSpark : Florent BagardKey Grip : Benjamin SpeyerGrip : Lester OttenGrip : Hans ReynaertsGrip : Cyrille HermantStunt Coordinator : Loic SaintilanPilot : Florian SaintilanCamera Car : Laurent MulotVFX Supervisor : Nicolas JoyenSupervisor 2D: Maeva SolSFX IT : c/o CorridoriSFX BE : Marc StolzMake up : Léna DorynHairdresser : Oackland BreuerStylist : Jeffrey CameronSpaceship Designer : Frédéric PlatéusSet Dresser 1 : Manu BlumeSet Dresser 2 : Maude PietteLocation Manager : Matteo BertocchiRushman : Thomas Purcaro DecaroMechanic : Damien de FaysProducer : Victor VangerExecutive Producer : Giuseppe ContiAssistant Producer : Victor HeymansAssistant Producer : Antoine DesaintghislainCo-Producer : Caroline DiazCo-Producer : Mathematic.tvCo-producer : Peter Jan WillemsCo-Producer : Audrey LenchantinCamera / Light / Grip Rental : TranspagroupStudio / Camera Rental : BFC RentalLens Rental : TSF.beLight Rental BE : Eye-LiteLight / Grip Rental IT : CartocciHelicopter : ElissolaAerial Equipment : Horus-Aerial TeamStock : KodakFilm Process : Studio L’EquipeFilm Scan : FilmikVFX : Mathematic.tvEdit / Color Grading : Royal PostScouting : Scout ITThanks to Maud Geffray & Frédéric PlatéusProduced by Komatsu / Abyssal / Pantheon / Mathematic.tv / Ant Productions / Caroline Productions


Hobgood: A Sibling Rivalry

A cinematic tale of adventure, destiny, and family. The story of iconic professional surfers and identical twins CJ & Damien Hobgood. Their sibling rivalry and struggle to each establish their own identity fuelled their careers, but ripped their personal and peripheral relationships apart. Cover Image: nickpumphreyNarrated by the comedian Daniel Tosh (of Tosh.0 fame), the movie traces the personal, but mostly professional lives of identical twin brother surfing superstars, CJ and Damien Hobgood. Surfing since childhood, the two young men decide early on to make a go of it on the professional surfing circuit. However, they face an uphill battle hailing from the east coast (Satellite Beach, Florida), where the waves just aren’t as imposing and generally respected as those on the west coast. Nevertheless, the boys take their skills and pluck and quickly rocket to fame, in time achieving legendary surfer status.The brothers are fraternal on land, but fiercely competitive in the water. As fate would have it, CJ is the initial standout of the two, winning a coveted spot on the elite World Championship Tour. As CJ’s profile rises and he accumulates more and more accolades, Damien, a star surfer in his own right, frustratingly remains one step behind his (older) brother. Damien, it seems, is ordained to live a life of second-best, relegated to existence in his brother’s shadow. It’s not until much later in their careers when Damien is given the opportunity to shine. And shine he does, securing a long-awaited world championship and finally seeing his name etched alongside his brother’s in the pantheon of champion surfers.C.J. and Damien Hobgood worked hard on this movie project, but rather than another brand-funded surf flick, the brothers took the reigns themselves. Through the crowdfunding site Indiegogo, the Hobgoods offered perks, ranging from stickers and clothing to C.J.’s 2001 ASP World Title Trophy (yes, you read that right). They raised $80K. Six years in the making, and featuring cameos from countless top pros, the movie, quite literally, delivers the goods.The teaser for "And Two If By Sea". Directed by Justin Purser"There are some issues that we want to address. Being identical twins, and surfing and competing together our whole lives, it’s been like staring at a mirror, and I think that identity is something that everyone struggles with at some point in their lives. Being a twin makes that even more difficult, but without that struggle I don’t think we would have accomplished what we have. Now we’re on different paths for the first time in our lives and we’re wondering if that mirror is broken. Honestly, we don’t want this to be another surf movie. We want to tell a story, and we hope that people will be able to find parallels in their own lives."Watch on Apple TV, for only $4,99. geni.us/A2IBS / andtwoifbysea.comFanning and CJ. Photo: Trevor Moran / Red Bull"I went 6 years without a main sponsor and I saw a lot of friends lose jobs and sponsorships during that time. For whatever reason, our industry is starting to migrate away from the beach. And having seen that, I sat down with some friends in the beginning of the year and Salty Crew was born. We just felt there was a need, you know? Salty Crew is a movement to get back to the beach. To bring surfing back to the ocean." CJ HobgoodTHRILL SEEKERS AND RISK TAKERS. The story continues ...“Frontier” was a word that came up a lot while writing and filming the latest movie. A dated word that might invoke nostalgia. Where is the Frontier now? Some might say it's shrinking, or it’s gone. But the frontier is exactly what thrillseekers and risk takers need. Somewhere to test themselves. To see what they were made of. To grow. These days it might be harder to find. But it is still there, calling. It is up to each person to find their own frontier. Whether that is striking off into the unknown, paddling out to an unruly ocean, or just making a few casts after work. The frontier is the canvas that adventures are painted on. And it is the inspiration and the setting of this movie.


Z-FLEX and The Z-BOYS Reunion

A drought in 1970s Southern California has an unexpected side effect: as people empty their swimming pools, a group of teen surfers from the Dogtown area of Venice Beach move in with skateboards, and a new sport is born. Based on a true story, this film follows "Z-Boys" skate team members Stacy Peralta (John Robinson), Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk) and Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch), plus manager Skip Engblom (Heath Ledger), as their fearless "pool surfing" leads to fame, fortune -- and misfortune.


Wizard of all crafts and a mad hatter

This might get one wondering if he is a rocket scientist or just a character out of a Disney movie. Born and raised in Belgium but constantly on the move to find a new wave to surf. Besides being a rad fellow with a big, cheeky smile who likes to surf, he is a world class surfboard shaper. Building boards that look like they came straight out of the candy machine in your local supermarket. In all colours and shapes, symmetric or asymmetric. In every case these boards are as much of a piece of art to be gazed at on a wall as they are shreddable.Zeno Dockx / Cinematographer based in Belgium


The unfiltered life of Andy Irons

Assuming everybody has seen the movie at least 3 times, but I can't image not having an AI4EVER memo on the site. The image from the cover was shot by myself a few years ago, the painting started fading, but the magic moment of reflection we shared, on top of the Tower at J-Bay, will last for ever. #AI4EVER Bipolar disorder and opioid addiction as seen through the life of Andy, he struggled with the same demons that millions of people worldwide battle with daily. Many were unaware of his internal battles that led to his demise. The untold story of Andy’s life serves to tear down the myths associated with these two ferocious diseases.The intent of the film is to show the unfiltered life of Andy Irons, one that was filled with energy, passion, success, and challenges. Challenges that pushed Andy to the brink and were both the best parts of Andy and the hardest to handle. The unabashedly honest testimonials compel the story and reveal the very real side of Andy. This is not a film about surfing; this is a film about a person that lived life to its fullest at the top of his industry, but did so facing insurmountable internal challenges. This story is about everything that made Andy Irons the man he was.Teton Gravity Research is regarded as one of the premiere lifestyle and action sports brand in the world. Known for original, custom and branded content. TGR’s world-class storytelling has captivated audiences for more than 21 years. With 39 award-winning films, numerous television series, and national commercial spots TGR delivers a global, multi-channel footprint. Watch the film on Apple TV ($5)


Unifying two cultures worlds apart

After gathering all 700-something boards, they put them in a shipping container and sent them from Southern California to Cape Town. Teaming up with two non-profits, Surfers Not Street Children and Waves For Change, they were able to distribute the boards to communities in need not only throughout South Africa, but in other regions in Africa as well, including a program in Mozambique. The “Can’t Steal Our Vibe” documentary film follows the grassroots initiative unifying two cultures worlds apart through a common love of wave riding.Dane and Tanner Gudauskas, along with South African pro, Michael February, delivered surf equipment to the youngsters coming out of the poorest townships in the region and provide a positive outlet for them to overcome the adversities of poverty, violence and abuse. An adventure from San Clemente, California to Cape Town as the G-Boys and Michael February immerse themselves into the vibrant culture of South Africa in hopes of sparking the next generation of young surfers. Can’t Steal Our Vibe is available for Download on iTunes (USA, the link did not work down here in France, I can't find the full documentary in Europe)Proceeds from the sale of downloads go directly to the Waves For Change Foundation. Music: Original Soundtrack by Bermudas Sound Co.Ten days in South Africa, four retro twin fins shaped by Mikey February, one expression session on the world stage. "Road to the Highline," directed by Kai Neville documents a road-trip from Durban to Jeffreys Bay. It's about freedom, adventure and connection — to surfing heritage and those that have shaped it.


A prolific legacy of skate history

The old adage has never rung more true: legends never die. In memory of beloved Vans family member and skateboarding icon, Jeff Grosso, some of Jeff’s closest friends come together to celebrate his life during a virtual birthday gathering.Grosso leaves behind a prolific legacy of skateboarding history, having touched the lives of skaters of all ages and backgrounds with his cunning commentary, tenacious attitude, and enduring activism for preserving the core. Despite the era of social distancing, Vans brings us all together for this unique and truly special moment – a heartfelt ode to many lives lived by a passionate man who loved skateboarding more than anyone. Jeff Grosso, you are missed! Watch The Loveletters / Birthday Tribute on ZoomMusic Credits: “Dreaming” Performed by Blondie Courtesy of Capitol Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises Written by Deborah Harry & Chris Stein Published by Music of Windswept / BMG Monarch all rights administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC