What do the waves of Russia, the Galapagos, Panama and even North Korea (almost!) have in common? Travis Rice!
The snowboard legend and all-around good guy also happens to be a hungry surf fiend who just can’t get enough.
Travis sits, sipping coffee pressed from a new-fangled gizmo, looks wistful.
“My greatest regret? That I didn’t have two bottles of vodka to trade for the bear pelt. Only two bottles! But I had none….”
He was in Kamchatka, a phallus that protrudes from far western Russia into the sea of Okhotsk, and he was surfing. Not just surfing either. Surfing a never before tested pointbreak that barrelled and spat. A never-before tried wave so far off the beaten path that only the most intrepid could taste her glory. He should have been snowboarding, probably. It is his job and he is one of the best in the world. But he was not. He was surfing.
A Russian trader on a beach closer to North Korea than to Moscow was the only witness. He and his bear pelt. And he was so thrilled by what he saw that he offered to trade it, his only friend, for two bottles of vodka, which Travis Rice did not have. The horror, the horror!
And it would have been wonderful to have that bear pelt but at least he had the wave. He has had many waves. Waves in the Galapogos, secret waves in Panama and around the San Blas islands. All over the Caribbean but mostly the Bahamas. The Tuomotus. And Tahiti. He even sailed his catamaran, the Falcor, from North Carolina to the land of iron warriors this summer. Surfing the entire way.
Yes, he should have been snowboarding, maybe.
But he was sailing. And surfing. And drinking rum from an old coconut husk. Travis Rice is this year’s greatest surf explorer and, now, he can always be found with two bottles of vodka.