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Mick Fanning. Photo by Ellis November 2016
SURFER

57

10
THE ORIGINAL SINCE 1960

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WORLDS MOST
ADVANCED
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Editorial
Point of Division
ets consider the great white shark. The average adult
female weighs about 1 ton and is nearly the length
of a Chevy Suburban. For our purposes, the most
noteworthy difference between a Chevy Suburban and
a great white is that while the front end of the former
is affixed with a bumper and license plate, the latter
features a set of crushingly muscular jaws and 300
teeth, each one serrated, enabling them to act like tiny
saws when crushing and stabbing alone just wont do.
For obvious reasons, the great white has been the
alpha fish for 16 million years and counting, devouring
everything from rays to seagulls to elephant seals
without fear of any natural predators. We surfers
also encounter these oceanic juggernauts from time
to time, with generally unfavorable results. The
curious beasts will come in for close examination,
sometimes bumping surfers off their boards as a kind
of preliminary edibility test. Other times they just say
f--k it and take a bite.
A Northern California surfer named Brian Kang
once described his 2004 attack to me in great detail.
The shark came out of nowhereas sharks tend to
doand latched onto his side, but the part of the story
that I found most disturbing was when the shark let
go and returned for a second pass. Kang said that
when the shark came near, it opened its mouth wide,
and it was like looking into a giant dumpster lined
with teeth, the inside painted a strange shade of fleshy
pink. Kang told me he survived by putting his hands
against the sharks jaws, cutting his hands deeply as he
literally held himself out of its mouth.
After I heard Kangs story, my mind was made
up: If ever I were to be attacked by a shark while
surfing, I would never set foot in the ocean again. Hell,
it was difficult to paddle out after merely hearing the
story of someone elses shark attack. The concept of
being attacked myself and dealing with the emotional,
let alone physical, injuries sustained seems impossible
to truly comprehend.
Now consider Mick Fanning. Last year, he came
face to face with the oceanic apex predator during
the final of the J-Bay Open, when it knocked him
off his board, thrashed around, broke his leash, and
left the commentators speechless as Fanning swam
terrified toward the rescue ski. Fanning was incredibly
lucky to have left the water physically unscathed,
but the encounter continued to haunt him, casting
a dark shadow over what would become the most
difficult year of his life [Year of the Shark, pg. 38]. Yet
Fanning kept his head held high, and he kept surfing,
even when his entire world seemed to be crumbling
down around him.
This issue is concerned with the moment of
rebirththe punctuation mark that splits the past
and the present into two very distinct chapters. For
longboard icon CJ Nelson, that moment came a few
12
MICK FA NNING, J-BAY. PHOTO BY VA N GYSEN
years ago when he confronted the addictions that
nearly drove him into an early grave; he used surfing
as the fuel for his recovery [The Ember in the Ashes,
pg. 26]. The surf community of Jamaica was reborn
earlier this year, when the California-based foundation
Positive Vibe Warriors delivered hundreds of donated
surfboards to the locals, giving surfers of all ages
and ability levels the equipment they need to deepen
their love of wave riding [Secondhand Stoke, pg. 48].
Thanks to one unconventional biologist, the corals of
the world that are at risk of destruction due to climate
changethe same corals that create some of the
worlds best wavesjust might get their own chance at
rebirth [Brave New Coral, pg. 64].
No one would have blamed Mick Fanning if he
decided to never set foot in the water at Jeffreys Bay
again, for competition or otherwise. After all, how
could you really focus on your surfing performance
at a break where you know all too well what might be
lurking just below the surface?
Apparently, this wasnt a problem for Fanning, as
he not only returned to J-Bay and faced his fears, but
he dismantled the right-hand point with a confidence
that seemed instinctualalmost animalistic, even.
He cleared sections with perfectly timed floaters and
eviscerated every bit of open face en route to winning
the event. By the time the final horn sounded, whether
or not Fanning had conquered his demons was no
longer in question. In fact, it was clear there was a new
apex predator along that particular coastline.
Todd Prodanovich, Editor
 ALWAYS TRIPPIN

OZZIE WRIGHT | SANUK.COM

TKO BEER RUNNER GUIDE TX

 JA M A ICA . PHOTO BY ELLIS
November

Volume 57, Number 10, 2016

FEATURES
26 The Ember in the Ashes 56 Life in the Excellent Range
A decade of hard living nearly killed one of the greatest Now retired after 18 years spent living large on the
noseriders of all time. Instead, CJ Nelson found a World Tour, Taj Burrow isnt the least bit concerned
second chance in surfing about what comes next

38 Year of the Shark 64 Brave New Coral

After being attacked by a great white, losing his Human activity has wreaked havoc on coral reefs
brother, and watching the world title slip through his around the world. Now, under the threat of climate
fingers, Mick Fanning should be a broken man. Yet change, corals best chance for survival may be
somehow hes managed to find peace in the chaos human creativity

48 Secondhand Stoke
SECTIONS
Following a surfboard drive led by California-based 32 Environment: Secrets of the Ooze
foundation Positive Vibe Warriors, the future of 94 Perfect Day: Southeast India
Jamaican surfing is looking brighter than ever 96 Extra: Surf Spot or Aussie Slang?

On the cover: Mick Fanning endured a lifetimes worth of misfortune in a single year,
but he handled every hardship with grace and dignity. In the aftermath, Fanning
has become a symbol for perseverance in the surf world and beyond, proving to fans
everywhere what a true champion is made of. Photo by Ellis

14
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Masthead
SURFER
Editorial
Editor Todd Prodanovich
Photo Editor Grant Ellis
Art Director Donny Stevens
Managing Editor Ashton Goggans
Features Editor Justin Housman
Associate Editor Ashtyn Douglas
Online Editor Davis Jones
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Contributing Editors
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Senior Writers
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 ANYWHEREALOHA

DIFFERENT PATHS TO A SHARED ADVENTURE.

At sea level or far above, ohana spans geography, always finding
unexpected similarities between distant places. Atop Mauna Loa, four new
friendstwo from the Big Island and two from the Big Easypeered out
at Mauna Kea and waited for the stars to emerge. As they talked story, they
found connections run deep between the places they call home: tradition,
family, and a generous, joyful spirit. Mauna Loa, HI
OLUKAI.COM/ANYWHEREALOHA
Interview

(Left) After a number of dark years, CJ Nelson took a hard look in the
mirror and committed himself to the surfing life he dreamed of as a
bright-eyed kid growing up in Santa Cruz. Photo by Ellis

(Right) These days, Nelson finds no shortage of inspiration in surfing,

looking to surfers like Skip Frye as an example. That guy is so
stoked, says Nelson, pictured here gliding switch at Pleasure Point.
Hes found the glide and this total freedom, which is liberating. Hes
going to be inspired forever, and thank God for him. We should all
aspire to have that relationship with surfing. Photo by Bowers

26
THE EMBER
IN THE ASHES

A decade of hard living nearly killed one of the greatest noseriders of all time.
Instead, CJ Nelson found a second chance in surfing
INTERVIEW BY ASHTON GOGGANS

During the Log Renaissance of the late 90s and early 00s, CJ Nelson emerged as
longboardings dark knight, a brash, heavily tattooed goofyfoot with unparalleled
noseriding talent. In 2002, Thomas Campbells film Sprout showed Nelson in top
form, his highly technical yet fluid surfing perfectly matching the ruler-straight
peelers of Scorpion Bay.

In the following decade, Nelson slid into a cycle of substance abuse, gaining a
reputation among his peers as a bridge-burning drunk. Those hard-lived years
started to affect his surfing and his health, and, like so many brilliant talents
before himfrom Dewey Weber to Butch Van ArtsdalenNelson seemed destined
for an early grave. But after losing his father to cancer in 2012, Nelson took a hard
look at his life, put down the bottle, and recommitted to surfing. Hes reemerged
a humbler, gentler man, interested in making amends and, as he told me one night
in Mexico, keeping the fire lit. Today, Nelsons more in love with surfing than
ever before, living clean and consciously, doing what he can to inspire the next
generation of log stylists.

27
Interview

AG Can you talk about those early days, making Sproutwhere your head was at as far as
your surfing life?
CN I was so caught up with that punk-rock mentality. That whole trip to Scorpion
Bay, I was just drunk. I remember the afternoon we filmed, Id probably smoked
two packs of cigarettes and was just pounding cases of beer in the middle of
nowhere, for no f--king reason. Its not like there was a party going on.
I look back on it now and it would have been so much more meaningful if Id
had the outlook I have today. Back then, I wanted to be GG Allin, get drunk and
eat glass. I was like, Who cares who Mark Occhilupo is? I want to be Joe f--king
Strummer. Its hard, because I cant tell you details from that trip because I dont
remember. I was drunk. And thats really sad, you know?
AG Howd that trip come about?
CN Thomas rode his bike over to my house in Santa Cruz and gave me The Seedling. He
Clockwise from above Nelson with his Australian Slashera
said, Im making a sequel, and I want to get you in it. And so he invited me to go radical departure from the parallel-railed, Nuuhiwa-inspired
to Scorps with him, Dan [Malloy], Monica [Rose], and Dane Perlee. We were down noseriders that dominated longboarding for almost two decades,
there for, like, three weeks, filming all over Baja. We camped at The Sisters, then at toward the transition-era Involvement boards being ridden by Nat
Young, Wayne Lynch, Midget Farrelly and Bob McTavish on the eve
a few of Thomas mysto points. At one spot there was this 100-foot cliff where you of the shortboard revolution. Photo by Bowers
had to climb down this crazy valley to this beautiful sand-bottom point.
A lot of it didnt make the cut, because that one afternoon we got Scorpion Nelsons favored craft allow for a type of future-primitive
longboarding: perched noserides peppered by slashing cutbacks and
Bay was just so good, it overshadowed the rest of the footage. We got bigger waves, fully committed bottom turns like this one in Central California.
and different stuff, but nothing like that. What can go further is smoothness, linking turns together, and
AG To a lot of people that film seemed like a highlight for you. But you seem to feel like it getting boards designed for more well-rounded surfing, Nelson says.
Lets make logging more and more radical. Photo by Bowers
was a low point.
CN Its so hard because when I see Dan [Malloy] or someone who came across me at Last year Nelson and his brother bought Casa Trim, a home away
that point in my life, I think, Goddamnit, I wish I could have been more together from home a few hundred yards from the peeling left point of
Saladita, Mexicoa mirror image of his beloved Malibu, and paradise
so I could be friends with these beautiful people in a genuine way. In reality I am for a goofyfoot logger. Photo by Bowers
that kind of guy. I am a caring, compassionate person who can value friendship.
But I shortchanged myself in a lot of relationships.

28
 AG When did you start to look at how you were living and question it? You had a pretty long
period where you sort of fell off the radar, right?
CN After Sprout, I moved in with [Alex] Knost and Jared Mell in Orange County
[California]. You can imagine what it was like with me being drunk and nuts, and
Knost being an impressionable kid. Mell was even younger, coming from a hard spot
in his life. We were f--king crazy, but Knost was amazing. Ive got to give that guy
credit: he was up every morning at seven and down at Blackies no matter what we
did the night before. He was probably still drunk 90 percent of the time, but he was
there; I wasnt. Surfing took a back seat in my life at that point. I was still surfing well,
but I was getting really out of shape. I was super tired and gassed, more concerned
with when I was gonna get my next drink than when I was gonna get my next wave. I
was working a lot in Japan, and with Steve Cleveland on films. We did Another State of
Mind, then Fresh Fruit for Rotten Vegetables. God bless Cleve for always believing in me
and putting me in his movies, but I cant watch them because, at this point, it doesnt
make me feel good.
AG Where was that darkness coming from? What was keeping you from being happy with your
life and with surfing?
CN I feel like my ego got the better of me. I wasnt ready to have all these people expecting
shit from me. I got to the age where people were over my behavior, and I just wasnt
ready to apologize or change. I dont know what was going on upstairs; I just blocked
it out. And it got worse and worse.
AG When was the breaking point?
CN I went to visit my mother in Texas for Thanksgiving and I was just pickled. My
mom was drinking, so I was just drinking with her. At the end of the trip, we had a
conversation about my dad, who was back in Santa Cruz. She told me, Your father
probably misses you so much.
Flying back, I landed in Long Beach and I remember sitting in my car for like 45
minutes in the airport parking lot, thinking it just felt wrong to drive south. I ended
up calling my dad, and told him, I think Im gonna come up to Santa Cruz for a little
bit. And, of course, he was like, Come on home! I turned the car north, drove all
night, and pulled in at sunrise. Dad was waiting there for me with coffee. I remember
walking in and thinking, How have I been gone for so long? Right after that, he was
diagnosed and ended up passing away eleven and a half months later.

29
Interview

AG Was that a huge wakeup call or did that just send you deeper?
CN The next year, I was a mess. I moved all my stuff into the house I grew up in, thinking,
Im going to have all my friends move in and get wasted all the time. Im gonna say,
F--k it. Ill probably lose everything, and my whole life will just be f--ked, but Im over it.
AG What was rock bottom and what got you back on your feet?
CN I was at the bar one morning and I had been on a 10-day tear, up the whole time,
near death. I looked around and thought, I never want to feel this way again. My
dad would have been so ashamed of me. I couldnt even ride my bike home, I was so
wasted. I walked home and locked myself in my dads old house and slept for a week.
I would wake up and have the worst shakes. Honestly, I should have gone to the
hospital, because what I did could have killed me.
I got the courage to tell my friends, Listen, I cant drink anymore. Im going to
die; this is serious. Everyone respected my dad and our relationship, so when I told
people I felt like I was dishonoring my father, they got it.
AG Is that around the same time you started surfing again?
CN Yeah, I bought an old epoxy CJ Nelson model off Craigslist. [Laughs.] A Surftech. I
took it into my backyard and painted it white, and just started surfing hard every
day, losing weight and feeling better. I started thinking, Well, f--k, Im feeling good,
I might as well start eating well. This is exciting; lets see how good can I feel. And
everything just started to click.
AG It seems like now youre really disciplined with meditation and diet and everything.
CN The decision to be sober and treat myself with respect carried into so many facets
of my life, as did learning more about Buddhism and mindfulness and eating well.
I definitely want to continue being positive, and I feel like everybody who wants to
make their life good will eventually go in that directionwhether they want to admit
it now or later. Everyone should cross these bridges if theyre lucky enough.
AG Now on the other side of it, how has your relationship to surfing changed?
CN For me, its just about keeping that fire lit. When I look back at what I was doing
when I was uninspired and just drinking and partying, I cant believe it. If youd
come up to me when I was 15when I was winning contests and surfing with my
familyand told me that one day Id be just full of smoke and booze and that Id be

30

Clockwise from top left With every nook and cranny between his
Santa Cruz home and Big Sur just a quick drive south, Nelsons made
a point to get away from the local crowds and surf the spooky breaks
outside of town in solitude. Photo by Bowers
Hoping to spend as much time in the water as possible, Nelsons
simplified his life down to the bare essentialsa bespoke double-wide
in a trailer park a stones throw from Pleasure Point, and a mission-
ready Chevy van, complete with incense holders and inspiration wall.
Photo by Ellis
Loaded down and headed south, Nelson looking for gold at the end
of a rainbow. Photo by Bowers
Slotted on an early-dawn drainer somewhere south of San Miguel.
Photo by Bowers
completely uninspired by surfing, Id have laughed at you. And thats the way I feel
todaylike Im 15. Im so inspired. Surfings like a relationship. If you abuse and neglect
it, its not going to be there for you. You have to give to it. You have to spend time
with it and think about it. You have to love it. Thats the only way itll give back and
continue to inspire you.
AG Is any of that punk-rock anger still there, and if not, whats replaced it?
CN That Joe Strummer, anti-establishment spirit still lives inside of me. I can still say
f--k you to the right people, in the right way. But Im just living more mindfully
now, taking time in the mornings to take a breath and enjoy my coffee. When Im
paddling out, I focus on my hand going through the water with each stroke until Im
in position to catch a wave, and then I focus on that. I dont let the whole big ball of
whats happening sit in my head. I have to take it one moment at a time, for what it is.
AG Your surfing seems to have found a similar patience and humility. You dont seem to be
trying to prove anything anymore.
CN When I look back at my surfing before, I was like a dancing monkey. I was a circus act.
You may as well put on a neon outfit and hula-hoop on the beach and do backflips.
There was no nobility in it. Its ridiculous to take off on a wave and just do one thing.
Hanging ten is great, but nowadays I tell groms, Dont look for hang tens; just keep
doing cutbacks until a hang ten comes to you. Good surfing requires restraint, and I
never got that until recently.
It was hard for me to reinvent myself. When I got sober, I was like, OK, nobody
cares what I do anymore. Ill just go surf. And I had always appreciated that style of
slashy longboarding that Nat Young was doing in the late 60s, or guys like Skip [Frye]
or Steve Bigler. They can go out and hang ten on every wave. But they dont. Because
theyre f--king men. And men dont dance for nobody. S
31
Environment
SECRETS OF THE OOZE
Algal blooms threaten our waterways, but inventor Rob Falken has figured out a way
to mitigate the damage by making surf gear from algae
Not to be too alarmist, but algae is coming for all
of us. Sure, a little algae may seem harmless, but its
increasingly showing up around the world in the form
of enormous algal blooms that are toxifying the bodies
of water we depend on for drinking, fishing, surfing,
and gazing upon while thoughtfully pondering.
Floridas Lake Okeechobee, for example, developed a
250-square-mile bloom this past May that devastated
waterways along the Atlantic coast. Last summer,
600 miles of the Ohio River were coated in algae,
and Lake Erie recently became so choked with algae
that Toledo, Ohios drinking water was threatened.
Africa, Asia, and Europe are all fighting against algaes
relentless encroachment.
Whats the cause, you ask? Runoff, mostly,
both rural and urban. Nitrogen and phosphorous
from agricultural irrigation, as well as other kinds
of nutrients, are increasingly finding their ways into
bodies of water everywhere. Climate change isnt
helping either, as algae just love the warmer air and
water of our sweltering 21st century environment.
It is likely that toxic blooms will continue to
increase and expand as these features of climate
change continue, Kathi Lefebvre, a biologist at
NOAAs Northwest Fisheries Science Center, told
The New York Times.
But theres a surprising way we can fight back
against the slimy tides: algae-based traction pads
brought to you by surfer and sustainability-minded
inventor Rob Falken.
BY J USTIN HOUSM A N
Falkens North County San Diego laboratory is
filled with eco-friendly tinkeringseverything from
bio-based foam blanks to super-strong leashes to
clever big-wave safety equipment. His newest creation
is a brilliant bit of green alchemy. Falkens fledgling
company BLOOM turns algae into a rubbery foam
that can be used to make shoe linings, yoga mats, and
many other practical items, including traction pads.
And this isnt algae hes on growing himself, mind you.
BLOOM harvests the nasty stuff already strangling
our waterways and starving our fish and crustaceans
of oxygen.
The process is ingeniously simple: BLOOM backs
up a mobile harvesting vehicle to the offending body of
water. Water and algae are pumped into a tank where
the algae clumps together and then gets skimmed
from the water and collected. The water is filtered
and returned to the source, and the algae is carted
away to a processing facility where its dried out, then
transformed into pellets that are polymerized and made
into flexible foams. The algae foam is exactly the same,
performance-wise, as foams made from toxically nasty
petrochemicals. And unlike petroleum-based foams and
plastics, algae is about as sustainable a feedstock as it
gets, especially as more and more blooms erupt across
the globe.
Nobody else has the capability to process
the blue-green algae [the particular kind of algae
technically a cyanobacteriaprone to toxic blooms]
and turn it into a useful material, Falken says of the
32
PHOTO BY M A R K HILL
bloom currently oozing across Lake Okeechobee and
nearby Floridian waterways. There are other groups
that can break down the algae, but with negative
impacts for the lake. We can turn the algae into a
commercial benefit from a sustainable product.
This isnt the first time somebody has turned
algae into surf equipment. Scientist/surfers at UC San
Diego have learned to make surfboard blanks from
algae foam, for example, but they have to grow their
genetically engineered algae in tanks. Falkens process
is unique because it actually removes encroaching algae
from lakes, rivers, estuarieswherever its problematic,
basicallyhelping to clean up an ecosystem while at the
same time providing a green alternative for the flexible
foams we use every single day.
Which is where the humble traction pad comes
in. BLOOM has paired with surfboard manufacturer
Firewire to produce tail pads from their algae foam. The
pads have even attracted the interest of noted surfing
enthusiast Kelly Slater. Slaters ridden boards with the
algae pads at a few contests, including the 2016 Volcom
Pipe Pro, so its safe to say they work. Plus, each pad is
that much less algae clogging up a waterway somewhere.
Though it would admittedly take a whole lotta
tail pads to make much of a dent in the algal bloom
problem worldwideBLOOM pulls tens of millions
of pounds of algae out of Chinas Lake Taihu alone
Falkens company has figured out a clever, simple way
to draw at least a little bit of positivity out of a messy
environmental problem.
 DCSHOES.COM
EZEKIEL LAU \ HEFF PHOTO
L E G E N DA RY F U T U R E
Profile

38
 YEAR OF
Mick Fanning. Photo by Ellis

THE SHARK
After being attacked by a great white, losing his brother, and watching the
world title slip through his fingers, Mick Fanning should be a broken man.
Yet somehow hes managed to find peace in the chaos
BY SE A N DOHERT Y

In Steven Halls novel The Raw Shark Texts ,

the books central character is stalked by a
Ludovician, a giant conceptual shark that swims
through his psyche, attacking unexpectedly,
devouring great chunks of his memory, leaving
him to piece his past life back together
while he waits for the beast to strike again.

Ever since his fateful encounter with a great white

at Jeffreys Bay last year, Mick Fanning has had
sharksboth metaphorical and very realstalking
his quiet moments, circling him in his sleep, and
following him into the ocean. The malevolent
dream fish began taking huge chunks out of his
lifehis marriage, his brother, a world titlea
lifetimes worth of outrageous misfortune and
tragedy all crammed into a single year. It was a year
that felt like black satire for Fanning as he walked
a gossamer tightrope between his own earthly
mortality and a place among surfings immortals.

39
Profile
W
hether Mick Fanning was lucky or unlucky at Jeffreys
Bay on July 19, 2015, depends on your existential view
of the world.
Unlucky? Sure he was. Out of all the surfers
in all the oceans, that shark went for him. Well
never know why, of course. The brain of a great
white is a Precambrian mystery2 feet long, shaped
like a slingshot, and hardwired in ways well never
understand. As Fannings shark took its leisurely
Sunday swim up the coast, the big palooka couldve
picked off a weekend surfer down at Mossel Bay,
chomped a leathery old swimmer at Magnatubes, or
simply inhaled a seal. Instead, this shark had a sense
of theater. He swam into J-Bay, waited for the final to
start and the cameras to roll, and lined up the champ.
Or was Fanning lucky? Hed be the first to tell
you theres no luckier soul on Gods green earth. To
be served up as hot lunch to a 1-ton fish and escape
without a scratch, youd be forgiven for pointing to
divine intervention, or some higher reason why the
universe saved Fannings skinny white ass.
The footage of Fanning and the sharksurfings
own Zapruder filmhas perversely become the most
watched surfing moment of all time. The whole
notion of being eaten alive in the final of a major
sporting event captivated a ghoulish public and
signaled the end of anything resembling a private life
for Fanning.
For his part, Fanning held it together in the
immediate aftermath. While there was an emotional
precipice yet to come, first there were plenty of tears
and beers and laughing at his dumb luck. The world
around him, however, went mad.
At home, Australia was already in the grip of
shark hysteria after a spike of fatal attacks clustered
around Margaret River in the west and Ballina
Fannings old hometownin the east. To give you an
idea of the public paranoia and the medias enthusiasm
to stoke it, when an unmanned surf cam captured a
Japanese surfer being attacked and killed by a great
white at Ballina earlier that year, major media outlets
were falling all over themselves trying to purchase the
footage from the forecasting site.
As it turns out, the real sharks had two legs, and
Fanning flew home to a feeding frenzy. To be totally
honest, the actual events that went down in J-Bay and
dealing with it and getting home werent the worst
part, says Fanning. It was waking up with four news
vans out the front. There were paparazzi following me
everywhere I went, and it just didnt stop. In the days
after he got home, Fanning hired private security to
sit outside his front door. It was intense. I didnt leave
my house for a week.
He did, however, sneak out one afternoon. Just
two weeks before Fanning had been hit by the shark
in South Africa, a bodyboarder named Matt Lee had
been attacked by a great white at Ballina (again),
suffering gruesome injuries to his legs. Fanning slipped
the film crews to visit Lee in the hospital on the Gold
Coast. I just snuck into the room, Fanning explains.
There wasnt much I could say, but I just wanted to
see how he was doing. After being so lucky, I kind of
felt like I had to.
Fanning declined an invite to be on The
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, he turned down
book offers, and he stopped answering his phone.
Fanning felt that buying into the shark-hero headline
would be mocking the gods of fate that saved him.
When he took up the offer to do a 60 Minutes
exclusive, he promptly gave his $75,000 appearance fee
to Lee.
The intense public scrutiny happened at
the worst time for Fanning, as he was also going
through a very private separation from his wife of
seven years, Karissa. The pair was living apart at the
time, although Karissa flew home from New York
to be with Fanning in the days after the attack. A
brief reconciliation failed, but the pair has remained
amicable and respectful, acknowledging they were
simply two very driven people, just driving in different
directions. Once the media vans cleared out, chasing
some other tragedy in some other postcode, the
palatial, whitewashed beachside home that Fanning
and Karissa had built together was suddenly empty,
just Fanning and his dog, Harper. It wasnt a good
time to be alone, so Fanning promptly moved a few
recently divorced friends into the place and turned the
seven-figure house into a kind of group-therapy venue.
Everybody close to Fanning will tell you a story
about how he went out of his way to spend time with
them after the shark attack, to surf, drink beer, and
riff about life, his own problems barely mentioned.
It was healing for me, offers Fanning. What Ive
been through recently, Ive had so many people pick
me up, so if someone needs help Ill be straight there.
Its something from when Sean passed away, I reckon.
[Sean, Fannings brother, died in a car accident in
1998.] Back then everyone was f--kedIm talking
40
Fanning is no stranger to
hardship, but the rippable waves
around his Gold Coast home
have always provided a healthy
distraction. Here, he takes a
brief, well-earned vacation just
down the road from his house.
Photo by Grambeau
my mom, my dad, my brothers, my sister, and all
our friendsand I just blocked out my own feelings
because I thought, Look, you need to help these
people before you help yourself. I didnt talk about
those things with anyone back then, not even my
mates. Looking back, it was really hard, and it took me
years to come to terms with it.
Fannings best coping mechanism, however, was
winning. Apologies in advance for the analogy, but,
like a shark, Fanning needed to keep moving forward
to get through what had happened, and the best way
forward for Mick Fanning was surfing heats. Its what
he does.
From the minute he survived the shark attack
in July, the notion that Mick Fanning would win
the world title crystalized perfectly in the public
subconscious. From the primal jaws of a big, dumb
fish to Fannings face reflected in a silver world-
title trophy, the karmic dots were being connected.
Nothing made more sense. Pro surfing follows
narrative, and there was no bigger story that season
than Mick Fanning.
If he wasnt already the world-title favorite
heading into the Pipeline Masters, the final event of
the season, he certainly was after winning the Sunset
Beach contest the week before. But two days after his
win, while walking down the beach at Pipe, Fanning
saw Taj Burrow in his yard, and from the look on
Burrows face, Fanning immediately knew something
was wrong. Burrow had just seen Evan Geiselman
pull into a barrel at Pipe and not resurface for three
waves. Fanning sprinted down the beach, arriving just
as Andre Botha and the lifeguards were dragging the
lifeless Floridian to shore. Mate, he was gone. Blue
as f--k, Fanning recalled later that afternoon. Then
the lifeguards got a breath into him and the saltwater
just gushed out. Two days later, Fannings housemate,
Owen Wright, said he needed to lie down after a bad
thrashing at Pipe. When Fanning went to check on
him, Wright couldnt get back up, prompting a 911 call
and a swift trip to the hospital. It seemed as if White
Lightning had become a lightning rod for matters of
life and death, although the worst was yet to come.
The knock on his bedroom door came at 5 a.m. It
was the morning Fanning was due to surf for the world
title at Pipeline, and as he kicked off the sheets he knew
whomever was getting him out of bed at that hour
wasnt bearing good news. It was Fannings mom, Liz,
in tears. There was a brief pause while she composed
41
Profile

After last years fateful J-Bay

event, Fanning became a
reluctant media sensation and
came home to find an army
of reporters waiting at his
doorstep. Here, he puts himself
in one of the few places news
vans cant follow. Photo by Hornby

herself and told Fanning that his oldest brother, Pete,

had died in his sleep that night back home.
It wasnt the first time Fanning had experienced
shattering loss. But it had taken Fanning years to
process the death of his brother Sean. Now hed be
surfing for the world title in just a few hours.
At 9:20 a.m., Fanning paddled out against Jamie
OBrien and won. After lunch, he beat Kelly Slater
and John Florence, emerging from his winning wave
with palms supine, fingers soft, head to the heavens,
and eyes closed. The still frame echoed a Renaissance
fresco. As Fanning inched closer to the title, it seemed
that his greatest and his lowest moments were playing
out together. It was macabre, yet compelling theater.
The world title gave me a focal point, but I
was just running on emotion, Fanning said later
when asked what got him through those final days
at Pipeline and, ultimately, one heat short of a world
title. When I came off the beach after that quarter
against Kelly, I was done. Nothing mattered after that,
not even the world title. Just seeing all my best friends
standing there, I couldve packed up my boards and
walked away right there. I felt like Id already won.
When Fanning eventually lost to Gabriel Medina
in the semis, he ran up the beach, gray and drained.
He pushed to the very back of the tent his crew was
gathered under, knelt down and buried his head into a
towel, roaring like a wounded bear. He sobbed loudly
as every wall hed built around his brothers death
came crumbling down. No one spoke. His friends
formed a circle around him as a sea of cameras and
phones stared in.
I guess it was a blessing in disguise, says
Fanning of missing out on the title. I would have
come home and the media would have started all over
again. But I really didnt give two thoughts about the
world title. My tank was empty and I didnt even have
the energy.
That night, with the house full and the floor
shaking, his crew grabbed two bottles of tequila and
retreated to Fannings room, each person taking a
swig before taking the floor and saluting their friend
with a few words. Blitzed, few of the tributes made
much sense, but the sentiments were clear. These
were people whod known Fanning for 10, 20, 30
years, friends whod seen him do some extraordinary
things along the way, but nothing as extraordinary or
courageous as what theyd just witnessed at Pipeline.
Fanning flew home the next morning with a
volcanic hangover, buried his brother, then took off to
Vegas and Japan and didnt return for a month.

42
43
Profile

44

I
nstead of a preseason in 2016, Fanning opened a
brewery. Instead of surfing heat drills, he just went
surfing. When Matt Wilkinson won at Snapper,
Fanning hosted the party at his place, the texted
invitation simply saying, Lets go to war! It got wild.
One guest fell face-first into a cactus. Slater tried to
get in the front gate, but security wouldnt let him in.
Fanning was officially taking a gap year from
pro surfing, but at the rate he was going, he was
going to need another gap year to recover from this
one. His phone never stopped. He never stopped.
Coolangatta became claustrophobic. Then, when the
Tour kicked off again, Fanning found it hard to quit
competing cold turkey. While hed been dismissive of
being typecast as a contest machine, Fanning began
to realize that in many ways it was actually true. His
whole life had been engineered around the rhythms of
the Tourwhere he needed to be, what he needed to
do, how he needed to surfand with the Tour about
to move off without him, he suddenly felt like a circus
animal released into the wild.
There was a fear there for sure, he says. It
sounds strange and a little sad, but I really didnt
know how I could surf without the Tour. Ever since
I was a kid, I was all about performing in contests. I
never cared about video sessions or crazy photos. My
priority was heats. I always felt the best surfing I did
was in a heat, and thats what I worked all my life to
do, and suddenly here was the flipside to that. I was
trying to figure out how I could just go surfing.
The first event Fanning missed was in
Margaret River, and the anxiety of missing it was
so great he made sure he was a million miles away
when it happened.
As Fannings heat paddled out without him, he
was in a bar in Seward, Alaska. He ordered tequila
from a tattooed waitress who was running from her
past back in the Lower 48, back in Des Moines, Iowa.
She had no idea who Mick Fanning was. She asked
if he was English. She asked what he did for a living.
He laughed. Fanning wasnt in Alaska to find himself;
he was there to lose himself. Nickelback played. The
barmaid dried glasses. It was -5 outside. In three days
Fanning was due to be in Berlin. He quaffed the shot
and placed the glass on the bar and walked out.
By the time the Tour made its way to Fiji in June,
Fanning had surfed more events than hed missed, but
he didnt appear to be overcome by the burning desire
that had won him three world titles. It was 3 a.m. on
day three of a bender, and Fanning was standing on
the bar singing along to Adeles Hello, his emotional
trigger song. He sang it word for word, terribly. I
pondered how many times hed listened to it alone.
As he hit the final chorus, he slipped on a spilled pia
colada and fell off the bar, somehow landing on his
feet like a cat. His mantra for the week was Having a
filf time! which appeared to be very much the case.
Exactly how Fanning was doing was hard to
gauge. He did appear, as he said, to be having a filf
time. But in between filf times in Fiji, he also had
plenty of quiet time with his headphones on, pacing
the island, staring out to sea or locked away in his
bure, watching the Dr. Dre documentary or reading
Andre Agassis autobiography. I didnt know Fanning
read, although I was pretty sure he hadnt read his
own book when it had been published. He told me
he prefers nonfiction, biographies in particular. I
like to hear real stories, he explained. Because you
wonder how these people actually got through life.
We discussed how in the modern world tragedy is
currencyhow nobody is interested in feel-good
stories, and people are drawn instinctively toward
45
Fanning grew up carving the
tapering walls of Snapper Rocks
(pictured here) to pieces, honing
an impressive frontside rail game
in the process. Its that same
approach that has made him a
regular on finals day at J-Bay, for
better or worse. Photos by Shield
calamity, toward the macabre, toward, say, the story
of a shark-attack survivor. I think a lot of people in
this world go through a lot of shit, Fanning said, and
everyone has a story.
Through his own shit, Fannings maintained
his ability to laugh. He even laughed through his
first post-attack interview in the seconds after he
clambered aboard the boat in J-Bay. Thats probably
the one aspect the public doesnt see, the one aspect
thats been distorted by the medias rush to earnestly
portray him as heroic and resilient. In Fiji, we laughed
about an old Tracks magazine cover of Fanning from
my days as editor. Under the cover line, which read,
Fame easy money, fast cars, hot chicks, Fanning
posed next to a red Porsche with a bikini-clad plus-size
model under his arm. It was a different time on several
levels. Fanning could mock the notion of fame back
then, but he has a very different take on it now. I
dont want that fame, and I always question people
who want to be famous, he said. When the shark
thing happened, I was like, Theres no way I want to
trade off this. Its not who I want to be.
Fanning is a hard guy to ask if hes OK. Even
when hes not, he generally is.
When I asked Fanning that question, he looked
at me like I was taking the piss, but realized that, for
the purposes of the story, Im required to ask.
Look, its not easy being in the limelight with
everyone always wondering, Hows he doing? Is he
OK? said Fanning. My friends know how Im doing,
they dont need to ask, but the outside world is always
curious. They always mean well and most of the time
Im doing just fineright up to the point someone
reminds me I probably shouldnt be. But we all get
dealt good cards and bad cards. I just had a few shitty
cards in the one year. As I come out the other side, my
life aint bad. There are people way worse off than me,
so I cant sit there and cry, Poor me.
Under Fannings arm, right next to the tattoo in
memory of his brother Sean, theres a new tattoo that
says Peter. He told a story about his brother Pete,
who would not only talk in his sleep after a few beers,
but hold entire conversations. Fanning once caught
him fast asleep, chatting away, and asked Pete what
he was up to. Im in Sydneyjust heading home for
Christmas, Pete said, and then began telling Fanning
how hed bought their mom this beautiful artwork for
Christmas, describing it in great detail. Fanning then
asked, So, what have you got Mick? Pete replied,
laughing, F--kin nothing!
Profile

In the wake of his shark

encounter at J-Bay, Fanning
decided to take a personal year
and compete only in select
events. From the look of this
Indonesian drainer, its safe to
say hes making good use of the
down time. Photo by Gibson

46
 Icaught up with Fanning at his place at Kirra the
week after he came home from South Africa. Not
only had he returned to J-Bay a year after the attack,
but hed won the whole damn contest.
It was the hottest July day on record, and hed
just walked in the door from cleaning one of the
rental properties he owns in Coolangatta. He was
sweating and covered in a fine film of dust. I made
the obligatory joke about his soft pro-surfing hands
never having seen manual labor before we sat and
talked on his veranda. Directly in front of his house,
the shark nets make it hard to forget what happened
a year ago. But he told me that before he went to
J-Bay, hed driven down to Ballina and paddled out
at North Wall, a far sketchier proposition. Those
demons, it seems, have been exorcized.
Fanning won J-Bay riding a channel-bottomed,
swallow-tailed 5'8", a board he never would have
imagined riding back when he was all serious on
Tour, and while he won in a fairly ruthless display,
he surfed fast, loose, and free. A year on from the
attack, if ever there was a symbolic moment of
closure, this was it. The win drew a line under a
shitty year. The conceptual shark had been killed off.
We can all move on now.
But move on to where? Mick Fanning might be
the last guy to ask what Mick Fanning is going to do
next. When I go somewhereanywhere, latelyI
feel like Im a passenger, he said. Someone else
is steering the ship. For me, its about not having
a schedule and not needing to be somewhere. If
someone tells me I have to be somewhere on a certain
day, Im like, Really? Sorry, I cant commit. I just
dont know. I dont know where its all going.
At 35, Fanning has a name. He has means.
He has opportunity. The world is an oyster. What
Fanning does next, as the drama of the past year
fades in time, will surely provide a truer insight into
the man than his instinctive reaction of punching
a shark in the ribs. Travel? Sure. The Tour? Who
knows? He seems disenchanted by it, but telling
Mick Fanning not to compete is like telling a shark
not to swim. A reinvention, maybe? Kit him out with
a faux-hipster starter packa single-fin, long hair,
and a van? Hmm, unlikely. Maybe a red Porsche and
a bikini girl. Whatever Fanning does, you get the
feeling its been a long time coming, pre-dating the
events of the past year. Fanning has been looking for
a chance to break free, and, for better or worse, the
universe threw it his way when the shark rose from
the depths underneath him last year.
For now, Fanning shoulders the unbearable
lightness of simply being himself. I guess its about
being in a place and actually being there, he said.
Thats the beauty; now I dont need to be somewhere
else, so I can just enjoy the moment. Its just a whole
different mindset. It feels really light.
At that moment, a plane took off from nearby
Coolangatta Airport and flew straight overhead.
There goes your plane, I quipped.
Missed it, he replied. Oh, well, Ill just get the
next one. S

47
Feature

SECOND

HAND
48
 STOKE

After a surfboard drive led by California-based foundation Positive Vibe Warriors,

the future of Jamaican surfing is looking brighter than ever
BY ASHT Y N DOUGLAS PHOTOS BY GR ANT ELLIS

49
Feature
Previous Spread Before this day, 11-year-
old Nekoy Henry was riding a beat-up 6'2"
with two missing fins. But thanks to the
Positive Vibe Warriors surfboard drive,
Henry now has a suitable stick and an
ample amount of stoke.

I vah Wilmots sun-bleached dreadlocks dangle over a pile of surfboards as

the 19-year-old bends down to pick up a groveler with a green, gold, and red stomp
pad. Its a wide-nosed Sharp Eyeprobably no bigger than a 5'6", by the look of it
under his taut, chiseled arm. The deck is covered with craters and the rails have a
few patched dings, but by Jamaican standards, the board is mint.
An American surfer named Tyrone gave this to me when he was visiting,
Ivah tells me, holding the board out in front of him for us both to examine. Hes
shirtless with an oversized shark-tooth pendant hanging from his neck. He
noticed I didnt have a fresh board, and he was like, Oh, mon, you rip. Take this.
Looking for relief from the sweltering Jamaican sun, I had asked Ivah to
show me his quiver in Jamnesia Surf Camps boardroom. Jamnesia was started
along the south coast of the island by Ivahs father, Jamaican surfing legend and
prominent reggae musician Billy Mystic Wilmot. Ivah and his four older siblings
learned to surf the wave-speckled shores outside Kingston and quickly became the
islands top talent, winning both domestic and international competitions in their
respective age groups. Ivah is part of Jamaicas new generation of rippers, with a
style that pays homage to the knock-kneed, light-footed comportment of Craig
Anderson or Rob Machado.
Inside Jamnesias boardroom, the sun seeps in through shuttered windows,
silhouetting a library of aging boards scattered throughout the room. A beige
Channel Islands shortboard with weather-beaten full traction leans against the
wall, pummeled with pressure dings and patched back together in two different
places. Yellowed single-fins and heavily rockered 90s chips hang from the ceiling
alongside a few stubby twin-fins with wide tails thick with resin from repair jobs.
Yeah, mon. Ive surfed all these boards in here. Those up there were my dads
boards that I grew up riding, Ivah says, pointing to the overstuffed rafters. Back
then you got a board and that was your board for a year and a half. You surfed that
board even if it didnt feel right. You just figured it out.
Like Ivah, most Jamaican surfers grow up riding whatever craft they can get
their hands on. There are no surf shops or shapers on the island, which means
any surfboard that finds its way to this corner of the Caribbean comes from
abroad. Most local surfers, however, come from working-class families and live off
roughly $50 a week as fishermen or laborers just to put food on the table. For them,
ordering a board from another country is pie in the sky.
High shipping fees and import taxes keep boards even farther out of reach.
Once the customs tariff is tacked on, a $600 foreign-made surfboard quickly
becomes $800 or $900 or morea premium price tag, even for Americans making
a comfortable living. One Jamaican surfer later explained, Its almost as if were
buying the surfboard twice.
Foam blanks, fiberglass, and resin are also subject to a steep import tax, which
has discouraged surfers from shaping and manufacturing their own boards. In the
end, most locals rely on traveling surfers leaving their boards behind.
Despite being cut off from the surf industry, Jamaicas surf culture has
experienced decades-long slow growth. The islands perimeter plays host to a
handful of punchy, rippable reefbreaks and a bevy of unsurfed waves cloaked by
inaccessible roads. Its an idyllic, relatively empty playground for surfers like Ivah to
hone their technique. And with the small collection of secondhand boards sitting
at Jamnesia, the Wilmot family has been able to keep the stoke of surfing alive for
other kids, teaching them how to surf and supplying the few boards they have to
those in need.
We used to have a lot more boards around here, says Ivah. But we end up
giving away older boards to people. Ill surf a board for a while and then send it over
to Boston Bay, a town to the northeast. There are a few guys over there who I keep
an eye on and make sure they always have boards and wax. Little things make a

50

Clockwise from bottom left If you
could point to one family responsible
for keeping the soul of surfing alive in
Jamaica, itd be the Wilmot clan. From
left to right: Craig Lee, Ivah, Billy, Nya,
Imani, Icah, and Maggie.
Nineteen-year-old Ivah Wilmot grew up
riding his dads hand-me-down boards,
but that didnt stop him from becoming
one of the areas most progressive
surfers. Ivah, checking out a new high-
performance craft.
With access to myriad playful wedges
along Jamaicas southeast coast, Ivah
has plenty of opportunities to refine his
smooth style. Ivah, getting loose in front
of Tanner Gudauskas at Lighthouse.
51
huge difference here.
Ivah carefully places his Sharp Eye back down on the pile of boards and nods
toward the door. But Im guessing I wont have to do that anymore after today.
Outside the boardroom, the concrete yard looks like a surf swap meet gone
off the rails. The ground is completely covered with boards205, to be exactof
varying sizes and designs: Al Merricks, Xanadus, Arakawas, DHDs; single-fins,
twin-fins, thrusters; stickered, not stickered; hi-fi, low-fi, and everything in
between. Its almost dizzying, even for a Californian, seeing this many unique
boards in one place.
Surfers from all over the island are buzzing throughout the yard, picking up
promising-looking boards and appraising their potential using the old under-the-
arm test. Haile, a 7-year-old kid with short, bobbed dreads and a great white shark
tank top, eyes a 5'10" Spyder with glass-on fins and tattered stickers plastered all
over its nose. He grabs it from the pile. Struggling to hold his new find with his
short wingspan, Haile tells me this is his first surfboard.
Just behind him is a 30-year-old chef named J.J. sifting through a mound of
boards, searching for something that will float his 6'4" frame. Ive been surfing
since I was 7, he says, picking up a board with too little volume and swiftly laying
it back down. But Ive never had the opportunity to ride a good board. He stoops
down and grabs a hefty 6'7" pintail shaped by Robin Mair. A grin spreads across
his face.
Last time we were in Jamaica, about two years ago, we were blown away by
the talent and passion the locals had, says Dane Gudauskas, who, along with his
brothers Pat and Tanner as well as Dylan Graves, is busy passing out boardshorts
and helping kids choose suitable sticks. But things werent adding up with the
boards. It just looked like there were no quality boards for how good these kids
were surfing. So we started asking questions. They told us about the taxes and the
lack of existence of any sort of surf industry here.
Upon returning to the States, the Gudauskas brothers started devising a plan
to help out their friends at Jamnesia through their charitable foundation, Positive
Vibe Warriors. For months they raised awareness via social media about the
scarcity of surfboards in Jamaica and urged Southern California surfers to donate
Feature

used (but watertight) boards to any Jacks Surfboards locations. Once all 205 boards
were collected, they were sent to Jamnesia in a 40-foot shipping container, along
with tubs of resin, boxes of wax, fins, and leashes.
According to Billy Wilmot, the arrival of these boards marks a major moment
in Jamaican surf history. Many people have come through here making promises
about helping, he says. But up until this point, the help weve gotten was tiny and
scattered. This isnt just a couple of donated boards. This is a lot of boards donated
to the nation of Jamaica.
Billys other son, 29-year-old Icah, was Jamaicas first pro surfer and currently
teaches surf lessons at Jamnesia. Icah believes this will give local kids admission to a
new lifestyleone that will hopefully keep them out of trouble in the impoverished
communities that line the south coast of the island. Surfing helps them keep their
focus in the water and keep that whole negative side of the world at bay, Icah says.
Instead of looking toward land and seeing corruption and violence in the city, they Clockwise from top left Shama Beckford,
can focus on the sea, an open world with endless possibilities. drifting the tail on the board Dylan Graves
gave to him.
A group of kids grab their new boards and make a dash to the gentle, user-
friendly break out front. Graves and the Gudauskas brothers are right behind Twenty-one-year old Garren Pryce, the 2016
them with bars of wax and fins that need to be screwed in. The waves are 1 foot, Makka Pro Junior Champion, taking advantage
of a Caribbean ramp.
generously speaking, but the stoke is huge.
Haile stands at the waters edge with his leash already strapped on, watching A few locals from Boston Bay, sampling some of
his older brother, Selah, snag a little left. He tells me hes excited to surf, and I ask the fresh equipment from the board drive.
how long hes wanted to learn. From left to right, Garren Pryce, Shama
Well... He pauses for a moment. I decided I wanted to surf starting today, Beckford and Ivah Wilmot are the new
when someone told me I could pick out my own surfboard. Within minutes, generation of Jamaican rippers.
Hailes out in the lineup with the rest of the kids and the instructors. One by With no surf shops on the island, access to fins,
one, they all catch small, dribbling waves using what seems like an innate ability wax, boardshorts and leashes is limited. Dane
and comfort in the water. Two kids who had never surfed before catch the same Gudauskas came bearing gifts.
wave, squatting low to maintain balance until their paths collide. They both Dane Gudauskas, putting it on rail and
come up giggling. enjoying his return to Jamaica.
Judging by the smiles and laughter emanating from the lineup, the initial
Icah Wilmot, teaching Haile how to add a leash
positive impact of the board drive on the local community is clear. But what about string to his new board, just moments before
the future of Jamaican surfing in the long term? Is one kind act enough to sustain Haile paddled out for his first session ever.

52
53
Feature

54

Clockwise from bottom left
The palm-laden shoreline outside
of Bull Bay is dotted with idyllic
setups. Here, Pat Gudauskas gets
tail high about an hours drive
from Jamnesia.
Shakas all around from the new
surfboard owners.
Tanner Gudauskas and Dylan
Graves, giving the groms
pointers at the user-friendly wave
in front of the camp.
Haile (right) enjoys his first party
wave with 11-year-old Nekoy
Henry (left).
55
a developing surf culture? What happens when these kids show their friends how
to surf, their friends teach others, and so on? It seems like its only a matter of time
until Jamaican surfers once again outnumber the available resources.
According to the Wilmot family, getting to that point will be a good thing.
The solution is getting more kids interested in surfing, because the more kids you
have wanting to surf, the more need there is for boards to be accessible, says Icah.
People will start going to sporting-goods stores, asking for boards. If the demand
grows, the supply will followwhich is what were trying to do with Jamnesia. If
surfing is the next big thing, then businessmen will want to get involved.
Later that day, Graves, the Gudauskas brothers, and I follow Ivah and his
friends, Shama Beckford and Garren Pryce, to Makka, a left-hander breaking over a
shallow reef on the east side of the island. The lineup is empty, save for a windswell
churning out a procession of non-stop waves.
About halfway through our session, Graves hands Shama his own board to try
on for size: a 5'5" Haydenshapes. Shama, one of Jamaicas most radical surfers, with
an affinity for ankle-busting aerial maneuvers, heads straight to the peak. Thirty
seconds later he picks off one of the days bigger sets. He banks hard into a deep
bottom turn, heads for the lip, and hits it just as the lip begins to feather, sending a
torrent of crystal-clear saltwater down on the rest of us before he zooms down the
line and hucks a huge air reverse on the inside section. Its a ride that would earn an
excellent score at any QS event.
As Shama returns to the peak, I ask how the board felt under his feet. Its fast,
fits into the pocket, and the transitions are amazing, he says excitedly, like a kid who
got exactly what he wanted for Christmas. Good equipment brings out the best in
your performance, you know?
Watching Shama beaming after his ride, Im reminded of what Billy told me
earlier: the donated surfboards dont just benefit the many local kids eager to learn
how to surf; they provide an opportunity for more-established talents like Shama and
Ivah to continue improving and realize their potential.
You can see how well these kids surf and how far theyve gotten with what
they have, Billy said. Imagine what they can do with access to more resources. Now
theyll be able to try to stick airs without being afraid that their board will break.
This is going to push the level of surfing in Jamaica, just by having these boards. S
Interview

(Left) Since arriving on the

scene as a blitzing teenager, Taj
Burrow has held the surf worlds
attention with his breakneck
speed, aerial acrobatics, and
remarkable tuberiding talent,
seen here in Fiji, 2011.

(Right) Burrow, a stones throw

from his beachfront Western
Australia home, 2010.

56
LIFE IN THE
EXCELLENT
RANGE
Now retired after 18 years spent living large on the World Tour, Taj
Burrow isnt the least bit concerned about what comes next

IN TERV IEW BY SE A N DOHERT Y PHOTOS BY JOHN R ESPONDEK

If the world were a tennis ball, Taj Burrow would be a big
ol Labrador, standing there slobbering, waiting excitedly
for someone to throw it. To say hes enjoyed his 18 years
on the World Tour might be understating it a little. The
son of hippie folk who fled California for a godforsaken
corner of Australia, Burrow jumped straight back on a
planebusiness class, of courseand made the world his
oyster: surfing, partying, after-partying, chasing the big
city lights. He joined the Tour ranks when he was 19 years
old and quickly became the millenniums most bankable
surf-video star and the Tours resident bon vivant. Now, at
38, with boundless enthusiasm for surfing still twinkling
in his beady blue eyes, Burrow is returning home to the
Yallingup countryside to settle down, raise a family, and
surf on his own terms. Looking back over his career for a
defining theme, you could easily focus on the world title
that eluded Burrow. But the truth is, that stopped causing
him sleepless nights long ago. Besides, as one of his friends
puts it, World champ? Mate, who cares? Hes the world
champ of living!

57
Interview

SD Retirement. Why now?

TB It couldnt be more obvious to me. Having a grom and enjoying it so much, I
just feel like Im getting sick of traveling and the speed of the Tour and having
to maintain your fitness and your diet and your surfing ability. I can barely (Above) A scalped Burrow in Indonesia on the eve of
keep up with the Tour when its just me, but doing all that and being a dad at his retirement, recalling Tom Carrolls feral look in
the 1997 surf film The Hole. Before joining the World
the same time is too much. And I dont feel competitive at all these days. I feel Tour ranks 18 years ago, Burrow embarked on an Indo
more competitive on the Ping-Pong table than in the water. I dont like that adventure with Carroll and crew and found himself
feeling when Im about to surf against someone. I just dont enjoy it anymore. on the receiving end of some very harsh grom hazing,
as seen in Losts On the Road With Spike. Two decades
SD Was there a moment when that became clear to you? later, Burrow is still that same grommet at heart, but
TB Id been talking with my girl, Bec [Jobson], for months, telling her, I think now hes more likely to be the one doing the hazing.
Im done. I really dont want to do this anymore. I was losing sleep thinking
(Below) A trademark Burrow puntfull speed ahead,
about when to do it and how to do it, because its a big thing. Then me, Bec, torqued, and spinningnear home in Western
and my daughter, Bella, all got sick heading to Bells. When youre sick as a Australia, early 2000s.
family its gnarly, and we just wanted to be at home. I had a super-close heat
with Miguel [Pupo], and I was so sick and fatigued that I did this half-assed
last turn and face-planted on the end section at Bells. If Id ridden out of it I
wouldve won, but I walked up the beach and I knew I was done. I needed to
get out of this game.
SD As a teenager, the transition from Yallingup grommet to global superstar
happened pretty quick for you, at a time when the surf industry was booming and
money was being thrown around like confetti. Did it make your head spin?
TB It happened soooo quick. When I got my first Billabong contract, I just
thought, Wow, this is crazy. My parents were like, Holy shit, youre making
more money than weve ever made, and I was 15 years old. It felt incredible,
almost too incredible, but I think I handled it okay.
SD With most competitors, you see Tour life becoming progressively less fun every
year, but over the course of 18 years it doesnt seem to have killed your spirit one bit.
TB Ive remained positive about it, for sure, probably because Ive been lucky with
results and sponsorship. Ill be honest, Ive had a really good run on Tour and
I can tell its so rough being on the other side of that. Ive seen a lot of guys
struggle with sponsorship and they get unlucky with heats and or have a few
calls go against them, and they get so negative about the Tour. I see it, and I

58

(Above) Growing up in Western
Australia, Burrow cut his teeth on
heavy slabs, and his poise and precision
in waves of consequence balanced out
his light-footed dynamism in the small
stuff. Burrow at home, 2015.
(Below) One of the most high-profile
surfers of the new millennium, Burrow
popularized the then-futuristic,
parabolic-stringered Firewires, with
cutting edge progressive surfing and
stylish fin throws like this.
59
know that if I ever fell into that rut, Id find it hard to get out, because you
can easily get angry at the system. How do you focus on a heat when youve
got your livelihood at stake? That would be pretty rough, so Ive been lucky
that Ive never had to stress about that.
SD It might be a short list, but have there been times when the Tour has sucked for you?
TB Thereve been times, for surejust moments where youre sick on the road or
youre coming off a shitty result. Obviously, the lowest point of my career was
losing one of my best friends [Kevin Twiggy Sharland, a photographer whose
body was found washed up on the beach in Hossegor, France, having suffered
a heart attack after a night out in 2004]. Thats still the heaviest thing Ive
ever had to deal with in my life. I still think about him every day. It was the
lowest point of my life, let alone my career.
SD Your first year on Tour was 98. It must have felt like another world back then.
TB It was much wilder. I had my 21st birthday on Namotu [Fiji] with guys like
Hoyo [Matt Hoyer], Occy [Mark Occhilupo], and Elko [Gary Elkerton]
just headlocking me and pouring drinks down my neck. I saw a photo of it
recently and I couldnt believe my eyes. I remember clearly what happened.
When I arrived, they gave us this white plastic bag full of contest gear,
T-shirts and hats. Well, those guys filled me with Skulldrags [a drink
consumed via snorkel] and I crawled back to my room and just unloaded my
guts into this plastic bag. I remember holding the bag up and looking through
it and it was just orange liquid to the top with T-shirts floating in it.
SD There are a lot of ambitious guys on Tour who dont possess your surfing talent
but succeed through sheer will. Do you reckon youve been ambitious enough over
the years?
TB Its hard to say. I compare myself to someone like Mick [Fanning], yet were
nothing like each other when it comes to competing. He does it flawlessly and
Im nothing like that. Ive traveled with a trainer and put my headphones on
and tried to psych up before heats, but it doesnt really work for me. I dont
consider myself a consistently good surfer, while I feel like I never see Mick
surf badly. I dont see myself as a world-title surfer because of that. When Im
on, Im on, and I feel I can beat anyone. But I dont feel like that often. My
Interview

60
 personality is, like I want to win sometimes, but other times I couldnt be
bothered with applying myself and I dont really care. I cant keep that hunger
for a whole year. My confidence is too up and down for that.
SD Your relationship with Kelly Slater has been interesting. Hes probably the closest
thing youve had to a full-blown rival during your time on Tour.
TB Weve butted heads a lot over the years and dont see eye to eye on a lot of
things, but hes been my favorite surfer since I was 12 and Ive known him
since I was 16, so I still consider him a friend. Ill miss surfing with him and
competing against him for sure. Hes been an intense rival for a lot of years.
Hes psychotic about surfing and winning and it shows. Any victories Ive had
over him are pretty special because hes a prick of a man to beat.
SD Beating him to win the Pipe Masters in 2009 must have made it that much
sweeter, then.
TB For sure. It was funny, because the early rounds were all 6-foot Backdoor, the
kind of surf I feel comfortable in, then when the final came around the winds
went Konastraight devil windand the swell totally dropped. They were
introducing me and Kelly on stage before the final and I looked at the waves
and went, You know what, Im just going to do turns here. I switched to my
normal 510 and I had this overwhelming feeling of confidence. I didnt get
massive scoresa seven and a fivebut Kelly had a rare bad one.
SD Your rivalry with Andy Irons took a different formless psychological and
moredirect.
TB More intense, definitely. Andy and I were the same age with the same sponsors
chasing the same things, and we battled in every department. He was such
an intimidating character to surf against. Every time I drew him in a heat,
I felt ill. I was scared shitless of him. He was so consumed with beating you,
but his support team was equally gnarly. He had Kaiborg [Kai Garcia], Chava
[Greenlee] and Kala [Alexander], Bruce [Irons], and all these Hawaiian guys
who Im friends with now, but at the time they were squarely in Andys corner
and I felt like I was surfing against all of them. The majority of times Andy
walked over me, and he pissed me off so much in and out of the water, but I
couldnt help but love him. I still loved hanging with him for his stories and
his passion and just how wild a character he was.
The most aggressive he ever got with me was during an expression
session, of all things, at this little beach called Bakio during the Mundaka
contest. There were maybe 12 of us in the water and the best air won a couple
grand. I was considered more of an air guy at the time, but at the start of the
expression session Andy landed an air and they announced that he was in
the lead for the money. After that, he just bee-lined straight for me, paddled
on top of me, dropped in on me, pulled my leg rope, growled at me, and said,
You riding that Firewire piece of shit? All this crazy stuff. I was baffled. He
blocked me for the whole 35 minutes. I didnt even get a wave.
SD Making surf movies and winning heats have been mutually exclusive for most guys
whove seriously tried juggling them, yet you were able to do it pretty successfully.
TB Im passionate about both. At the start of my career, everyone else was telling
me I needed to qualify and I needed to win, but I wasnt really telling myself
that. That was just the system I was plugged into. I loved competing and

(Left) Burrow, approaching an

Indonesian left with the same
gusto he had at 18 years old.
People always talk about Taj
being the eternal grommet, and
its even more true than people
say, says photographer and
longtime friend John Respondek.
You go on a trip with him,
and young guys like Creed
[McTaggart] or Noa [Deane] or
Craig [Anderson], and Taj has his
wetsuit on and is out the back
catching waves before those guys
even look at their boards. Hes
more of a grommet than the
grommets are.

(Right) Packing a pit near home

in Western Australia, 2004.

61
Interview

winning, but I also had such a big love for video. My dad filmed me surfing
days on end and Id go home and watch it straight away and that became my
ritual. Whenever I was on a surf trip with other guys and wed shoot in the (Above) Burrow, looking loose and
morning, wed go back to where we were staying and Id get lunch and just light-footed as ever while in Fiji for
his last event as a WCT competitor.
watch the clips. Even today, thats still one of my favorite things in the whole
world to do. (Below) Burrows groundbreaking
SD Do you have any career regrets? profile film, Fair Bits, included
some of the first high-performance
TB I thought of one the other day. What was it? [Burrow thinks in silence for surfing ever captured from a
over a minute.] Actually, nah, not even one. helicopters point of view.
SD Youve dated a string of good-looking women over the years and had this playboy
rep running. It seems like youve been fighting the urge to settle down for a long
time now.
TB Men are probably 10 years behind women, maturity-wise, and it takes you a
while to find your feet in the relationship world. I dabbled with the idea of
settling down earlier and it didnt suit me. I was just all about having fun, and
the longest Id date a girl was maybe two or three years and then Id move on.
I wouldnt change a thing, though, because Im really happy to settle down
now. Its a big commitment, especially having a child, and I couldnt have done
it at any other point in my life because I enjoyed the freedom I had too much.
SD Do you catch yourself holding Bella and thinking how different your life is now to
your freewheeling years on Tour?
TB For sure, Im still blown away every day. I never thought I could feel love like
that ever. Its the craziest thing. Every one of my friends whos a dad told me
as much, but you never understand until you hold your own child and there it
is. You think, I get it, this is f--king incredible, the coolest thing ever. Every
little thing she does blows me away, and I tell my friends, Check whats shes
doing! and theyre going, Umm, yeah, thats great Im that guy now.

62
 SD How might your surfing change now without the Tour there?
TB I still want to push my surfing. I guess Ive already started by getting different
(Above) Burrows collected a lot of scalps over the years surfboards. Mayhem just made me seven surfboards that were all different, all
on the World Tour, but thats not to say he hasnt fun boards, weird little bat tails with channels and all this weird shit and Ive
made a lot of friends along the way. From left to right,
Joel Parkinson, Mick Fanning, Kai Otton and Taj never been more excited. Ive ridden the same shape forever59-1/2 x 18-1/2
Burrow share a laugh at the Namotu bar after some just this contest machine for whipping turns to the beach. In my heats, I feel I
mutual shearing. surf frantically, and Im looking forward to doing big drawn-out roundhouses
(Below) For being a small-framed surfer, displacing water and not being worried about missing a couple of sections. Just smoothing
has never been a problem for Burrow. Gold Coast, 2007. things out and making my style look good, not twitchy.
SD What about personally? How are you planning on challenging yourself? Pro surfers
are painted as pretty one-dimensional at times; what are you planning with all
these extra days?
TB I feel like I got to a point in my life a while back where I stopped learning
new things, and that really annoys me. I stopped reading books and I became
stagnant. I want to learn again. Im going to start playing guitar because my
old man is a weapon on the guitar, and Im kicking myself for not learning
it when I was a kid. Ive got a bucket list, but mainly I want to absorb more
knowledge and open my mind up to more than just winning heats. I want to
get smarter and be a good dad.
SD How much of the kid who first tore up the Tour 18 years ago still kicks around
inside you?
TB Were pretty similar, I reckon. [Laughs.] No one ever really grows up that
much, do they? S

63
Feature

Human activity has wreaked havoc on coral reefs around the world.
Now, under the threat of climate change, corals best chance for
survival may be human creativity
BY A SHT Y N DOUGL A S

64
Under many perfect, tropical barrels are complex networks
of living organisms quietly shaping the waves above. So what
happens if those organisms die? Needless to say, surfers like
Michel Bourez (pictured here) dont want to find out.
Photo by Thouard

65
Feature

(Above) Balis Bukit Peninsula is the original Indonesian dreamscape,

lined with coral reefs that are perfectly angled to accept the Indian
Oceans winter storms and sculpt them into a series of flawless lefts.
Craig Anderson, enjoying a natural masterpiece. Photo by Respondek

(Right) While many corals appear stagnant and lifeless from a

distance, closer inspection reveals complex organisms. Here, under
magnification, the strange face of a vital creature becomes visible.
Photo by Thouard

66

isaki Takabayashi, a marine scientist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, first
noticed nearby reefs were changing in 2014. She was bodyboarding with a friend
one day at Waiuli, a punchy reefbreak on the east side of the Big Island, when she
caught a glimpse of something white beneath the surface of the water.
I started paddling for a wave, and when the water sucked up off the reef, I
could see fluorescent white coral colonies below me, recalls Takabayashi. They
looked like ghosts popping out through the water.
After studying reef ecosystems in Hawaii for over 20 years, Takabayashi
knew this wasnt a good sign. Corals are usually pigmented. Some take on shades
of brown. Others are more vibrant, stained with bright blue, green, or red hues,
like the ones on the front of travel brochures selling all-inclusive packages to Fijian
resorts.
If these corals were healthy, they wouldve been brown, says Takabayashi.
Before that day, most surfers probably didnt even notice the live corals below
them because they wouldve blended in with the ocean floor.
But the bone-white corals she saw that day were far from healthy. They were
bleached, meaning theyd lost the microscopic symbiotic algae that live inside
the corals transparent tissue. These ber-small organisms, called zooxanthellae,
enliven corals with their russet-brown pigmentation and also serve as the corals
main source of nutrition, using photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy.
Think of them like indispensable solar panels: without them, coral reefs starve and
have no energy to grow. If zooxanthellae leave their hosts tissue, once-thriving
colonies of coral instantaneously become clumps of haunting specters.
Technically speaking, corals dont just lose their zooxanthellae tenants.
When the surrounding water temperature exceeds a certain threshold, the
zooxanthellae start producing a bunch of toxic oxidizing radicals. The corals dont
like this, so they evict the zooxanthellae, their primary food source. Corals already
live in water temperatures near their upper thermal limits, so any time water temps
creep above that limit, bleaching ensues. Corals dont always die when they undergo
bleaching. But if deprived of their main food supply for long, death is likely.
The bleached corals Takabayashi noticed in 2014along with many other
reefs surrounding Hawaii, Florida, Kiribati, Guam, and the Marshall Islandswere
some of the first victims of what would later be deemed by NOAA scientists to be
the longest global bleaching event on record.
That event started in the fall of 2013, when an expanse of warm water
nicknamed The Blob began wreaking havoc on marine life in the Pacific Ocean,
including coral reefs. The above-average water temps continued throughout 2014
and then cooled for a couple months. But when 2015s El Nio went into effect, the
waters began heating up again and havent stopped since. Last year set the record
for warmest global water temps since 1880, and 2016 looks to be even warmer.
These record-setting sea-surface temps did serious harm to reefs. Scientists
estimate that roughly 38 percent of the worlds coral reefs have been bleached,
including spots in Indonesia, French Polynesia, Panama, Reunion Island,
Madagascar, the Maldives, Papua New Guinea, American Samoa, the Marshall
Islands, Fiji, and the Caribbean. Roughly 93 percent of Australias Great Barrier
Reef sustained some level of bleaching. Kiribati, an island chain home to many
empty, world-class surf breaks, lost over 80 percent of its living coral. Less than five
percent of Kiribatis reefs are expected to survive this event.
Scientists are still calculating the full extent of the damage, but Greg
67
Hodgson, founder and executive director of the Reef Check Foundation, estimates
that roughly 15 percent of the worlds bleached reefs died over the past three
yearsa figure still smaller than the mortality rate during the first global bleaching
event in 199899, which also coincided with a serious El Nio.
Hodgson, who has been studying coral reefs since the 1970s, remembers the
1998 bleaching event like it was yesterday. I was diving and surfing at a secret spot
on a remote island in Vietnam, and I remember seeing bleached coral heads as far as
the eye could see, he says. They looked like tombstones in a cemetery.
t takes only a quick Google search to find doom-and-gloom reports surrounding
coral reefs, and in them youll discover that reef systems have been in a fragile state
for decades, largely due to negligent human activities like overfishing, coral mining,
and coastal development. Some scientists and media outlets claim that 30 percent of
the worlds reefs are beyond repair, and if things continue at their present rate, each
and every piece of coral will be in danger of extinction by 2050.
This is a grim outlook for any island economy that depends on living coral.
Reef systems serve many purposes beyond stoking out barrel-crazed surfers (believe
it or not). They drive tourism. They prevent erosion and shield coastal towns from
giant swells by mitigating wave energy. They support one quarter of the oceans fish
population and, as a result, supply island nations with their main source of protein.
To put a price tag on the estimated value of coral reefs worldwide, youd be looking
at a whopping $375 billion each year, according to NOAA.
The good news is that corals are tough, highly resilient creatures that have
been around for over 200 million years. If we regulate and monitor things like
pollution and reckless fishing practices, corals have the ability to bounce back after
being diseased and bleached. The bad news is that even if we can control for local
problems, climate change is altering the environment at Mach 10 speeds and corals
cant naturally adapt and evolve at a quick enough pace.
If fossil fuel burning continues unabated, climate scientists say, things will
get ugly. Oceans will continue to warm, which will bring on rising sea levels and
coastal erosion. Sedimentation will seep out onto reefs and obscure corals access
to sunlight. Oceans will also continue to acidify, which will prevent corals from
soaking up the calcium they need to create and rebuild their calcium carbonate
skeleton. If climate change keeps at its furious pace, corals will perish.
And what of the reefs below some of our favorite waves? If corals go extinct,
will famous reefbreak waves like P-Pass or Teahupoo or Cloudbreak face the same
demise as the reefs underneath them erode?
Yes and no. Reefs with relatively little living coral, like many spots on the
North Shore of Oahu, can continue to produce picture-perfect waves because
theyre able to grow coralline algaea hard, pinkish coat that gives reefs a
protective armor resistant to erosion. Surfers, therefore, neednt worry about their
favorite spot disappearing over the next decade. Its what will start to happen over
the next 30 to 40 years thats unsettling.
Feature

68
 Laura Enever, slotted at Fijis most iconic reef. Its
unclear exactly how climate change will affect waves
like Cloudbreak, but if ocean acidification kills off
the worlds coral, reefs will be unable to grow as sea
levels rise, softening our favorite reefs with a kind of
permanent high tide. Photo by Glaser

Once corals die, they arent able to grow and keep up with rising sea levels,
which could swamp out waves that typically work best with less water on the
reef. As Bruce Shaw, a scientist from Columbia University, put it: Itll be like a
permanent high tide.
To make matters even worse, the oceans ever-increasing acidity will
eventually start to disintegrate all reefsboth dead and alive. Anything made
out of calcium carbonate will begin breaking down because of the acid, says
Hodgson. Its just like putting something in a can of Coke or a bottle of vinegar
and watching it slowly dissolve away.
Of course, the coral apocalypse wont happen within the next year or
two. And reef structures probably wont melt away within our lifetime. But if
oceans keep soaking up copious amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,
temperatures will keep spiking, pH levels in the water will keep dropping, and
corals wont be able to cope anymore. No matter how far into the future that may
be, it still leaves us with the dilemma of what we can do right now to save them.
Its this question that led me to seek out Dr. Ruth Gates on Hawaiis Coconut
Island, a 28-acre landmass bordered by palm trees and mangroves that sits inside
Kneohe Bay, just a quarter mile off the windward side of Oahu. The island houses
the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, where Gates is working on a solution that
could save coral reefs from the chokehold of climate change.
I met Gates on a particularly hot afternoon in June, on the small floating
dock at the entrance of the island. Gatesa 55-year-old English woman with a pixie
cut, a hearty laugh, and a black belt in karateis the director of HIMB and also
serves as the president of the International Society for Reef Studies. She laments
not knowing how to surf, but, thanks to the line of work shes been in for the past
20 years, she still spends ample time in the ocean. Her most recent project involves
breeding super coral that can withstand the elements of the warmer, more acidic
oceans of the future. We hopped in her golf cart to get a closer look at her lab on
the other side of the island.
Back in the 1930s, Coconut Island was owned by an eccentric tuna mogul. To
satisfy his bacchanalian inclinations, he built a zoo, a bowling alley, a huge dance hall,
and numerous bars all along the islands perimeter. Now, over 80 years later, HIMB
has transformed Coconut Island into a place that would make Jacques Cousteau tip
his red beanie in approval. Tuna tanks, shark lagoons, research boats, classrooms, and
state-of-the art laboratories are scattered throughout lush, tropical vegetation just
waiting to be used by some of the leading marine biologists in the world.
As our golf cart puttered along under the midday sun, I could see a fringing reef
that creates a turquoise halo around the island. This reef, along with 52 other nearby
patches of reef, makes Kneohe Bay the perfect place to study corals.
Gates explained that 50 years ago the bay looked like a festering swamp. The
City [Kneohe] poured raw sewage into it until 1978, she said. As a result, a non-
native algae grew over the reefs and most of the corals died. But then scientists came
up with a technological fix. They designed a machine called the Super Sucker that
slurped up all the algae on the reef. Then they planted sea urchins that prevented
new overgrowth. Now, decades later, theres almost 100 percent coral coverage.
That project is an example of how humans can give nature a leg up and how
nature can keep up once its been given that help, said Gates. There are positive
stories like this out there, but most of the time all people hear about is the doom
and gloom.
Gates, as it turns out, isnt one to surrender to despair and pessimism. She
believes that discussing a problem can go only so far before someone needs to take
action to solve it, and shes happy to be that someone. But still, she acknowledges the
reality of the coral situation.

69
Feature
The best estimates state that even if we stop burning fossil fuels right now,
global temps are likely to rise more than three degrees Celsius above the preindustrial
average, because there will be a residual magnification, Gates explained.
We cant remediate CO instantly. But, to Gates, that doesnt mean we cant do
anything about our current situation. Yes, the rate at which the planet is changing
is exceeding all of the intrinsic capacities of the coral reefs to cope, but we shouldnt
become paralyzed by the coral thats already destroyed, she said. We are never going
back, so we should try to stabilize the coral reefs that are still living.
When staring down the barrel of rapid climate change, Gates believes that a
technological solution, like the one shes working on, might be corals only saving
grace. Traditional methods involve putting a big boundary around a protected
marine area and calling it conservation, assuming that everything in that place
will be better off, said Gates. No doubt things are better off like that, but is that
sufficient to actually stop the decline on the reefs? I argue that its not.
When we arrived at her outdoor lab, Gates led me down rows of huge vats,
connected to each other with PVC pipe. Each vat was filled with water siphoned
from the bay and a dozen or so chunks of finger and rice corals. At first glance, the
two species were indistinguishablejust craggy rock-like creatures sitting on the
bottom of the tank. But upon further inspection, the distinctions became clear.
Finger corals had stubby, appendage-like branches, while the rice looked like, well, a
side of cooked brown rice.
These vats, Gates explained, are essentially chemically controlled hot tubs.
We run regular water in some for our control treatment, but then in other
tanks we bump up the temperature a couple degrees and depress the pH level,
she said. Our goal is to simulate the conditions of what the ocean will be like in
2040 or 2050.
The method is fairly straightforward. She and her fellow researchers select
various fragments of corals from the reefs in Kneohe Bay, some that are partially
bleached and others that seem to be thriving despite the elevated water temps.
Then we bring them into these tanks and we expose them to simulated future
ocean conditions, said Gates. Our goal is not to kill them; its to give them an
70
(Left) An aerial view of the
slab-like reef responsible for
every heroic barrel and brutal
wipeout youve ever seen at
Teahupoo. Photo by Thouard
experience so they can learn to withstand those stressful conditions when theyre
exposed to them again. Corals have a good memory, and when they experience a
certain eventsurging El Nio water temps, for exampletheyre able to recognize
when temps spike again and will be less affected the next time around.
Gates likened it to something I could relate to. Its like when you first stood
up on a surfboard, she explained. You were probably really scared and bad at it,
but now that youve trained and learned how to ride a wave, its like second nature
to you. You dont even think about what youre doing anymore.
Gates believes that once she and her colleagues completely understand all the
nuances and consequences of training corals, she can collaborate with people who
could scale the project and expose corals to future conditions without bringing
them into her lab. If we were to present someone with a challenge to go out to the
reef and elevate the temperature around the reef by, say, 2 degrees for 48 hours,
Gates said, I guarantee an engineer would say, Oh yeah, we could do that. But
until their research is ready for scaling, Gates and her colleagues will continue to
work within the confines of her lab.
Once theyve trained these super coral, they breed the best with the
best. The idea is to create strong coral offspring that are able to tolerate the
impending future. Its called assisted evolution. Humans have been doing this
with dogs for the longest time, said Gates. If someone wanted a dog with floppy
ears or long legs, they breed for that trait by using individuals that exhibit it.
Same thing with coral. If we know which individuals in a species are doing well,
lets just breed them.
In a way, Gates is just playing matchmaker. Some reefs might be large in size,
but because of all the recent damage, there might only be four individual corals left
that can reproduce, and theyre at opposite ends of the reef. The more space there
is between these coral, the harder it is for their sperm and egg to meet each other.
Gates is just creating a space that allows corals to mate. Like Tinder or Match.com,
but for corals: Were helping them do what they naturally do.
Her hope is that what shes doing in the lab will have a real-world impact.
There are three things we want to do with this project, Gates explained. One,
we want to implant these super corals onto reefs that are failing. Two, we want to
completely restore dead reefs using these corals. And three, as people continue to
pour more and more concrete into the water to combat sea-level rise, we want to
plant these corals onto them to make them living structures instead of just inert
concrete blocks.
ccording to Hawaiis Department of Land and Natural Resources, several reefs
on the island of Maui lost nearly 25 percent of their living coral between 1994 and
2006 primarily as a result of human influence. The most dramatic decline was at
Honolua Bay, the HDLNR states, where coral cover dropped from 42 percent to
9 percent.
I witnessed this firsthand on a flat, gloomy morning in June, when I spent a
couple hours snorkeling around Honolua. I had linked up with Torsten Durkan, a
24-year-old big-wave surfer from Maui who gives reef tours for the Pacific Whale
Foundation. This past winter, Durkan raised donations for Gates lab by asking
individuals to pledge money for coral research, by the foot, for the biggest wave he
was able to nab that wintera 50-footer at Jaws during the Aaron Gold swell.
Based on his background in biology (he recently graduated with a
bachelors degree from the University of Hawaii), Durkan knew the last El
Nio season was going to be a harsh one for corals. Whenever surfers think
about El Nio, we usually just think about good waves, Durkan told me as we
threw on our snorkels and swim fins. But the same warm water thats creating
storms and bigger waves is also destroying coral ecosystems. I wanted my
 (Above) One of the countless
coral-made miracles dotting the
coast of Indonesia. Photo by Shield

(Below) If youve ever pulled into

a Tahitian tube, odds are youve
surfed over a scene similar to
this. Here, translucent branch
coral polyps use their tentacles
to catch and feed upon tiny
organisms. Photo by Thouard

surfing to have more meaning this year, so I decided to partner with Gates. I I justify it like this: the way were messing with the Earth and ecological
liked that shes actually doing something about the degradation of reefs. system is unnatural, said Durkan when asked about the criticism of Gates work.
Durkan led me out to a patch of reef located near the Cove takeoff zone So maybe itll take an unnatural way to preserve it.
at Honolua. The water was calm and the sun was starting to peek through Gates had told me something similar when we were leaving her lab
the gray skies overhead. After defogging my mask a few times, my eyes finally on Coconut Island. People say we should let natural selection take care of
adjusted to what was beneath me. From above, the reef looked like a semi-barren everything, she said. And nature can take care of itself, when nature is in good
mountain range. Some sections looked completely dead. But as we swam out a shape. But nature cant take care of itself now because weve pushed nature way
bit deeper, the scene became more animated. Lobe, plate, and finger corals jutted too far.
up toward the surface of the water. Neon-colored parrotfish and silver unicorn If we never have to use this biology, Id be the happiest person on the planet,
fish with weird, horn-like knobs swam in and out of the reef s crevices. A peacock because that means we solved the problem in a non-interventional way, Gates
grouper with its trademark underbite swam between Durkan and me, seemingly continued. But we cant wait until all coral species are endangered before we act.
uninterested in anything that wasnt prey. Despite the little remaining coral Weve got to risk doing things differently and we need to be creative. I dont want
coverage, there was more life along the reef than I was expecting to see. But I to be one of those people who just puts their head in the sand, because its just too
wondered what this place might look like 30 years from now. big of a problem to do nothing. S
Durkan motioned for me to follow him down about 8 feet below the surface.
He pointed to a Pocillopora meandrina, a species of coral that looked like a head
of cauliflower. Healthy Pocillopora meandrina are usually brown or some shade
of pink. But this one was half tan, half white.
We both surfaced, exhaling water through the tubes of our snorkels. Did
you see that? Durkan asked, panting for air. Thats a bleached cauliflower coral.
Its either recovering or it didnt get bleached too badly. Its hard to say.
As we spent another half hour floating around the bay with our faces
submerged beneath the water, I thought about all the reefs here in Hawaii and
around the worldthe ones in Fiji, the Maldives, Indo. I started to wonder if
what Gates is trying to accomplish is actually realistic. There are millions and
millions of acres of coral reefs around the world, and the thought of saving them
all through selective breeding seems logistically impossible.
And even if she were able to scale the project, not everyone is convinced
that she should. Gates has received criticism for her work over the past year from
people who claim that shes playing God, and that humans shouldnt intervene in
these processes. But Gates and Durkan dont see it that way.

71
Feature

72
 You dont need to be a marine
biologist to know that maintaining
healthy reefs is a good thing for
surfing. Tahitian charger Matahi
Drollet, enjoying the gift that
marine invertebrates provide.
Photo by Thouard

73
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THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE

TO YOUR NEXT WETSUIT

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 BILLABONG
BILLABONG.COM
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076
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 2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
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2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE

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078
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SIROKO
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079
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080
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081
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KID'S R2 YULEX R1 LITE YULEX R1 YULEX R2 YULEX

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082
 2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
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OLQLQJVDUHSDLUHGZLWKSHUFHQW<XOH[
natural rubber/15 percent synthetic
UXEEHUE\SRO\PHUFRQWHQW5
00)&
R4 FRONT ZIP HOODED (M'S & W'S) $509
R4 BACK ZIP (M'S) $489
MEN'S R5 YULEX YULEX NATURAL RUBBER
HOODED FRONT ZIP
Made for the iciest winter conditions,
WKHQHZ5<XOH[+RRGHG)URQW=LS
is the warmest wetsuit we've ever
made. Anatomical patterning and
high-stretch linings maintain flexibility
and performance, and the 85 percent
<XOH[QDWXUDOUXEEHULVEOHQGHGZLWK
percent synthetic rubber to meet our
requirements for durability and strength;
and like all our wetsuits, it's fully backed
E\3DWDJRQLD
00)&
R5 HOODED $529
By replacing the neoprene in our full
suits with renewable natural rubber
tapped from hevea trees, we're reducing
CO2 emissions by up to 80 percent in the
manufacturing process. Our rubber is
sourced from a plantation that meets
the rigorous standards of the Forest
6WHZDUGVKLS&RXQFLOPHDQLQJWKH
trees aren't planted on newly clearcut
rainforest, like some of the world's
supply, and biodiversity and workers'
083
 QUIKSILVER
QUIKSILVER.COM/WETSUITS
ROXY.COM/WETSUITS
HIGHLINE 2X BONDED
CHEST ZIP
Developed around ultimate warmth.
Lined on the inside with our warmest,
fastest drying, thermal lining to date.
Warm Flight Far Infrared thermal
technology insulates and retains body
heat longer than ever before. Plio-Tech
Air Chamber chest and back panels
trap body heat for additional core body
warmth. Our F'N Lite neoprene used in
the arms is our lightest, most stretchy
neoprene available for ultimate flexibility.
3.5/3 $400
4.5/4 $415
5.5/5/4 HOODED $430
084
HIGHLINE PERFORMANCE
CHEST ZIP
Built with ultimate warmth and flexibility
in mind, the mid-body is lined with Warm
Flight Far Infrared thermal lining, while
the upper and lower extremities utilize
our F'N Lite neoprene for maximum
lightweight flexibility.
3/2 $315
4/3 $325
5/4/3 HOODED $350
2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
HIGHLINE ZIPPERLESS
Hands down our lightest, most flexible,
performance-driven wetsuit available.
Geared around flexibility, 100 percent
F'N Lite neoprene in a zipperless entry
system offers the lightest wetsuit
possible with the least amount of bulk.
Available in our Tie Dye series.
2/2 SS FULL $210
3/2 TIE DYE $250
3/2 $250
4/3 $260
SYNCRO PLUS CHEST ZIP
Built 100 percent with our top-end
neoprene and thermal lining for flexibility
and warmth, but designed around an
economical price. Warm Flight Far
Infrared thermal lined chest and back
panels. 100 percent F'N Lite neoprene.
Liquid Flex Seams for a watertight seam
seal. 4/3 and 3/2 also available in back
zip model.
3/2 $200
4/3 $209
5/4/3 $220
 2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
SYNCRO GBS
Built 100 percent with our same top-end
neoprene and thermal, but designed
around an economical price. Warm Flight
Far Infrared thermal lined chest and back
panels provide core warmth retention.
One hundred percent F'N Lite neoprene
for flexibility. Glued and blindstitched
seams to minimize water entry. 4/3 and
3/2 also available in chest zip model.
3/2 $145
4/3 $155
5/4/3 HOODED $195
ROXY PERFORMANCE
CHEST ZIP
Built with ultimate warmth and flexibility
in mind, the mid-body is lined with Warm
Flight Far Infrared thermal lining while
the upper and lower extremities utilize
our F'N Lite neoprene for maximum
lightweight flexibility.
3/2 $315
4/3 $325
5/4/3 HOODED $350
ROXY POP SURF
POP SURF delivers high-end wetsuit
technology in a style-driven silhouette.
One hundred percent F'N Lite neoprene
for flexibility, with glued and blindstitched
VHDPVWRPLQLPL]HZDWHUHQWU\<..
front-zip entry.
2/2 LS SPRING $140
HIGHLINE PERFORMANCE
BOOT
Upper boot utilizes 100 percent F'N Lite
neoprene for comfort, with a Warm
Flight Far Infrared thermal-lined foot
bed that retains warmth. Vulcanized sole
is strategically multi-layered for board
feel and flexibility. Hydrolock ankle cuff
provides a seal to minimize flushing.
3MM SPLIT TOE $60
5MM SPLIT TOE $64
7MM ROUND TOE $70
085
 RIP CURL
RIPCURL.COM
FLASHBOMB PLUS
The all-new FlashBomb Plus is the
ultimate coldwater performance wetsuit.
This suit features 100 percent E5 Flash
lining, which boldly boasts a 25 percent
increase in stretch to the prior year. A
refined entry/exit pattern makes this
suit easier to get in and out of than a
chest zip. Super stretch liquid mesh chest
and back, E5 Flash lining tape, and 3/4
Aquaban Plus taping.
3/2 $500
4/3 $520
086
FLASHBOMB ZIP FREE
The SIMA award-winning FlashBomb Zip
Free has been updated this year to feature
the all-new E5 Flash lining. This update
means more stretch, less weight, and
more comfort. This is the FlashBomb you
want if you are looking for lightweight,
minimal bulk, and maximum stretch.
2/2 $360
3/2 $380
4/3 $400
2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
E-BOMB CHEST ZIP
The redesigned E-Bomb offers the
ultimate in flexibility and performance.
This wetsuit now includes Aquaban Plus
external liquid tape for increased warmth
and durability. E-Bomb -- The Ultimate
Super Stretch Wetsuit.
3/2 $320
4/3 $340
4/3 HOODED $340
5/4 HOODED $350
DAWN PATROL CHEST ZIP
The Dawn Patrol Chest Zip offers
performance and durability at a great
value. This wetsuit has many of the high-
end features you will find in our Ultimate
suits. We use a combination of E4 in the
arms and Freeflex neoprene in the body.
The entire suit is glued and blindstitched,
with taping in critical stress points to
increase durability.
3/2 $200
4/3 $220
 2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
WOMEN'S FLASHBOMB
The Women's FlashBomb Chest Zip has
been completely redesigned. This suit
features all new E5 Flash lining from the
legs to chest, which has 25 percent more
stretch and is lower profile and lighter
than its predecessor. The pattern offers
a more feminine look and feel. Features
include 3/4 Aquaban plus tape, E5 tape
in arms and stress points, and front and
back mesh panels.
3/2 $400
4/3 $420
WOMEN'S DAWN PATROL
CHEST ZIP
The Women's Dawn Patrol Chest Zip has
a new pattern inspired by the popular
appeal of the Women's Bombshell series.
This wetsuit has many of the high-end
features you will find in our Ultimate
suits. A combination of E4 in the arms
and Freeflex neoprene in the body, the
entire suit is glued and blindstitched, with
taping in critical stress points to increase
durability.
3/2 $200
4/3 $220
YOUTH FLASHBOMB
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updated this year to feature the all-new
E5 Flash lining and E5 tape. This update
means more stretch, less weight, and
more comfort. This is the ultimate wetsuit
for groms looking for warmth, flexibility,
and performance.
3/2 $230
4/3 $240
FLASHBOMB HIDDEN
SPLIT-TOE BOOT
The redesigned FlashBomb Boot features
a new Rip Curl Exclusive .8mm single
layer sole that provides the ultimate
board feel, without compromising
durability. This boot has all of the high-
end features you need.
3MM $70
5MM $75
FLASHBOMB GLOVE
The FlashBomb glove features E4 flash
lining with a new gel texturn palm grip,
an Aquaban seal on the internal wrist to
reduce water flush, plus new low profile
heat tape providing long term durability
and water seal.
3/2 $45
5/3 $50
087
 XCEL
XCELWETSUITS.COM
DRYLOCK TDC
Xcel's most advanced wetsuit series
features Dynamic Stretch Performance
and TDC Thermo Dry Celliant, our
warmest wetsuit lining ever. TDC's Smart
Fiber Technology recycles your body
heat into infrared energy for maximum
warmth and enhanced performance. A
100 percent waterproof zipper and stitch-
free FusionWeld seams are just some of
the many features that make the Drylock
our most high-performance series.
3/2 $500
4/3 $520
088
DRYLOCK TDC HOODED
Xcel's most advanced wetsuit series
features Dynamic Stretch Performance
and TDC Thermo Dry Celliant, our
warmest wetsuit lining ever. TDC's Smart
Fiber Technology recycles your body
heat into infrared energy for maximum
warmth and enhanced performance. A
100 percent waterproof zipper and stitch-
free FusionWeld seams are just some of
the many features that make the Drylock
our most high-performance series.
4/3 HOODED $545
5/4 HOODED $580
2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
REVOLT TDC
The Xcel Revolt is designed and trusted
to deliver premium stretch, performance,
and warmth featuring TDC Thermo Dry
Celliant, our warmest wetsuit lining ever.
TDC's Smart Fiber Technology recycles
your body heat into infrared energy
for maximum warmth and enhanced
performance. The series also features
advanced material and seam innovations,
including a watertight X2 front entry system
and Xcel's exclusive Drylock Wrist seals.
3/2 MEN'S & WOMEN'S $395
3/2 YOUTH $260
4/3 MEN'S & WOMEN'S $410
4/3 YOUTH $275
INFINITI COMP TDC
The Infiniti Comp TDC is Xcel's most
high-performance, maximum stretch,
ultra lightweight fullsuit series featuring
TDC Thermo Dry Celliant, our warmest
wetsuit lining ever. The Infiniti Comp TDC
is designed for maximum stretch, with
a large front and back panel with zero
seams from the upper chest to the knees
for maximum range of motion.
2MM $340
3/2 $345
4/3 $360
4.5/3.5 HOODED $375
 2016 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
AXIS COMP
The Axis Comp fullsuit series is a new
addition for Fall 2016, designed to
deliver lightweight, excellent stretch
performance at an incredible value.
The Axis Comp is an all-nylon, 100
percent UltraStretch Neoprene suit,
with a comfortable, extra soft feel.
Its contoured, minimal seam design
throughout the front and back torso
ensures maximum stretch, less weight,
and more flexibility.
2MM MEN'S $195
3/2 MEN'S $200
3/2 WOMEN'S $180
AXIS
The Axis fullsuits series has been
upgraded for Fall 2016 and features
premium materials such as UltraStretch
Neoprene and inner Quick Dry Lining.
In the Men's and Women's models, the
outer sleeves feature the S-Seal seam
construction for a durable, flexible seam
composite providing a great seal for a
wide range of climates.
3/2-4/3 MEN'S $225-$240
3/2-4/3 WOMEN'S $215-$225
3/2-4/3 YOUTH $150-$160
DRYLOCK TDC BOOT
Xcel's most advanced boot features
TDC Thermo Dry Celliant, our warmest
accessory lining ever. The Drylock boot is
loaded with exclusive features including
angled Velcro straps, seamless Drylock
ankle seals, and a thin, durable sole design.
3MM-5MM SPLIT TOE $80-$85
3MM-5MM ROUND TOE $75-$80
7MM ROUND TOE $85
DRYLOCK TDC GLOVE
Xcel's most premium glove features
TDC Thermo Dry Celliant, our warmest
accessory lining ever. The Drylock glove
is loaded with exclusive features including
seamless Drylock wrist seals, full "Gripper"
palms, wind-resistant texture skin, and
100 percent UltraStretch neoprene.
3MM 3 & 5-FINGER $60
5MM 5-FINGER $65
5MM 3-FINGER $60
7MM MITTEN $65
INFINITI BOOT
The Infiniti surf boot is designed for
fast-drying warmth and performance.
Featuring 100 percent UltraStretch
Neoprene with a glued and blindstitched
seam construction that is sealed with
inner Thermo Dry Seam tape and outer
Taitex to keep warmth in.
3MM SPLIT TOE $60
5MM SPLIT TOE $65
5MM ROUND TOE $65
3MM YOUTH/WOMEN'S SPLIT TOE $60
ANTI-GLOVE
Designed for surfers who don't like
wearing gloves. The Anti-Glove is ultra
thin, yet provides durable protection
to take the edge off on colder days.
The palms and inner fingers feature a
textured treatment for traction and grip.
0.3MM $50
089
 PHOTO: LADD
HAWAII
REGIONAL CHAMPIONS
FOUNDE D: 1971
N U M B E R O F L O CAT I O N S: 8
L O CAT I O N : WA H I AWA , H I
N U M B E R O F E M P L OY E E S: 175

TR AVIS HASHIMOTO CRAIG SUGIHARA KEKOA BACALSO

EMPLOYEE SHOP OWNER

GARETH SUGIHARA ROBERT GRILHO RYA N S U G I H A R A

EMPLOYEE TEAM RIDER TEAM RIDER

SOUTHWEST M I D - AT L A NTI C NORTHEAST SOUTHEAST NORTHWEST WEST HAWAII N AT I O N A L S

SURF RIDE SW E E T WATE R H E R ITAG E QUIET FLIGHT PACIFIC WAVE HSS T&C OCTOB E R 6 -7

Town & Country Surf Factory secured the win at the seventh and final leg of the 2016
Oakley Surf Shop Challenge at Ala Moana Bowls in Honolulu. Theyll be heading to Lower SURFSHOPCHALLENGE.COM
Trestles in San Clemente, CA on October 6-7th, where theyll be competing against six
#SHOPCHALLENGE
other regional finalists for the the coveted title of Americas Most Core Surf Shop.
Board Forum
1 VARIAL SURF TECHNOLOGY Sampler
Shaper: Channel Islands Surfboards
Dimensions: 5'10" x 19 3/4" x 2 1/2" 1 2 3
Fins: Thruster
The Skinny: The Sampler was developed with Dane Reynolds to be
that step-down board you ride a little shorter and wider in smaller
surf while not sacrificing performance. Now available in Varial Foam.
It has flat, racy entry and center rocker, with ample curve out the
tail for tight transitions and airs. A generous single concave runs
the whole length of the board, with a slight double within the single
between the fins, and just a little vee to provide kick off the tail. The
outline is full but sleek in the front half, with an exaggerated and
slightly forward of normal Merrick hip, and a wide old school squash
tail. Should be ordered 2 to 4 inches shorter, 1/4 to 3/4 inches wider,
and the same or slightly thicker than your normal shortboard.
Phone: 805.288.3577
Email: info@varialsurf.com
Web: www.varialsurf.com
2
PROCTOR SURFBOARDS Bullet
Shaper: Todd Proctor
Dimensions: 5'9" x 20 1/4" x 2 5/8" (33 L)
Construction: Poly with resin tint
The Skinny: Ever glide along at full tilt speed trim and feel like
youre weightless? The Bullet gets you there.
Phone: 805.658.7659
Email: info@proctorsurf.com
Web: proctorsurf.com
Blog: americansurfboardfactory.com

3
SHARP EYE SURFBOARDS OK Model
Shaper: Marcio Zouvi
Dimensions: 5'9" x 18.25" x 2.25"
Fins: FCSII/Thruster
The Skinny: Filipe Toledo won the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper last
year on this model. The design has a high entry rocker, forward foil,
and a massive amount of tail rocker, which allows for very tight turns
on the pocket.
Phone: 619.542.1088
Email: sharpeyesurfboards.com
Web: marciozouvi@gmail.com

IndoBoard.com
IndoBoard.com
SE PT E M B E R 3 0 - OCTOBER 2, 2016
D OH E NY S TATE B E AC H , DANA POINT, CA

PRO, OPE N, D ISTANCE RACES

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#P P G2016
Perfect Day

SOUTHEAST INDIA
Photo by Nate Zoller

We were on the mainland, just outside of the shadow of Sri Lanka, where
swell could get through, says Laguna Beach, Californias Nate Zoller.
They built this jetty 30 or so years ago to protect a temple thats just
out of view. I was on a trip with [pro skater] Jamie Thomas, and on this
day we werent even expecting to surf. We had walked around the temple
earlier, but it was a total zoo with vendors and tourists everywhere. Jamie
wanted to skate a little mini ramp on the beach that wed seen these local
kids skating. When we pulled up, I started freaking out: the wind had
switched offshore, the tide had dropped, and it was going off. I picked up
my camera, snapped this shot, and ran back to grab my board.

94
95
Extra

SURF SPOT OR AUSSIE SLANG?

Some of the words on this list are authentic surf spots from all
over the world. The rest are inventive bits of Australian slang.
Reckon you can tell which is which? Give it a burl.
(Answer key below.)

1. Mooloolaba
2. Cow Bombie
3. Dead Horse
4. Malaka
5. Whales Tail
6. Chockers
7. Gnaraloo
8. Skirza
9. Steel Vagina
10. Yallingup
11. Neck Oils
12. Honkys
13. Fairy Floss
14. Chuck a Sickie
15. Goochs
16. Drongos
17. The Back Porch
18. Bogans
19. Supersuck
20. Woop Woop
Answers
Slang key: 3) ketchup 4) masturbate 6) full 11) beers 13) cotton candy 14) call in sick 16) idiots 18) hillbillies 20) the middle of nowhere
Surf spots: 1) Australia 2) Australia 5) USA 7) Australia 8) Scotland 9) Indo 10) Australia 12) Maldives 15) USA 17) USA 19) Indo

Surfer (ISSN # 0039-6036), November 2016, Vol. 57 No. 10. Published ten times a year (Jan/Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug/Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec) by TEN: The Enthusiast Network, LLC, 261 Madison Ave. 6th Floor,
New York, NY 10016. Copyright 2016 by TEN: The Enthusiast Network Magazines, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the USA. Periodicals Postage Paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices.
Subscription rates for 1 year (10 issues): U.S., APO, FPO and U.S. Possessions $20.00, Canadian orders add $10.00. Foreign orders add $20.00 (for surface mail postage). Payment in advance, U.S. funds only.
For a change of address, six weeks notice is required. Send old as well as new address to Surfer, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5);
NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to Surfer, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235.

96
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Team Designed, Custom Built.
Jack Freestone & The Comp
The Comp streamlines surf-inspired timing features and turns them into the
ideal companion. The team designed simple functionality and custom built
ultra thin 8mm impact resistant case means The Comp is ready for anything
and never in your way.
nixon.com