NBC8 filmed crazy footage from the North Shore of Oahu of just how fast a shark gets going when it’s after something. The Blacktip ignored to surfers in the water to go after the fish, which is something shark expert Randy Honebrink says they usually do, according to a story on KHNL.com.
Analyzing the video, Honebrink says the shark is probably a Blacktip. . . “It’s definitely not a tiger shark,” he said. . . Tiger sharks are larger and more dangerous than a Blacktip. . . “I can’t think of a single case where there’s been a confirmed Blacktip bite on a person in Hawaii,” said Honebrink.
Check out the video and you’ll see what raw acceleration looks like. We’re just sitting ducks. . .
Hell, why not. Check it out tonight (August 6, 2009) at The Lido in Newport Beach. We’re guessing Danny Qwock, Preston Murray, et al. will be there, too.
On his blog The Adventure Life Steve Casimiro, the former editor of Powder magazine and now West Coast Editor of National Geographic Adventure, has written an essay on how wonderful it is that so many people are out in the line up on $100 Costco surfboards.
Now, for a fraction of what you’d spend sending your kid to a surfing camp, you can have a board on call. Because they’re cheap and ultra-durable, you don’t have to worry about them getting lost, stolen, or damaged (my sister in law lost hers off the roof of her car on the freeway—it didn’t get a scratch). Even for adults, too, the Costco board is a great option for learning–though not a true longboard, it’s plenty long enough to get you in and on a wave. And if you discover surfing isn’t your thing, so what–it’s only a hundred bucks.
Can’t say we disagree, actually. Follow the link for the rest of Steve’s logic.
This morning (August 5, 2009) a shark was sighted at Australia’s Bells Beach “chasing another surfer in waters close to shore,” according to a story in the Geelong Advertiser.
Pete, who was surfing at the famous break . . .said many surfers started yelling to clear the water after the shark was sighted. No-one was injured. . . .About 20 minutes after the sighting Pete said some surfers were returning to the water.
Chris Cutri is an assistant professor in the communications department of Brigham Young University. That may seem like a strange place to make surf films, but being a little land-locked hasn’t stopped Cutri from turning out two solid surf films. His latest, Hanging Five, is showing Wednesday August 5, 2009 at the La Paloma Theater in Encinitas, California. Chris says:
I find that I’m interested in the peripheral elements of the surf culture. My second surf doc, Hanging Five follows five extremely talented artists and examines their work. It also tries to discover why the surf culture produces and supports the arts. The artists: Andy Davis, Tyler Warren, Julie Goldstein, Wolfgang Bloch, and Alex Knost.
Thomas Pynchon, the writer many consider to be the best still alive, has dropped in on Kem Nunn territory with his lastest work, Inherent Vice.
The story, set in LA, follows a stoned private investigator Larry “Doc” Sportello along the streets and beaches of Southern California during the dying days of the psychadelic 60s. Featuring the alleged kidnapping of a wealthy real estate developer, Inherent Vice, like Southern California itself often slides off into the surf:
For the last few weeks now, St. Flip of Lawndale, for whom Jesus Christ was not only personal savior but surfing consultant as well, who rode an old-school redwood plank running just under ten feet with an inlaid mother-of-pearl cross on top and two plastic skegs of a violent pink color on the bottom, had been hitching rides from a friend with a little fiberglass runabout far out into the Outside, to surf what he swore was the gnarliest break in the world, with waves bigger than Waimea, bigger than Maverick’s up the coast at Half Moon Bay or Todos Santos in Baja. Stewardii on transpacific flights making their final approaches to LAX reported seeing him below, surfing where no surf should’ve been, a figure in white baggy trunks, whiter than the prevailing light could really account for. . .
We’re only on page 99, but already know that Inherent Vice deserves space on the bookshelf of any surfer who reads, and vise versa.
Former Australian Junior Surfing Champion Peter Drouyn (who we mentioned in September 2008) never felt like a “real boy or man” according to a Samantha Turnbull story on Goldcoast.com.au. Now, as Westerly Windina, the creator of the Stubbies Classic at Burleigh Head and the inventor of the “man-on-man” surf contest format talks about how becoming a woman has finally put her at peace.
Mr Drouyn no longer exists. In his place is Tweed Heads transsexual lawyer Westerly Windina who says Mr Drouyn was never a real boy or man. . . “I’d always had a deep suspicion something wasn’t right,” said Ms Windina. . . “I was always an emotional butterfly, very sensitive. My mum put high heels on me and painted my nails as a child and I was in awe of her beauty and glamour, I wanted to be like her.
If you see one documentary film this year, maybe it should be The Cove.
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, The Cove follows a high-tech dive team on a mission to discover the truth about the international dolphin capture trade as practiced in Taiji, Japan. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide.
The Australian press is really biting into the Kelly Slater vs. The ASP Tour story. Today, The Australian surf writer Fred Pawle digs in a little deeper into the breakaway group involving the nine-time world champion, his manager Terry Hardy, Quiksilver’s Bob McKnight, and former American boxing promoter Matt Tinley, as well as their “in-principle” agreement with ESPN.
ASP chief executive Brodie Carr waited three weeks before he could get a meeting with Hardy, which happened this week in Los Angeles. Carr is not saying what was discussed but one rumour in the surfing world suggests Hardy was bullish about his ability to steal the sport away from the ASP. Other sources say the rebels have employed a team of lawyers to head off any legal challenge from the ASP. . . Neither Hardy nor Quiksilver International in the US are prepared to comment on the new tour or on rumours that McKnight and Slater have invested heavily in the breakaway group, saying a press release will be issued soon.
Read the rest of the story. It has the potential to keep all of us entertained for quite some time.
Zac Skyring, a 14-year-old surfer from New South Wales Australia was reportedly out for an early surf just south of Byron Bay when he was “thrown into the by the impact” of a “one-and-a-half-metre bronze whaler shark.” The hit punctured his wetsuit, but he later went to school according to a story in The Australian.
itness Neil Cameron told the ABC the teenager had several small puncture marks on his lower arm. . . .He says the boy and his father paddled back out to warn him other surfers of the danger. . . “His dad had the idea – he wanted to get him back in the water. Otherwise he reckoned … he’d never get him in the water again,” he said.
NBC8 filmed crazy footage from the North Shore of Oahu of just how fast a shark gets going when it’s after something. The Blacktip ignored to surfers in the water to go after the fish, which is something shark expert Randy Honebrink says they usually do, according to a story on KHNL.com.
