Michel Bourez deep inside a closeout at Teahupoo, the photographer, Leroy Bellet, even deeper…

Watch: How an Australian teen snatched the biggest bone at Teahupoo!

Derek Rielly

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Leroy Bellet and the story behind his Michel Bourez-at-Teahupoo treasure…

For the past four years, a teenager from country Australia, Leroy Bellet, has been shooting some of the best POV shots in the world.

(Anthony Walsh ain’t bad, either.)

Bellet, who was eighteen when this shot was taken in 2017 (yeah, the wheels move slow), has been chasing the monkey-on-the-back angle ever since he saw the French ex-pro Laurent Pujol doin’ it back in 2013.

Pujol’s idea was this: Imagine a GoPro photo but captured with a high-end Nikon D3 riveted to the fine glass of a 16mm prime lens. But mounting big cameras on helmets and boards, while theoretically possible, is expensive and clunky.

So Laurent figured he’d try a more direct and primitive route. He’d step off into tubes behind the surfer and while they rode the tube, he’d do the same, only deeper, and holding a camera.

“I saw this photo Mark Healey took at Pipe with his GoPro in his mouth and he came in and showed me the picture,” Pujol told me back in 2013. ” And even though it was soft (out of focus) and it wasn’t, like, the perfect shot, you could see the colours, the surfer from behind and I just went, wow, that’s fucking crazy. That’s what I want to do. But I want to figure out how to catch a wave with a (Nikon) D3 in my hand not a GoPro.”

The results were pretty wild.

Pujol’s dream was to get a couple of frames of Bruce Irons or Nathan Florence at Teahupoo but, as he said at the time, “I’m not going to kill myself for nothing. I’m not going to do it for a double-page spread.”

Bellet, on the other hand…

Watch.

Watch: Albee Layer in “Oh my God, don’t go! Oh my God, is he going to die?”

Chas Smith

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Watch the "hard" get put into "hard kombucha!"

How do you feel about kombucha, honestly? The first time I ever tried, I thought. “Whoa, this is some powerful alcohol!” before being informed that it’s not the sort of alcohol that a man gets drunk upon. Apparently kombucha is a good, healthy, probiotic drink and it turned my stomach severely.

Until now.

The powers that be figured out that if something tastes super boozy it should actually be super boozy and would you allow me to introduce “hard kombucha?”

Hard kombucha, meaning properly alcoholic kombucha, is presenting Albee Layer’s newest film featuring the singular vocal stylings of Matt Meola and, while they already had me at “hard,” I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Rough Mauian kegs.

Or is it Mautian?

Mauite?

Maui-anna?

Mauiopolus?

I’ve already had too many hard kombucha’s today, hold the kombucha, add vodka and then Red Bull.

Sorry.

I ran out of soda.

Mauiastranga?

Seriously, what is it?

Watch now!

"Jeff seemed a little too focused on Skyler and didn't realize how close he was to the the guy right in front of him. That's when Jeff made a great split decision to push his board the opposite direction and hurl himself to avoid disaster thus landing on the guy and his board."

Watch: Full video (with zoom) of surfing dog vs VAL vs SUP-foil/Mavs legend Jeff Clark!

Derek Rielly

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Surprising, upsetting, offensive and fun. It's everything surfing, or good sex for that matter, should be!

Four days ago, or thereabouts, we were gifted the rare pleasure of watching a three-way between a surfing dog, a SUP foiler and a VAL.

Guerin Myall aka @myallsnaps, a noted filmer of surf, skate and punk rock around Santa Cruz, shot the event at a beginner’s wave called Cowells and posted it on Instagram.

Cue outrage etc.

When I called, he said, “A lot of people were commenting that the dog dropped in. Bullshit, I got the video footage,” says Myall, who also praised Clarke for his skill in collision avoidance.

(Revisit here.)

Today, Myall has released the full clip of the three-way, which you can see below, and which gets good at the three-minute mark when the moment is examined in slow-motion and zoomed in.

“My observation was watching Jeff speeding through the section coming up quickly on HomerHomer was already driving down the line from where he caught the wave at the breaking point of the peak,” writes Mylall. “When the video focuses in on Skyler Homer and Jeff it looks as if Jeff catches up to say “What’s up Skyler” and everything’s all good but Jeff seemed a little too focused on Skyler and didn’t realize how close he was to the the guy right in front of him.

“That’s when Jeff made a great split-decision to push his board the opposite direction and hurl himself to avoid disaster thus landing on the guy and his board. Afterwards, it seemed like Jeff and Homer agreed that that was a close one and parted ways…

“Me, being the Filmer, think Foils have a place in the surf but not at a crowed weekend beginner spot where everyone drops in on each other. This video is not meant to hate foilers or the people that foil but to educate the people that are wanting to start foil boarding and teach them to go where no one is, where its safe from a crowed lineup to avoid potential accidents.”

It ain't easy being a daddy, and it sure as hell ain't easy being a daddy with a child prodigy whom you must guide through a sporting career etc.

Dino Andino on world #2 Kolohe: “I taught him to worry!”

Derek Rielly

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And a tear-jerker back-story for Jadson Andre in this 30-minute behind-the-scenes documentary, which includes the Quiksilver Pro… 

Let me admit this, and without rancour from the parties involved.

I opened this video a couple of days ago, inhaled (a thirty-minute long documentary of Jadson Andre and Kolohe Andino…oowee) and buried it like a treasure map.

It was only this afternoon, sugary chocolate on my breath, that I sat through the documentary in its entirety.

It ain’t bad.

Jadson’s back-story of poverty and responsibility jerks tears and Kolohe and Daddy Dino’s relationship, discussed here there and everywhere, still manages to reveal and to surprise.

“I taught him to worry,” says Dino, whose own daddy was absent in his life. The various uncles who were around chased the dragon and so on. Dino made a promise to himself to helicopter his own kid.

The goo is still oozing out of my eyes.

The scurry of critter feet on the surfboard. @baronisfilms

Watch Filipe Toledo in “Like Joan of Arc I will go up in a blaze of flames!”

Derek Rielly

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Let fingers graze little circles around your nipples… 

Any sort of clip dump by Filipe Toledo is going to have you hanging your head in impressed jealousy. I inhale his intoxicants and drink his moonshine with the tenacity of a cornered rat.

I am a fan, yes.

This sub-three minute short from Toledo’s live-in filmer Bruno Baroni, clips gathered from their recent three week stay on Australia’s Gold Coast, shows Toledo’s switchblade raining down in fast vicious swoops.

Like a bird piercing a water’s surface to snatch up its prey, Toledo’s blade cuts loose and, just as bird-like, his fluid motions are effortless.

Essential.