The Eddie Aikau set to run mid-week (fingers
crossed)!
The Quiksilver in Honor of Eddie Aikau is,
without doubt, the most gorgeous of all surf events. It runs,
famously, infrequently having last been held in 2009/10. I was
there, on the bluff, watching all thanks to Stab‘s Sam
McIntosh. I had picked him up from the airport that morning in
Honolulu and told him “The North Shore is crowded and lame right
now because the surf’s all big. Pssssshhhhht. Laaaaaaaaame. So
let’s stay in town or whatever.” He agreed but looked sort of hurt
so I said, “Laaaaaaaaaaaaame. Fine. Whatever, big baby. Let’s go
back to the North Shore and get all stuck in traffic and lame.” I
will thank him for the rest of my life.
I stood there and felt the thunder and it was, quite honestly,
the second greatest live event I have ever witnessed including a
Seattle Seahawks game the year they won the Super Bowl, a Nirvana
concert, the Olympics, the Republican National Convention of 2012,
my first wedding.
And guess what? You can feel the thunder too! The ocean is
looking ripe for it to run mid week. Even famed Da Hui is writing
“BIGGEST SWELL OF DA YEAR COULD HIT WEDNESDAY. ONE ARRIVES THIS
WEEKEND & OTHER ARRIVES WEDNESDAY. EDDIE MAY GO. STAY TUNED”
So get thee to Oahu! I’m telling you, it will be worth any price
and will definitely be better than your first wedding, though not
your second. And if it don’t run just stay in town or whatever!
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Culture: Surfing in the Moscow Times
By Derek Rielly
Come read about wave jams in Kamchatka, from a
Russian perspective…
It’s minus twelve degrees celsius in the Russian capital
right now. On the Kamchatka peninsula, the Bear’s most
eastern point, it’s minus twenty one.
Don’t it make you want to surf?
Come with me to a map.
See that peninsula, way on the right, flanked by the Okhotsk and
Bering Seas and way closer to Japan and the US than Moscow? That’s
the hot new surf destination in Russia.
Let’s read the story Russian Surfers Turn Remote Region into
Year-Round Surfing Mecca from the Moscow Times.
The hill overlooking Khalaktyrsky beach in the
Far East Kamchatka region — 6,800 kilometers journey
from Moscow — offers a stunning view
in winter: snowy volcano peaks loom over an ocean with
crystal-clear waves crashing upon pitch-black —
volcanic — sand, the sky bright and colorful.
Local residents claim that during Soviet times, old U.S.-made
sneakers could be found on this beach — washed ashore
by strong oceanic streams. For struggling locals these
shabby shoes were a valuable find.
Decades on from the days of men wearing these
ragged — but American and therefore considered
cool — running shoes on the streets of gloomy
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the region’s capital, Khalaktyrsky
beach is experiencing a reincarnation. It is now home
to local surfers who ride the waves not only in the
warmth of summer, but in winter’s freezing cold.
“Some years ago people here didn’t care about the ocean —
the beach was completely empty. You could meet young guys here
who had lived their whole lives in Petropavlovsk, but had
never even seen the ocean,” says Anton Morozov, firebrand
of the Kamchatka surfers and owner of the local
Snowave snowboarding and surfing school.
Morozov, 33, admits that life in Kamchatka is expensive
and there are multiple infrastructure problems, but surfing is
his life and he will not be discouraged. Especially now that
surfing in Kamchatka has grown increasingly popular
and begun attracting tourists.
15 Minutes of Fame
Russians were surprised two years ago to discover that surfing
was possible in one of the coldest parts of the
country. The Surf in Siberia team —
a collection of surfing enthusiasts from around
Russia who make colorful films about their world travels —
snagged the spotlight with its first film, which was devoted
to Kamchatka and surfing during winter.
“Kamchatka is an incredible place,” Konstantin Kokorev, Surf
in Siberia’s founder and director of the film, says
in the video. “I’ve been here before several times — saw
the ocean, the gulf, I saw ships sailing, but I had no
idea you could surf here. People who live here have no clue they
have world-class surfing opportunities!”
In addition to stunning landscapes, the 15-minute
film depicts two surfers — Morozov and Kokorev,
34, — as they rush into the ocean right off
the snow-covered shore.
“For me personally [winter surfing] is much brighter, if we talk
about emotions. It’s much more difficult and dangerous —
and it’s attractive because of that,” Kokorev,
a Muscovite with eight years of surfing experience, told
The Moscow Times.
“After we released the film some two years ago [on
the project website], we got lots of feedback
and questions about it,” Kokorev said. Both local
and national media reported about the exotic sport back
then, raising interest in it.
Since then, the overall number of tourists
to Kamchatka had significantly increased, agreed Morozov.
“People have been coming to see volcanoes, and the ocean,
and I think we contributed to that a little,” he
said.
Riding Waves
Morozov started surfing more than 10 years ago. “I’d always wanted
to try, but back then there was nothing that would help me …
All we could do was watch movies and documentaries
and try to figure out how to surf,” he recalled.
When he tried for the first time — in the
summer — he used a borrowed wetsuit and an old
surfboard his Moscow friend had left him.
“The suit was no good for surfing,” Morozov says with
a smile. “And we had no idea whatsoever how to do
it — when to go to get nice waves, how far
to swim. It took me months to learn all these things,” he
said.
Morozov and other enthusiasts gradually accumulated enough
information and experience to enjoy their new hobby.
Eventually, they thought to try surfing in the
winter.
“I’d heard there were people surfing during the winter
in Canada, Norway and Iceland, for example. I saw
a video with a guy surfing in the winter
in Canada, and the beauty of him riding
the waves against the snowy background just stunned me,”
Morozov said.
His first winter experience was excruciating without a surfing
wetsuit, gloves and boots, suitable for the winter.
“Although I was wearing two pairs of [surfing] gloves, my
hands quickly went numb in the water. I ran out of the
ocean screaming in pain and was afraid I wouldn’t be able
to ever warm them again,” Morozov said.
Despite the bone-chilling cold, he managed to appreciate
the beautiful scenery and fell in love with winter
surfing. “We went to the ocean in the morning, right
before the sunrise. It was unbelievable — because
of the low temperature the air was crystal clear,
the sun was rising from the water, our black diving suits
contrasting with the white snow,” Morozov said.
This is his fifth surfing winter. Morozov and his fellow
surfers now have the necessary gear and surf 3-4 times
a week. “That feeling — when you struggle with yourself
in cold water, and at some point the struggle ceases
and leaves pure joy in its place — is special
for me,” he added.
Surfer Girls Don’t Cry
His friend Lyudmila Tanachyova, 28, loves to surf, but finds
the cold a particular challenge — she surfs
in the winter out of necessity. “Here in Kamchatka
we have only three months of summer, and if you take
a break for the other nine months, the next summer
you will have to learn things from the start all over
again,” she said.
Tanachyova, a rock-climbing instructor, has been surfing
for just two years and first tried riding the waves
in the snow last winter. “I caught the wave
and started falling, imagining the moment I would go
underwater and thinking ‘Oh my God, here comes hell,'” she
recalls of her first experience.
Initially Tanachyova had to prepare herself psychologically
two days in advance of entering the water, but
within months she acclimated. “If you have the right
equipment — a warm wetsuit is paramount — there will
be no problems at all,” she said.
The most important thing, she says, is to notice when you
begin to freeze in the water and get out. During
winter, the water measures 2 degrees Celsius on average,
with an average air temperature of minus 15 degrees
Celsius.
Both she and Morozov agree that their greatest obstacle
in winter is not the cold but the lack
of infrastructure. When snow buries the road to the
beach, one can only reach it with a snowmobile, and a
small beach-hut provides insufficient protection from the
elements. “It’s pure torture to put on a diving suit
in the cold,” Tanachyova said.
Yet, this surfer girl perseveres no matter the season.
“[Surfing] is a constant struggle with yourself. But
the feeling you get when you slide down the wave is worth
it,” she said.
Year-Round Mecca
In his Snowave school Morozov teaches people of all ages
to snowboard in the winter and to surf in the
summer, when the Khalaktyrsky beach transforms into a
camp with tents and food cooking over open fires.
His students have expressed an interest in winter
surfing, and he hopes to establish a year-round camp
of surfing enthusiasts.
The summer camp, according to Morozov, attract tourists
from all over the world. A lesson, lasting 2-3
hours, costs 2,500 rubles ($32) in the summer and 3,000
rubles ($38) in the winter. The price includes surfboard
and wetsuit rental.
Morozov claims that you can easily learn to stand on the
board in the water during the first lesson. “It’s not
that hard, … The most interesting stuff starts on the
next level — when you’re eager to improve your skills,”
he said.
The first summer he launched Snowave he had 20 students, but
that number has multiplied. “Some of them are five or seven
years old,” Morozov says proudly. “When parents see their children
in the ocean, surfing, it impresses them deeply,” he adds.
Despite his love of winter surfing, Morozov recommends that
beginners steer clear during cold months. “Surfing in general
is a difficult sport, and in winter it’s twice [as
hard],” he said.
A request for comment on whether surfers contribute
to boosting tourism in the region, sent by The
Moscow Times to the Kamchatka government, went unanswered
by the time this article went to press.
According to Morozov, the regional government supports
the Snowave school through grants. “We bought our first diving
suits for kids with government money and are waiting
for a piece of land to be allocated to us
on the beach,” he said.
As for the difficulty of access to wetsuits, boards
and other equipment — the problem was solved
in 2014 when Quiksilver, the famous surfing
and snowboarding brand, opened a franchise store
in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
Kamchatka Has Potential
Sergei Rasshivayev, a professional surfer and head
of the Russian Surfing Federation also believes that winter
surfing is the most attractive and interesting direction
the sport has taken.
“It’s a great way of challenging yourself,
of experiencing completely different emotions. Surfing among
palm trees is not intriguing anyone these days — surfing
against a background of volcanoes and glaciers is,”
he told The Moscow Times.
He has been to Kamchatka several times to surf,
and says he would love to return and relive
the experience. “When I first came there, the beauty
of this place literally took my breath away,” Rasshivayev
said.
Rasshivayev — who founded Surfholidays, a worldwide
network of surf schools — believes Kamchatka shows
promise despite its need for infrastructure modernization
and its remote location that results in pricy plane
tickets. “I think there is potential, and it’s quite
significant. Kamchatka needs modernization, that’s true, but it’s
not completely shabby either,” he said.
Morozov says “potential” does not even begin to cover it. “I
study many things about surfing — climate, landscapes, weather
conditions, winds, streams, and I’m positive there are many
amazing places for surfing in Kamchatka that simply have
not yet been discovered. But at some point we will,” he
said.
(Of course, the capitalist west, poisoned by the vice of greed,
has long exploited surfing in the Kamchatka. See below!)
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Watch: Dark Neon!
By Chas Smith
Have you been getting your El Nino? Have you been
proud of the way you've surfed it?
El Nino has been such a wonderful gift for California. I surf
everyday now and it is fun fun fun but my legs are wobbly from
years of mush. When the wave goes square, for example, I drop out
of the sky and think, “Oh bummer.”
And it makes me glad that the talented Erik Derman shot this
little gem in very slow motion. I watch the professional legs of
Jojo Roper, Dam Hobgood, Rob Machodo etc. and think, “That’s how!”
and also “Oh.”
I want to be able to surf suckling monsters better than I have
been and so I will paddle out today with these images in my mind
and try to stick more landings. It seems to be all in the hips.
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Ozzie Wright Sings “King of the Jews”!
By Derek Rielly
A song about Jesus by Ozzie Wright!
As you learned earlier in the week,
BeachGrit is with the surfers Ozzie Wright and Otis Carey
in Israel, that brave, lovely democracy, smartest people in the
world, miracle of the Middle East etc.
(Commenters, I can hear your engines firing into life! But no
need to be sad or to start unfurling your Hamas flags. Keep
reading!)
Two nights ago, while returning home from what we all agreed was
the equal finest bar we’d ever been to (Salon Romano, Tel Aviv, ties with
Dalida, also in Tel Aviv), Ozzie hit on a ukulele chord
progression and first verse that just… grew.
Earlier, we’d agreed that if we could gather enough clips, we’d
make a short. But that short would need an original song specific
to the region.
Wasn’t Jesus born in these parts? The Nazarene? Wasn’t Jesus the
self-appointed King of the Jews, a claim that would later see him
on the spike?
Ozzie dropped the first verse about Jesus’ birth and his
(disputed) parentage. BeachGrit threw in a King of the
Jews hook (of course!), Otis Carey choruses with gusto (and a
Shalom at the end) and it just kinda works. Or doesn’t.
The quality of the sound suggests King of the Jews was recorded
in a studio, a Rick Ross production maybe, but, no, backseat of a
car at three thirty am, on an iPhone.
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Mark Healey: “I can’t save you!”
By Rory Parker
An excerpt from a Surfer's Journal masterpiece!
Any of y’all familiar with
post-accomplishment depression? Like, you achieve a goal and just
fucking hate yourself afterwards? Because now you’ve gotta figure
out what to do next, and it’s gotta be better, and you don’t really
know how to go about it.
So this month’s Surfer’s Journal, issue 25.1, has a piece in it by yours
truly, about Dave Wassel, and you really need to rush out and drop
$16 on a copy. Right now! Go do it!
Writing about Wassel is pretty much a gift. The guy is
intelligent, eloquent, interesting, funny. And a total man’s man.
If I didn’t prefer women our interactions would have gotten pretty
uncomfortable. For him. Dude’s just amazing, total personal hero,
loved by everyone. I mean, how the hell do you make it to adulthood
without making any enemies?
Writing for Surfer’s Journal is a dream come true for a wanna-be
surf writer like me. I know I should play it cool, no big deal, but
it’s been a long time since I’ve seen my words actual print, and
for it to be a beautiful glossy work of art like this… my goodness.
Pretty sweet.
They asked for three thousand words, I delivered seven thousand,
which was then cut down to five by Alex Wilson. Kind of a kick in
the nuts, but only because his edit was way better than my final
draft. It’s both a blessing and a curse, getting edited hard and
seeing a better result.
Here’s an excerpt from what I sent in, Mark Healey talking about
a day with Wassel at an Oahu outer reef.
It was probably the craziest day I’ve ever surfed, and it
was just me and him at the outer reefs. No inflation vests, no jet
skis, just board shorts and surfboards. He showed up with this,
like, huge 10’8 board that looked like a total piece of shit to me.
But we’re out there and the waves are getting really, really big.
It was crazy. I’d imagine, there’s no photos of the day, but just
comparing to days I’ve been out and it’s been huge, it was all of
sixty feet, and like, top to bottom freakin’ triple spit barreling,
with just us out in the evening. And it was doing this underground,
almost Teahupoo-esque, how it kind of drops and you can actually
see the reef contour. This is way outside, like the actual reef
ledge it’s breaking on is maybe forty feet deep, dropping off to
about seventy. So for that amount of water to be moving and to be
able to see the contour on a forty foot shelf is pretty
incredible.
Dave, he turned on this wave that was like twenty five feet
and absolutely scooping up and I’m losing my mind because it looked
like the wave was gonna barrel over his head on the
takeoff.
I remember it being a similar view to the one Andy got at
Teahupoo, that amazing huge wave, where I was like, ‘Oh my god, it
just broke right over him.’
The last thing I told him, I was yelling at him and the
first thing that came to my mind was ‘I can’t save you!’ I had to
get that off my chest, that, like, I couldn’t do anything at all. I
hope he’s not doing this thinking I can help him. Because we could
both die out here.
I watched this wave just unload, spit sooooo hard, go into
another section, spit soooo hard, and then he pops out the back
just screaming. And then gets sucked over the falls. I still can’t
believe he made it that far. Clearly, the only way that he made it,
he must have packed the barrel, like grabbed rail and got the
fucking craziest 25 foot double spit underground barrel. And he got
sucked back over, just screaming, ‘YEAH!’
Back then we chewed tobacco a lot, and that was our
competition. We’d go out on those big outer reef days and see how
long you could keep your dip in. And so, he got that wave and when
he was punching though I could see, from like a hundred yards away,
he’s all, ‘YEAH!’ and as he’s getting sucked back over the falls he
pulls the dip out of his lip and holds it in the air claiming it,
then puts it back in his lipand just disappears.
It was quite possibly one of the most heroic things I’ve
ever seen.
Then his leash breaks, and we’re almost mile out at sea, and
he’s still just screaming, ‘YEAH!YEAH!YEAH!’ and then starts
swimming in. And it’s a sketchy swim.
So he just swam in and I was thinking, ‘I hope he made it to
shore.’ We were so far away, it’s not like I was going inside
there. I saw him later, on the beach at dark. I stayed out by
myself until then, I didn’t have much of a choice.