The Rubberman Kicks Out
Larry Bertlemann showed generations of surfers and skaters “anything is possible.”
Surfing lost one of its greats today—Hawaiian Larry Bertlemann, perhaps the most influential, progressive surfer of the shortboard revolution 1970s, whose stylish, low, powerful, and timelessly radical approach not only helped pushed surfing into its modern, high performance era, but inspired the first generation of skateboarders like Dogtown’s Jay Adams and Tony Alva to expand the limits of what was thought possible on a skateboard.
“Skateboarding grew from the roots of GIANTS. We owe you everything.” Thrasher Magazine posted in tribute to LB.
“Larry Bertlemann has graduated to the party in the sky,” wrote surfing’s preeminent style scholar, Joel Tudor. “Few people in surf can say they changed the trajectory of progression…Larry flipped the world on its head with his “anything is possible” mantra & style…also gave birth to skateboardings technical advancements in wall riding transitions! Legend isn’t even the correct term to explain his role in both activities! Rest easy sir and tell all the crew upstairs aloha!”
Bertlemann was born in Hilo, on the northeastern, windward side of the Big Island, but moved to Oahu at 11, where he learned to surf along Waikiki. Before long he was climbing the ranks at the South Shore’s premiere spots, like Ala Moana, enjoying the tutelage, as well as the handshapes of Ben Aipa, who along with Dick Brewer laid the blueprint for today’s high performance designs, from rockers and rails to outlines and fins, and Larry was the perfect test pilot.
“A teenaged Larry B.S.-ed his way into surfing’s epicenter in 1970 by telling Colonel Al Benson and wife Blanche that he lived in a box on the jetty at Ala Moana,” wrote Jason Borte for Bertlemann’s inclusion into Surfer’s 50 Greatest Surfers of All Time. “They fell for his act and provided him a ready-made North Shore palace complete with an instant, loving family and access to the best waves and best surfers on the planet. In the Benson household, Bertlemann inherited not only a handful of competitive brothers and sisters but also a photographer/mentor dad in the Colonel and a revolving trail of visiting pros as roommates.”
“After a few years with the Bensons, coupled with shaping and coaching from progressive-minded Ben Aipa, Larry was primed to turn surfing on its head. Of course, he didn’t see it in those terms. Like any 18-year-old, he just wanted to go off. “It was so easy to go straight, and I didn’t like that,” he recalls. “I seen guys surfing, but I didn’t wanna be like one of them. Gerry was just the Adolph-Straight-Off guy, which anybody can do. I wanted to make Figure 8’s and he was making capital L’s…I was the anti-Gerry.”
Bertlemann garnered the nickname “Rubberman” for his loose, limber style, and crouched, low center of gravity, bent-knee approach. His fronthand carve became the most famous maneuver in surfing and skateboarding for a time, known formally as a “Bert,” and emulated by thousands of skateboarders the world over after seeing him on the big screen in some of the period’s biggest films—”Sea Of Joy,” “Super Session,” and others.
Footage from the early and mid 1970s also finds Bertlemann doing some of the first real attempts at above-the-lip surfing, a decade before Christian Fletcher and the 80’s aerial revolution. His rock star good looks and flamboyant style on land and in the water made him one of the most marketable and photographed surfers of his generation, the muse of some of the greats like Art Brewer, Kirk Aider, Jeff Divine.
While not known as a contest surfer, he took fourth at the 1972 World Surfing Championships, and placed third at the Pipe Masters the same year, then won the U.S. Surfing Championships in 1973, and captured the prestigious Duke Kahanamoku Surfing Championship in 1974 at Sunset Beach (The Duke served as the de facto World Title from 1965 until the mid-1970s and the launch of the ASP World Tour).
“You made dreams happen for a lot of us kids,” posted Kelly Slater. “Never forget the influence and how cool you were to me as a kid getting your autograph.”
“There’s so much I want say about this Legend,” wrote Johnny-Boy Gomes. “Larry ( Rubberman ) Bertlemann who paved the way, not only for me since I was a kid but millions of other around the world and was a huge Inspiration to my surfing and also, we have the same birthday, Aug. 7 and I was stoked to have celebrated our birthdays a few times together. Larry is a big part of surfing history and he left his mark in the surfing and skateboard world forever and LB was ahead of his time. Aloha and Mahalo for Paving the way for us Hawaiians and many more around the world. Until we meet again, I love you Champ.”
Jacob Willcox Drags Margo Back To The Red Dirt
Green Iguana 2.0.
Growing up, my Dad had one set of surf movies at home: the Jack McCoy box series.
Those were the films that shaped my early childhood and how I view surfing — Jack’s trippy editing fuelled by some god-given natural substance planted a seed of creativity in me and a lifelong love of surf films.
One scene burnt into my memory was from Margo’s cameo in Green Iguana. He was 19, surfing with Occy thanks to Munga (Barry) blowing out his knee, at a place I instantly recognised. My young brain had just completed its first “Spot Snipe”. They were in W.A. I knew that camp site. I knew that drive. It’s where I got my first tube, had my first job collecting bins and lighting fires with my old man.
I knew exactly where they were and what they were up to.
Fast forward 20 years later, I was sitting on the deck of a boat in Fiji with my uncle. He suggested I should do a trip with Margo back up there. He wanted to rally a crew of mates, all die hard Margo fans, to help make it happen. I ran with the idea and didn’t have to look far to get it off the ground. I called my good mate (and sponsor) Aaron – the original brewer, core surf lord and boss of Gage Roads Brewing. He was backing it.
A couple of days later, I rang Margo. Coincidentally, the same day the trip got the green light was also my birthday. We spent the first few minutes talking about getting older.
“You haven’t hit your prime yet,” he gassed. “Mine was between thirty and thirty five.”
I laughed. “I still feel like I’m eighteen.”
“Mate,” he said, “I still feel thirty.”
We both cracked up. Then I told him. “The trip’s happening.”
20th of June.
I’d just jumped off a sailboat halfway up the WA coast. Margo had flown over, grabbed my Cruiser from Perth and driven north with Aaron to scoop me. I enjoy long drives. There’s nowhere to hide. No reception, no phones and the never-ending straight road has a way of putting you into a highway hypnosis.
I’m a curious cunt, and Margo has some of the best stories going. He’d tell one unbelievable story before immediately following it with another that was somehow even better. Every now and then he’d stop himself.
“Nah… that one can never be re-told.”
I assured him the car was now a steel confession box. We spoke about his relationship with competing and freesurfing back in the day. A relationship I have been investing in this year.
Margo’s a competitor, mostly with himself, always chasing the best version of what he can do. He told me about the tail end of his competitive years, getting sat on by three Brazilians in two-foot surf with no priority rule to save him — the type of situation that’s made plenty of Aussies throw in the towel over the years.
These days his competitiveness begins and ends with bird watching. The whole drive north he’d call out bird species, rarity, the lot. He was given a bird book as a kid when travelling around Australia with his family and it stuck. His goal now is a top-1000 world ranking for bird spotting and he plays it dead straight. If he doesn’t get a clean look it doesn’t count. No maybes. Which sums up his character – A genuine honest bloke.
Eventually the bitumen disappeared and we hit the corrugated track. My old landcruiser loaded to the brim. 140 litres of fuel, 80 litres of water, nine boards and 25 cartons of beer to act like Father Christmas once we arrived at the campsite.
My tyres dropped to 20 psi to soften the corrugations and the rattle on your Jaw. “Bang!” The suspension had started to clap out. Not bad enough to turn back but bad enough that the rest of the drive to camp came with the odd sound of a shotgun going off under the foot.
Ah well.
The first few days were small. We had a tinny, and Margo hadn’t been fishing in fifteen years. Our first mission out we lost one Spanish mackerel to a shark and threw back another for being undersized. I could see the hunger building in Margs, a hunting instinct waking back up.
To rub salt in the wounds, two Israelis rolled back into the beach after us carrying a horse Mackie like they’d won the Olympics. Margs and I looked at each other with our bruised ego’s and nodded. “Fuckwits.”
Next day we went looking for a corner to ourselves. Aaron had a few spots up his sleeve. All three of us don’t enjoy surfing with people. The day we went fishing Aaron went hunting waves by himself. He had three surfs, headbutted the reef and scored some tubes. He wanted to take us back there to try score it with him. After an hour and half drive north through the pin stripe bushes and brain rattling track we got a first peak of the wave.
A crystal blue peak.
The next few hours I saw the lads in flow as time disappeared trading waves. Margo turned back the clock standing upright in blue shacks, Az got his redemption tubes and I was in awe watching the old VHS tapes come back to life.
There was a solid storm front about to march up the west coast which was hopefully going to deliver surf. We had time for one more fishing mission so we were up at sparrows fart to make it happen.
We had barely got out around the bombie when Margs yells “ Fish ON!!”He had been thinking about this moment for days and so had I. Margs was like a raptor in flight – no wasted movement, just pure mongrel.
He gets it up beside the boat and lets out a roar – “ A long tail tuna!! Yahhooooo”
We pull her back into the beach and got Margo to parade it around the camp (just kidding). But we made some top-notch Sashimi as we bunkered down for the storm.
It pissed down most of the night but we woke up to swell that was solid enough to find the reef but wobbly and far from clean. On the west coast this time of year the pattern’s predictable. Offshore southeast in the morning, swinging more south as the land heats up, then howling onshore southwest by the arvo. I figured today would run the same playbook. Leftover cloud from the storm brought the odd rain squall through. Four hours into the session the swell was fading and the wind was about to ruin it completely. 50 people out and I still hadn’t scored one. The wind started to feather in and people started peeling off. A squall further up the point rolled through and the onshore hit. I thought that was it. Then it passed, and the wind swung back strong offshore. Kind of a miracle.
You spend enough time out at a wave and you build a connection with it. Some days it wants to hurt you and other days it looks after you. This day it was my friend. I found two fun ones in the next hour before the wind properly turned. After a seven hour session I was glad to see the wind come howling in and get the chance to rehydrate with nectar of the gods.
The next morning Margo was hobbling around with a sore knee from so many backside belts. My eyes were leaking from 7 hours of ocean glare. We couldn’t give 2 shits. We kinda scored
We packed up camp said goodbye to everyone and headed back south. We stopped into the Barry for a counter meal on the way back. Margo told me about the last time he was there on the same trip when he was 19. The locals were running a boardriders event and if they wanted to surf out there they needed to wear a rashie and compete…
Occy ended up winning the comp and the prize pool – A massive bag of pot haha…
As Margo and I parted ways at the airport we hugged goodbye.
To take one of my favourite surfers and one of the best humans back to the place he considers the first real chapter of his surfing career felt like winning. At the same time, it gave me the chance to nurture the seed that Jack McCoy planted in my own young mind all those years ago.
Rest in Peace Jack. I Hope you enjoyed the edit.
Watch: Ian Crane Can “Do Whatever He Wants” On This Board
The evidence agrees.
If we define “technology” as something not occurring naturally but rather created by human innovation, then the “Middle Class” has to be one of humanity’s greatest technologies.
Millions of people living comfortably with health insurance, a family trip a year, two cars, and a trip to Chilli’s every month is not a guarantee on a planet whose humans have largely lived in cycles of Ruler/Peasant relationships for the past 12,000 years.
If you ask most responsible economists, they’ll tell you that the Golden Age of the American Middle Class was somewhere in the early ’80s, after decades of post-war public investment, progressive taxation, strong labor unions, and limited global competition had yielded abundant fruit in terms of a healthy, relatively equitable, and thriving Middle Class in America.
In the surfing world, our belle epoch was the late-90s and early 2000s — when there was finally enough wealth in the industry to create a sort of “middle class” of professional surfers. You knew them: They had a single-story house 10 minutes inland, 30 surfboards in the garage, two kids, and a pre-owned white Toyota Tundra in the driveway with their sponsors’ stickers on the back. They were QS warriors; they were featured in middle-market surf mags, and they starred in B-list surf movies.
These days, there’s much valid hand-wringing about the loss of surfing’s “middle class”. There simply isn’t enough cash to allow anyone but the best surfers to do nothing else besides surf.
Is the Ruler/Peasant relationship back? Are you either on the top of the Championship Tour/YouTube rankings, or destined to be a surf instructor for thousands of San Clementines for life?
Enter Ian Crane. Crane is not “Middle Class” in ability, he’s one of the best freesurfers on Earth —Stab invites him to every conceivable project because he’s (1) incredibly good and (2) incredibly easy to work with. But Crane is Middle-Class in that he’s found a way to surf full-time for a living still at 33 in 2026 without being on the CT or being an on-the-nose “surf influencer”. In short, he’s an anomaly.
Despite Crane’s counter-positioning in the surf world, he does have a YouTube channel —Beach Head (aka Crane Brain) — where he just released the edit you see above. “Double Tap” is really two edits in one — one session at a hyper-fun beachie and another from an uber-scary-but-rippable reef. We called Crane up between nights out at EAST Fest in NYC to ask him about it:
“That big right was sick,” Ian said. “It had a point-break feel. It almost felt like you were going down the line at J-Bay for a brief second. But then it got really shallow and would close out. You’re going so fast down the line that you cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time, so it looks like a long wave but feels like a short one.
“It was really shallow at the end and always finished in a closeout” The first part of the wave was so fun, and you were trying your hardest to rip into as big a turn as you could, but in the back of your mind you knew it was getting shallow and would close out at the very end. You had to kick out or you were just going to eat shit,” Ian said.
The session turned into a very productive filming day for all involved. “There was no one out. It was just me, Eithan, and Kael Walsh, and everyone was surfing well. Eithan was filming for his movie with Chapter 11, and I was filming for my Snapt part, which already has the best few clips from that trip. Kael used his for one of his edits. So all three of us were sending it, trying to get clips for the projects we were working on.”
Now, on the hyper-fun beachie:
“There was a perfect left right in front of the house we stayed at, and I travel with a round-nose fish pretty much everywhere I go,” Ian said. “It’s a must-bring board. It was perfect for the wave out front. In the afternoon we’d be chilling at the house, then hop out for a surf with a mellow crowd. I felt like I could do anything on that wave with that board, and it was so much fun. That’s where we were surfing before the swell hit that gave us the big right, so it was a pretty epic score of a trip for us only having a week there.”
At 33, Ian is not showing signs of leasing a surf instructor van any time soon. In fact, he’s got a specific project in the works. “I’m making an edit, really a film, focused on the whole coast of California. We have great waves here, but I feel like we see the same waves in every clip. The guys in Australia do a way better job of finding unique waves that look so fun and showcasing them well, I want to do that for California. So that’s really my goal this next year, highlighting home.”
Jaleesa Vincent Is Dropping A Movie With Caity Simmers And Frankie Harrer
And it looks... deadly.
Two years ago, Jaleesa Vincent and Luka Raubenheimer released one of the most unique surf films of all time.
Juju The Surf Musical was a 30-minute blend of surfing, music, teeth, hair, yin-yang philosophy, and fantasy in a surreal film featuring Occy, Creed McTaggart, Josie Prendergast, and more. Jaleesa and her band Cupid And The Stupids scored the entire thing, and it arrived to surprised applause from the surf world en masse.
Now, Jaleesa and Luka are beginning premieres for what appears to be an even further elevated film. It’s titled Vampires Surf, it features lead roles from Caity Simmers + Frankie Harrer, and it looks deliciously against the grain.
Anybody creating unusual expressions of creativity with the best surfers in the world gets our attention, and we’re excited to see what Jaleesa and SunBum have cooked up for us.
Per the SunBum website:
Three immortal vampire girls have spent centuries surfing beneath the moon. When fate changes, they leave the shadows behind and become legends amongst mortals. But the return of the Blood Moon summons them to Coffin Bay, where an ancient prophecy and a powerful evil will decide their future.
She’s preparing for a Halloween world premiere in Noosa, and you can see the full premiere list below.
Oct 31 – Noosa, The Noosa J 6 PM – Get Tickets Here
Nov 6 – Biarritz, Cinema Le Royal 8 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 8 – Paris, Le Grand Rex 8:30 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 11 – NYC – Location to be announced soon
Nov 13 – Encinitas, La Paloma 8 PM – Tickets reserved at pre-party at Sun Bum HQ (444 S Coast Hwy 101 Encinitas, CA) 5:30 PM
Nov 15 – Los Angeles, Braindead Studios 6 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 20 – Byron Bay, Byron Theater 6 PM – Get Tickets Here
Nov 26 – Sydney, The Hayden Orphenum Picture Palace 6 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 30 – Melbourne, Thornbury Picture House 6PM – Tickets available soon
Dec 4 – Victoria – Location to be announced soon
Oh… and Sun Bum is dropping a Fiji edit with Mikey Feb and friends next Monday. Stay tuned.
How A Green 5’0″ And A Family On A Remote Island Saved Charly Quivront
Plus: After 11 years on the QS, Charly is just a few heats away from making the CT.
Despite ushering in the Enlightenment, developing the most revered cuisine on Earth, and being in a near-constant state of revolutionary verve, the French don’t have the reputation of being hard workers.
Equitable healthcare, living wages for all workers, arguably the most beautiful metropolitan area in our planetary system.
Despite all of this, Charly Quivront remains eager to flee France and see the world. This year he’s in the midst of his 5th year on the Challenger Series and 11th year on the QS.
Despite the Napoleonic effort and great surfing ability, Charly — in all fairness — has not come especially close to making the CT. Last season, he had four 33rds, two 25ths, and a 13th. This year however? A 49th, a 9th, and a 5th. Now, that might not sound world-leading, but it is… it puts Charly at #8 in the CS rankings and within the Top 10 CT qualification line with two events left in the season (Portugal’s just started, Charly’s in H5 R64).
But Charly doesn’t just work hard in a jersey. He also works hard fighting against the amorphous, elusive, living blob that is the surfing industrial complex. He has consistently remained relevant by releasing clips via his YouTube channel, “Où est Charly?”, and has retained his Volcom sponsorship for nearly two decades — through all of ABG’s unfortunate culls.
As part of this YouTube series, Charly just released an edit (see above) from his trip to an undisclosed location which you can probably guess, but will nevertheless appreciate seeing.
The video revolves around one misadventure: the airline lost all his boards. The only reason he was able to surf at all was that a family he met on his ferry ride offered to let him use their son’s board. The catch? Their son is like 10 years old, and the board is 5’0″.
Charly made it work though, in spectacular fashion. We phoned him up to ask a few quick questions about the edit while he was in the airport on his way to the next Challenger Series event:
Stab: Why did that family have that board? What’s the surfing community like out there?
Charly: I actually met the family on the ferry on the way there. Pretty much everyone was feeling seasick, and I ended up helping one of the family members who was throwing up overboard. That’s how we got talking. I explained my situation to them, and it turned out they were heading to the area to go kitesurfing. Their son had a surfboard with him, and they told me, “Come meet us at the spot tomorrow. We’ll go have a look. We might not even surf, but you can use our son’s board.”
And that’s exactly how it happened. It was a completely random encounter, but without them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to surf that day. It’s crazy how things can work out when you’re travelling.
As for the surfing community, to be honest, there was nobody else out there apart from that family. Surfing is still relatively underdeveloped in that particular area, although there are other parts of the territory where the surf scene and local community are much more established. But in this remote corner, I didn’t see a single other surfer during my time there. That’s part of what made the experience so unique.
Since it is so remote, how did you even know where to go?
That’s a million-dollar question! I’d had this place on my radar for a long time. Because of competitions and my schedule, I’d never really had the opportunity to make the trip, even before it started getting more attention and more people began heading out there.
I finally managed to find a window between two competitions, and everything fell into place in the best possible way. I already had a rough idea of where the spot was, and luckily, a local friend who was already there called me up and invited me to come surf these waves. The timing couldn’t have been better.
That said, it’s still one of the most remote and logistically challenging places I’ve ever travelled to for a surf trip. Getting there is a real mission, which is also part of what makes the whole experience so special.
More Footage Of The Florence Brothers In Marginally Paddleable Waves
Thank you, Martin Daly
I could get used to this JJF YouTube posting cadence…
Remember last week when we shared footage of John and Nate dominating an extremely west swell in Tahiti?
Today, John upped the ante, with footage of the two brothers sharing a collection of conical visions, with bathymetry shallow enough to inspect individual coral polyps on their way through the tube.
Not much narrative machinery in this one. Just shallow tubes and little margin for error; at a windblown reef pass we’ve seen on a few occasions before. (See: Natural Selection and For Whom The Atolls)
If we’re lucky, Erik and Spencer over at Parallel Sea will keep hitting export and upload on these things for the next few weeks.
Are We About To See Someone Hit Three Rails On One Wave?
Perhaps. This year's Swatch Nines surf starts on Thursday, and here's what to expect.
With its third edition swiftly approaching, it’s clear that the Swatch Nines surf has found its niche.
Year 1 turned Waco into something resembling a surf carnival. We saw the best boardslides ever done in a sport where boardsliding isn’t really a thing, a superwoman from Tya Zebrowski, and many other delights and absurdities.
Year 2 rolled back into Waco with the same meticulously absurd approach, this time with a crane to hover various objects for surfers, skaters, and BMXers to play with above the pool. Noah Beschen took rail surfing to the next level, then Hughie Vaughan shut it down.
This year’s event will go down from October 8 – 10 back in Waco. We don’t know exactly what we’ll see, and that’s the point. However, we do have intel on what to expect.
First up, the crane will be back with some new toys. At some point, it’ll be used to explore a ‘Pool as a Studio’ concept and will dangle oversized flowers and a massive mirror above the waves while flares and the like go off. This was the brainchild of Coco Ho and Zoe McDougal during Swatch’s annual creative workshop. “My favorite part is when you come up with a simple concept, and everyone adds to it,” said Coco of her experience there.
Another new one? A drop-in rail from the side of the pool, which came from the fascinating brain of Coco’s brother. The idea will be to grind down it, then continue to ride on a wave. This proves to be a theme. This year, the surfers are keen to try rail lines. It should be quite entertaining to watch them attempt to figure it out, unless you’ve spent decades glassing and/or sanding surfboards.
We’re going to have our biggest skate park yet, and we’ve expanded the invitee list on both the skate and surf side,” says the event’s founder, Nico Zacek, who presents with the energy of someone who jumps out of bed at 4 AM to write an idea down in the Notes app. “Usually, we introduce three or four new things each year. But since we’re doing it Waco again, we still have everything from previous editions on-site, in case anyone feels like trying those again. When we get everything in place, we think it’ll be possible for people to hit three rails on one wave and hopefully do some turns in between.”
That would certainly be a first.
But if that ain’t your thing, like every other year, there’ll simply be a lot of time dedicated to straight-up air sections. All up, the event carves out 40 hours of pool time for 35 surfers. On top of all the new concepts, the Swatch Nines also makes a point of allowing surfers to just surf — providing space for a Hughie-esque moment from last year.
All up, here’s who’s coming on the surf side: Zoe McDougall, Coco Ho, Milla Coco Brown, Skai Suitt, Laura Enever, Macy-Jane Callaghan, Zoee Bradshaw, Isla Hardy, Eden Edwards, Juliette Lacome, Honolua Blomfield, Mason Ho, Balaram Stack, Eithan Osborne, Noah Beschen, Matt Meola, Jacob Szekely ‘Zeke’, Blair Conklin, Chippa Wilson, Dylan Graves, Hughie Vaughan, Cam Richards (who is injured, but coming to watch), Mikey Wright, Parker Coffin, Leon Glatzer, Lucas Fink, Lucas ‘Chumbo’ Chianca, Zacky Taylor, Micky Clarke, Shane Boreland, Makana Franzmann, Arthur Vilar + Bruno.
So, how are you gonna see what goes down? Of course, we’ll be there, punting the best stuff on our channels. The Couch Surfing show will be streaming the event live on October 8 and 9. Saturday is the surf event’s first public day. If you’re around, roll into Waco to have some fun. And, as always, a full event recap vid will surface on your feed early next week.
Dylan Graves And The Slab That Raised Him
Three days of vision at the wave that has educated three generations of talent.
Dylan Graves is our favorite novelty merchant.
The guy has spent a significant portion of his adult life travelling to surf waves that most people wouldn’t compute as rideable, and he conveys the experiences with terrific candor.
Great Lakes windswell, tidal bores, backwash wedges, and questionable lumps of water requiring diagrams and unique risk assessment.
But before Weird Waves, before YouTube became his primary outlet, and before chasing hydrological curiosities became a viable occupation, there was a kid just trying to get barrelled near home.
His new film, above, is about that place.
“This wave shaped me,” Dylan writes. “It shaped the surfers who came before me, and now it’s shaping a new generation of Puerto Rican chargers.”
The film follows one obliging swell that produced three straight days of surf, bringing several generations of Puerto Rican surfers into the same lineup. Mauro Diaz, Otto Flores, Carlo Cabrero, Manny Valentin, Seba Llompart, Christian Rivera and others share the edit with a younger crew including Mia Calderon and Sage Katz, plus visitors Mason Ho and Robbie Rickard.
There’s plenty of surfing in it, obviously, but the waves are only half the point.
When we spoke to Dylan and filmmaker Dave Malcolm about Weird Waves back in 2019, Dylan’s curiosity about the ecosystems around waves was already obvious. Rather than using travel purely as a vehicle for finding better surf, the series was becoming a way of documenting people who had built entire little surfing cultures around unlikely pieces of moving water. This time, Dylan dissects the ecosystem that shaped him.
This wave has beaten the shit out of him for decades, and the film depicts a compression of the generational timeline.
The surfers Dylan once admired are still there, while he sits between them and the younger Puerto Rican crew beginning the same sort of sharp and shallow education.
“I got to watch the guys who inspired me and the young crew coming up surf it side by side,” Dylan writes, “and I knew I wanted to do something special with the footage and photos.”
The video also accompanies a piece Dylan wrote for the latest issue of The Surfer’s Journal, extending the same story into print. Which feels appropriate for a surfer who recently described his YouTube work to us as an extension of the old magazine trip.
“Writing an article, but with footage,” was how Dylan put it.
This one happens to be about the place where he learned the language.
Hit play above.
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