The Surfing Blog

Some of my favorite fins to put on my boards back home in California are the Vector II FSG Fins by Future Fins. They are simple fins, and don’t look like anything special, but they work great in the California surf. These specific models are designed for lightweight surfers to use in mushy to rippable surf. Although I wish we had some more hollow waves in California more often, the fact is, we don’t.

Because of this I have found these fins to be really good for places like Trestles, where the wave is slow, but really rippable. I find these fins are easier to break free while trying to throw some tail compared to the stock fins that come with most boards. They were a nice upgrade for me, making surfing in California a bit more fun. The only embarrassing thing is the description on their website saying they allow “groms and girls to throw the tail”…and I don’t fit into either of those categories, but I guess size-wise, I kind of do.

Recently I was reminded of a surf film premier I attended last fall on the North Shore of Hawaii in Haleiwa. This particular surf film entitled, One Track Mind, was another amazing 16mm creation directed by Chris Malloy and produced by Woodshed Films. The title does a great job of explaining what the whole surf film is about because professional athletes in any sport have a one-track mind focused on their passion for the sport they represent. Surfing is not the exception; in fact I would even venture out to say that surfers are the epitome of one-track minded people seeing as surfing is somewhat a lifestyle.

One Track Mind does and amazing job of showing the mind set of a variety of surfers including Jordy Smith, Kalohe Andino, Julian Wilson, Mick Fanning, Dane Reynolds, Joel Parkinson, and classic pros like Kelly Slater, Sunny Garcia, Mark Occhilupo, Wayne Bartholomew and Tom Curren. It’s extremely interesting to hear what these surfers have to say in this unique surf film. In a series of short interviews they explore topic like who each person idols, the dimensions of their favorite board, and what kind of surfboard fins they prefer.

This is such a unique surf film that gives you an inside look into the minds of people who have shaped surfing into what it is today. On top of this there is obviously some amazing surfing in world-class spots including Mexico, Indonesia, Micronesia, Australia and Southern California. Another amazing creation by Chris Malloy and Woodshed Films.

My Headhunters Face Stick has been running low lately so I was looking through the sunscreens that we have at my house, and came across a tube of Zinka. Zinka is basically the same stuff as the Headhunters Face Stick, a zinc oxide sunscreen formula meant to protect your face from the sun while surfing. I have no idea who in the house owns the Zinka, since I have never seen anyone use it, so I took it and have been using it ever day now for 2 weeks. To be honest, it works just as well as the Headhunters Face Stick in my opinion. But there are some definite differences between the two choices, each product having their pros and cons.

I’ll start off with some of the pros of using Zinka. First, you get to choose between 9 different colors, which makes applying sunscreen a little more exciting. It tends to rub in a bit better than the Face Stick, evenly covering every part of your face that you want it to. And last of all, it costs only $6 and you are getting a little more out of each tube than one Headhunter’s Face Stick, which costs double that price. There are also some things about Zinka that I do not like. First of all, it feels sticky on your face, and stays that way for a long time. Sand gets stuck to it giving you 80-grit sandpaper skin, and the next day when you wake up, there are still traces of it on your face even having wiped it off with a towel. And lastly, you have to apply it with your fingers, so that kind of leaves your fingers colored and sticky for a little bit.

Overall, I like using this stuff. Regardless of anything negative I had to say about it, the main point is that it does its job as a sunscreen very well. It’s the type of sunscreen that you only want to use when you are really exposing yourself to powerful UV rays for a long period of time. I don’t normally use zinc oxide sunscreen like this everyday, but when its summer time and I am in the water for more than just a few hours in the middle of the day, zinc oxide sunscreens are the best out there to protect your face. For those of you who are against the thick zinc oxide sunscreens, they also make a clear face sunscreen, which I have not tried myself, but based on their 20 year history in the business, I would expect it to be pretty good.

We all love professional surfing because of what it brings to the sport. We wouldn’t know about half of the travel destinations out there if it weren’t for the movies we have in which we watch our favorite pro surfers destroy waves in exotic locations. We wouldn’t have nearly as many ideas of what tricks to learn next if we couldn’t see surfers who are better than us do them first. I could go on forever about the things that we wouldn’t have without professional surfing, but there are certain things about professional surfing that each of us hates. Those things are what we are aiming to bring to light in this post. Some of these things are more serious than others, while some of them are more about the way the WCT runs, and I think some of them are based more upon our own jealousy. I took in ideas from everyone here at The Surfing Blog and compiled the “10 Things We Hate About Professional Surfing”.

1 Contests Taking Over Our Home Breaks

I grew up very near to Lower Trestles, and when the contests come to town, it sucks. The actual event really isn’t even that bad. It’s pretty fun to go check out the event and see pro surfers perform on your home wave. What sucks is that they come in massive crowds and surf all the other local breaks before, during, and after the contest. When the WCT is in town, you can count on having pro surfers out at Uppers, Salt Creek, Strands, T-street, and the local beach breaks in the area. It’s even worse than this where I currently live, on the North Shore of Oahu. Starting in November there will be countless pro’s here for 2 months straight taking over every good spot on the North Shore.

2 Surfing For A Career, Not For The Love

I was out at T-street one morning a few years ago and a local pro who is currently on the WCT showed up. He was catching all the best waves and doing the sickest airs ever, but not landing them too often. Each time he fell he would throw his arms up in the air, swear at the sky, and chuck his board. He was literally throwing a tantrum every time he didn’t make his tricks. Where was the love of surfing that probably got him into the sport in the first place? I have seen pro’s freak out over their surfing way too often, and it’s annoying. On top of that, the media is constantly hinting that all of us need to be on the same course as the pros. You go out surfing at Lowers and if you aren’t ripping, people want you out of the water. Most surfers are out there because they love surfing, and how “good” you are should not matter nearly as much as how much you love surfing.

3 Pro Surfers’ Attitudes In The Water

“I can paddle around anyone I want cause I’m a pro”. I swear this is the line many pro surfers are saying in their heads while they are out with me. A lot of them can be the most aggravating people to surf with. They will take a glance at you, realize you aren’t a pro like them, and then burn you on a wave. That doesn’t go for all of them, because yes, I too have had amazing surf sessions with some of the most famous surfers in the world and they were really friendly and even let me take waves that should have been their own.

4 Turns Little Sponsored Groms Into Punks

Kids are progressing faster than ever before at surfing. They are getting really good at really young ages, which is awesome. But because of this companies are taking these kids in early and hooking them up with everything they could ever want, and it turns a lot of them into little punks that think they own the line-up. I’ve had more 12 to 15 year old groms paddle around or drop in on me in the last few years than guys my age. They think that because they have sponsors, they get priority in the line-up. There’s actually a pretty funny part in Stranger Than Fiction where a young kid drops in on an old guy and does an air reverse right in his face, then turns around and throws his arms up at the guy like “what are you doing riding behind me?” Still doesn’t make it dropping in on people acceptable.

5 Inconsistent Webcasts For Each WCT Event

Depending on the event sponsor (if they have a lot of money or not) the live webcast is either great, or horrible. They should hire a company to do all of them in the same way and to do them well. It’s frustrating when you are really getting into the event and the cam keeps crapping out on you, especially when it worked perfectly for the previous event.

6 The New WCT Format

They have come up with a new format that they have run a couple of times this year and it’s a one-loss elimination format. In two words, it sucks. There is less surfing making it less fun to watch. Think about the poor guys who get out in round 1. They just flew around the world to compete and in the first 30 minutes they are out for the event. To make the sport friendlier to the fans, they have to get more surfing in, not less, because that’s what we want to see.

7 How Many Boards Pro Surfers Get For Free

I realize this is kind of a joke, but doesn’t it bother you at least a little bit? I know they have sponsors and are way better than me, but it drives me nuts that they get to do whatever they want with their boards like chuck airs over shallow reefs. It allows them to progress quicker because they don’t have to pay the $400 to get their next board after smashing it in the shallows. There has been so many times when I could have tried something better on a wave but I didn’t because of the fear of breaking my board, and not having the money to get a new one. I know twin 16-year old boys who have over 40 boards combined at their North Shore home, and they have even more than that at their California home.

8 Terrible Judging At WCT Events

All too often we’ll see a surfer do one of the sickest moves of the event and get a horrible score for it. The judging seems to be based on the highest air, the longest barrel, or the most spray, and does not necessarily reflect who surfed the best. Sometimes surfers will be in a unique situation on a wave and make the impossible happen in order to make that wave, but because it doesn’t fit into the standards they have set, they are not awarded fairly. Its irritating when you get super excited for a surfer after an incredible wave and they end up with a bad score.

9 Favorites At Each WCT Event

Since sponsors put on events it often seems to be the case that judges are asked to, or just somehow mysteriously push through the guys who are sponsored by the event sponsor. It’s common to see the Billabong guy just barely scrape by for a win at a Billabong event when the other guy looked better. The same goes for all of the big sponsors and their team riders at the events they sponsor.

10 Golf Becoming A Part Of Surfing

Am I the only one who notices this? How is golf even related to surfing!? Seems like every pro surfer or person who works in the industry that I have ever met is obsessed with golf. Surfline even did a special feature on Julian Wilson getting custom clubs made for him just for being a pro surfer. The whole feature was on golf, not surfing! The latest Free Surf magazine out in Hawaii had an article discussing golf and surfing. Kelly Slater in a recent webcast ad during the Vans Triple Crown compared surfing to golf. It just drives me crazy, that everywhere I look in the surfing world, I hear about golf. If you like golf then that’s fine, but we don’t want to hear all about our favorite pro’s latest golfing accomplishments, we want to see them surf!

Whether you agree or disagree with what’s on this list, we want to hear your opinions, so let’s get some comments flowing.

I spent some time looking through a website for the first time the other day called SurfingAtlas.com. The site does not overly impress me, but it was worth taking a look at. Maybe I just need to spend more time figuring it out. In any case, I put together a summary of what I like and what I don’t like about the site to get you started, but take a look at it yourself to see what you think, then leave us some comments.

I like the video and photo galleries that accompany surf spots in their directory. I always hate when I am reading about a surf spot and there is no video or photo’s to go along with the description. SurfingAtlas has embedded YouTube videos throughout the site of just about every destination you can find. I also like their Air, Sea, Swell, and Wind section under each spot, showing you the temperatures and behaviors of these elements during the different seasons of the year. It also shows you what type of wetsuit if any that you should need to surf that area each month of the year. I also like the symbols that give you all you need to know about a surf spot, and they do it really efficiently. They tell you when the best tide is, what type of wave it is, what direction it goes, what swell size and direction is best, and what wind is best. The satellite images of each surf spot are pretty cool as well, but you can find those just as easily elsewhere. Lastly, I like that they are concerned about the earth, and are associated with organizations that help to protect our planet.

If it weren’t for all the things that I don’t like about this site, I would probably visit it more often. For example, the recommended board for each surf spot. These are obviously paid advertisements and are completely useless to someone who really wants to know what board they should use for a certain surf spot. For Rincon Point it told me to use a 9’6” McTavish longboard. Anyone who knows Rincon knows it is a wave for rippers on shortboards and paddling out on a longboard will most likely get you into trouble. For Pipeline it recommended a 6’0” Aloha squash tail. That one is self-explanatory; I’d like to see someone out at Pipe on that board. I feel like I should also mention that the same 6′0″ board was recommended for Mavericks! The site is hard to navigate as well. They have tons of surf spots covering the earth, but good luck finding the one you are looking for by clicking on their little map thing, cause it is a pain.

SurfingAtlas has a forum for all topics of surf discussion, but you have to be a paid subscriber to use it, and therefore there is not a lot of discussion actually going on in the forum. There are all kinds of different membership options, but none of them really seem worth what you are paying for. Yeah you get to be entered into the websites giveaways and contests, you get some free wax and maybe a few other things, you get to add surf spots and images to the site…but c’mon, do you really want to pay up to $150 a year for that?

I think that SurfingAtlas.com has a good concept going, but that it still needs a lot of work to turn into a solid competitor in the world of surfing websites. I will add, that if their iPhone App works as well as they say it will when it comes out, then that might be something worthy of getting your hands on.