The family of pro surfer Sunny Garcia has updated the surfer’s gofundme page after nearly four months of silence. Garcia has been in the hospital since April after what many believe was a suicide attempt. Thankfully, the news is good.
A long over due update on Sunny. We are taking one day at a time and celebrating each little triumph. Sunny is a warrior and fighting everyday to get better and stronger. He has said a few words and is now in therapy daily- physical, speech and occupational. The family thanks you for your continued support for Sunny as he continues to heal. It’s going to be a marathon not a sprint but we work every day to make sure he is surrounded with love, laughter and ohana.
If you would like to help the family in this hard time, please click the link and donate to Sunny’s gofundme.
With a result that will likely be repeated in Japan for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games Brazil has won the team title in the 2019 ISA World Surfing Games presented by Vans in Miyazaki, Japan. They did it by landing three medals in the Men’s and Women’s Division.
Brazil’s Italo Ferreira saved his best for last and earned the highest heat total of the event thus far (17.77) with a perfect 10-point ride in the Final.. . . Ferreira’s inspirational finish was a fairy tale ending to a week of adversity. Ferreira nearly missed his first heat of the event after getting his passport stolen only days before leaving for Japan. Ferreira was able to get a passport, fly to Miyazaki, and make it to his first heat of the event with only 8-minutes remaining, where he was still able to take first place.
For the official word from the ISA including the rest of the results, please follow the jump.
Please excuse us while we clear out a bit of news that’s been piling up around the place. Some is new, some is old, and a bit is so old it’s beginning to stink. But we’re not going to let that stop us from posting it as a reminder of some of the news that went down while we were gone for the summer.
The surf industry, through the SIMA Humanitarian Fund is raising money to help the victims of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas through Waves For Water.
“The Bahamas represents an important region to the surf industry, and the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Dorian is unprecedented,” said Dylan Slater, President of the SIMA Humanitarian Fund. “I believe it’s our duty to come together as an industry and human beings to support the critical work being done by Waves For Water in supporting all those in dire need of clean drinking water.” . . . SIMA members, industry brands, surf industry employees and vendors are encouraged to join together to donate under this appeal via a donation page set up by the SIMA Humanitarian Fund here. In order to expedite funds to Waves For Water, the deadline to donate is 5 pm PDT, Friday, September 13, 2019.
Thanks to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association it has been shown that drinking sodas (like the brands that sponsor skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing events) is bad for your health and increases your changes of dying sooner rather than later, or as they put it there is an “association between soft drink consumption and mortality.”
In this population-based cohort study of 451, 743 individuals from 10 countries in Europe, greater consumption of total, sugar-sweetened, and artificially sweetened soft drinks was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality. Consumption of artificially sweetened soft drinks was positively associated with deaths from circulatory diseases, and sugar-sweetened soft drinks were associated with deaths from digestive diseases.
In other words, rather than trying to encourage people to drink more, we should encourage them to drink less. That’s the main reason why we’re not into seeing action sports brands partnering with caffeinated, carbonated, high fructose corn syrup poison peddlers. Drink water. Duh.
Tradeshows have been closing their doors for all kinds of reasons lately (consolidation, no exhibitors, etc. . . ), but Surf Expo has the best one yet: a massive hurricane named Dorian. Anyone who has weathered a hurricane party at Surf Expo in the past will wonder, “Hey, we’ve survived them before, why not this year?” And really, what’s more fun that getting drunk with all your East Coast industry friends while some poorly named storm blows your trunks off with hot rain blasting in from the Atlantic at 112 MPH? Well, sadly the State Florida no longer has a sense of humor when it comes to storms. What with the whole place predicted to be four feet underwater in 20 years, they’re just not fooling around anymore.
“We understand that Surf Expo plays an important part in connecting buyers and sellers in the Boardsports Beach & Resort industries and that many rely on our marketplace for filling their commerce needs, but travel and logistical difficulties and, more importantly, our customers’ safety is at the forefront of our minds. Given the state of affairs regarding Hurricane Dorian today, we had no choice but to cancel Surf Expo. We recognize that many of our customers will be directly impacted by Hurricane Dorian and feel their focus should be on their families, businesses and community at this time”, said Roy Turner, SVP, Surf Expo Show Director, Emerald Expositions.
So sip your Margaritas somewhere else this September and pray this wasn’t the final nail in the Surf Expo coffin. For more info click the link.
Encinitas, California based Sea of Seven has collaborated with Xanadu Surf Design to create their new Black & White Collection.
“I was very pleased with the work we created during our launch of the Black & White Collection. This time around, I wanted to do something very different. I chose this image as it’s one of the most powerful I’ve ever taken of Xanadu. I am very proud of it. It was my idea to split the image in half, one side showing the positive, the other showing negative and in doing so titling it Think Positive, explained Sea Of Seven founder Jack English.
The shirts are available now on the Sea of Seven website. Click here for more, or for the official word from Sea of Seven, please follow the jump.
Everyone’s favorite surf writer Jamie Brisick is back in the pages of The New Yorker with a story titled Surfing In The Age of the Omnipresent Camera. It’s about Surfline’s new Sessions app that allows anyone with an Apple Watch to capture a video record of all the waves they surf in front of a Surfline camera. Of course, Brisick uses this piece as an opportunity to give newbs an overview of the last 50 years of professional surfing, his career as a pro surfer, and the history of Surfline itself.
For so many of us surfers, the ocean is where we go to work things out, to heal, to escape. And for it to become all about the photo op cheapens the experience. And, even if the documenting or the posting is not your thing, you’ll inevitably be surrounded by surfers for whom it is. Emerging from the water with these thoughts, I did not have to wait long before the contradictions of modern surfing returned. Up on the roof deck, we went straight for our phones. Gilovich smiled broadly. “Soon we’ll be able to alert you when the conditions are to your exact liking, based on what you’ve rated with five stars,” he said. He went on about algorithms, and a bunch of other tech stuff, but none of us were listening. We were checking out our waves.
It reminded us of that scene in Dave Egger’s book The Circle when the founder of the company rolls out the ubiquitous “seaChange” mini cameras that will allow crowd sourced surveillance on a global level. Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Surfing the apocalypse, indeed.
Developers in San Diego, California (home to some of the best surf in the world) have announced plans to turn an old drive-in movie theatre turned swap-meet into a Wave Garden surfing pool. Yes, it’s a 15 minute bike ride to the Oceanside Pier, yes, it’s a 35 minute drive to Trestles, but developers are chasing the same dream that has sidetracked many developers in the past — perfect waves all the time, according to a story in the San Diego Reader.
The Oceanside Swap Meet, launched in 1971, held its last weekend event April 28 Its 90 acres on Mission Avenue in the San Luis Rey Valley, was originally built as a four-screen drive-in movie attraction. It was purchased by Zephyr Partners for an undisclosed sum. . . Weiss says the early plans offered by Zephyr call for 35 acres to be devoted to the wave park and accompanying restaurants, businesses and hotel rooms that would all be aimed at the surf culture. Another 20 acres would be set aside for open space, while the remainder 35 acres would be devoted to residential homes, public roads, and other public needs.
Let’s just say we’re looking forward to seeing it completed, but we’re not expecting much.
The surf industry, through the 
Thanks to a new study published in the 
