Ghost Wave author Chris Dixon has written a touching and insightful piece on Surfline.com founder Sean Collins (above with his son A.J. in 1997) for Outside Magazine Online. In the story is titled Surf Prophet Dixon recounts his first encounters with Surfline and his meeting Collins for the first time.
Sometime in early 1995, I visited the spartan office directly across the street from the Huntington Beach Pier—a workplace with one of the best surf views in the Golden State. The place held a jumble of computers, a handful of full-time staffers, and a closet-sized mad-scientists room exploding with a Christmas tree’s worth of wires—a telephone nerve center capable of handling upwards of 200 calls at a time. The single landline phone tied into it held a sticker that said, “Pray for Surf, Or Call Surfline.” . . . Sean told me that he had spent his young life sailing the coastal outbacks from Point Conception to Cabo San Lucas. He lived on pennies for months on end, surfing Baja California and paying for his feral existence by selling photos to Surfing.
Click the link to read the rest of what has to be the best thing written so far about Collins and his mission in life.
[Link: Outside Online]
