Watch: Flagrant Surfing From A Charitable Yet Deranged Human

Brad Flora grew up surfing in Maryland, hunting mostly shorebreak tubes and knee-buckling sections. 

Brad competed as a kid, but soon learned that his skills were best expressed outside the confines of jersey, clock, and subjectively objective scoring, so he walked away from surfing’s structured half and became what is loosely defined as a “freesurfer,” picking up plumbing and other odd jobs to cover the difference from his minimal brand support. 

This transition has freed Brad up to do all of his favorite things, like traveling, drinking beers, smoking cigarettes and making cool shit with his friends. The film you see above, Deranged II, is the result of that.

“I went to Bocas in February on a one-way ticket and ended up staying till the end of March—I couldn’t miss Carnival,” Brad laughed. “Then I spent two months in Indo and actually got kinda skunked—there were only waves for like two weeks out of the time there.”

But this didn’t get Brad down, because the impetus behind these trips went far beyond his own desire to surf. 

“I’ve been traveling on and off since the beginning of this year filming for a documentary about the nonprofit I started called @letthekidssurf. We focus on taking surfboards to underprivileged youth and giving them guidance on how to keep a positive mental attitude, all while teaching them to keep their beaches and neighborhoods clean through facilitated beach clean-ups.”

“In Indo, I was cruising with Carlo Coral, Rolo, Mitchard, Mick A, and a few other guys that helped me transport boards for the kids,” Brad continued. “We weren’t worrying about anything else, just getting these kids boards to rip on and rolling with the punches along the way—talkin’ shit, missing flights, catching ferries and taxis…it was pure fuckin’ fun.

“In Bocas, we reunited with some local boys from Bastimentos that I became friends with about ten years ago, so we laced them and all of the groms in their ‘hood up with some boards and took them surfing daily with my friend Bolivar, who runs Bocas Surf Crew, on his boat.  

“Not to sound like some weirdo, but let’s get real—surfing has given us a serious fucking outlet that keeps us sane in the best and worst of times, and it’s nice to pass that on. Without it, I’d probably be a crumpled up piece of trash on my best days [laughs].”

Surely, many of our readers can relate.