Born on the beach, lives in the parking lot, hasn't missed a day since '72, when he was shot in a drive-by, but he was back in the water the next day, cause he's been here longer than the break, longer than the ocean. BUY THE MAN A HAT: $14.99.
What’s your favorite beach book? I don’t know anything about this one but loved the cover. My designer, Shawn Bathe, is currently working on the cover for my upcoming book “Drive Fast and Take Chances: Advance Warning from the Lives of Surfers.” It’s a collection of surfer profiles, from a surfer who joined the Army just so he could surf Pipe, to dare devil Garrett McNamara’s glacier wave attempt, to big-wave surfers on meth, to cancer survivor Dean Randazzo, to Bob Simmon’s greatest bike ride.
Keep your eyes peeled for it.
It’s live: we read the wind in textures, we hear the sounds, place ourselves in the moment, measure ourselves against it, and we make our opinions known to anyone who will listen — but the truth is, there’s close to nothing a webcast fan can do to influence the on-site action of a world tour surfing event.
Yet it’s not impossible. In August Sean Mattison — former pro surfer, USA team coach and design geek of note — rolled his ankle while deploying a power snap in front of one of his young athletes, Courtney Cologne. The embarrassment healed better than the sprain. “Anytime I tried to do anything,” he said, “it’d swell up.” So a strong part of his rehab regime included watching every competition webcast, heat-by-heat, sitting in his kitchen, his ankle propped on a stool. Beginning with the U.S. Open, it turned out to be a pretty full contest schedule. Mattison told himself that he was studying heats to the benefit of the elite teen surfers he coached. They might find themselves in similar competition some day. But there was a part of Mattison that was just fanning-out as well. Continue reading
As director of a conservation organization, Serge Dedina puts in a lot of field work along remote coasts. Photo: Kimball Taylor
“Tourism and surf travel are not the same,” said Reef co-founder Fernando Aguerre, “Tourism is like a whorehouse, the best beds go for the biggest money. Surf travel is different.”
Aguerre was letting loose at the first- ever “symposium” on surf travel and philanthropy held September 17. An academic conference or “intellectual jam session” built on speeches, panel discussions, and lectures, the symposium was a gathering of people with deeper interests in surf destinations and their communities. The inaugural event had been established by San Diego State University’s Center for Surf Research — in itself a new and unique entity — and drew a who’s who of surf explorers, environmentalists and humanitarians. Wilderness conservation organizations like Wildcoast shared a venue with humanitarian outfits like SurfAid — whose work toward defeating malaria in the Mentawai islands set the gold-standard for surf-themed aid work. The common thread, many discovered, was the need for healthy breaks and healthy host communities. Continue reading
Kelly's Cove, site for the upcoming Rip Curl contest in San Francisco. Photo: Kimball Taylor
Kimball Taylor and Shawn Bathe take their show to the show. For more info on Rando hats and Tees click here.
My first collection of surf stories has had a great and interesting life as a paperback, but now it’s gone digital. If you have a Kindle, add it to your jet-set library.
A true Santo of California surfing and a devotee in the footsteps of Tom Curren and Mickey Dora, Bobby Martinez may not be on the world tour, but he will never be forgotten. Long live B-Mart. Long live the California rebel tradition. Viva los Californios!
On 9/11/01, I was waiting for a rickety ferry to take me from Bali to Nusa Lembongan. An Israeli man seated at a plastic table nearby asked if I was American. Yes, I said. You need to call your family, he said.
Ten years later, taking in all of the anniversary media, I’m reminded of the Balinese after the Kuta bombings in 2002. Theirs was a simple response, and in hindsight, a wise one. Below is an excerpt from my notes:
Riding on dashboards, stacked like pancakes in temples, trampled on in the streets and careening toward the gutter—everywhere on Bali—you’ll see little palm-frond boxes holding Hindu offerings to the gods. Each woven box contains a bit of whatever the person making the offering planned on eating or smoking that day. There will be dabs of rice
Yogi.
and other food, a clove cigarette, a plumeria flower, some spare change and incense. Like the Balinese people, it’s a genuinely warm thought, as if saying, “Here are some of the things I enjoy. I hope you dig ‘em, too.” But the boxes are so profuse on any given day—scattered like spent locusts after a locust storm—I wondered out loud to my driver Made (Ma-day) what the exact politics of these celestial care packages are?
I told him that I’d once been a passenger in a bemo that was pulled over by the Balinese cops. The police didn’t even need to ask for their bribe. The driver reached into the offering and plucked out the coins. Was the driver cheating the gods to pay the cops? I’d seen other people lift the clove cigarettes out of offerings and light them up. Were they pilfering the gods’ kreteks? With a shrug, Made said that it is the gesture that counts. Once the offering hits the ground, it’s fair game. Gesture is everything in Bali-”This is what we do,” Made said. This is why “Bali is blessed.”
Of any tropical, developing nation a surfer can travel to, this is the one distinction that sets Bali irrevocably apart. The people believe they are blessed, and so they are. For example, Made said, “After the bombings in Kuta, what did we do? Did we become angry and look for revenge like the Americans? No. All of the Balinese people make ceremony to the gods. We pray. We make gesture. This is why the Balinese are so blessed.”
Humbled by the thought, Made looked out the windshield, surveying our sparkling view of the island from its Bukit Peninsula, and then nodded to himself in affirmation.
