Table of contents for Winter 2015 in White Horses

These pages belong to the stories, the readers, the ocean and the coast, so it’s rare we even run an introduction. Anyway, this is our fourth “theme issue” of the Horse – the previous being Winterfell (6), Equinox (9) and The Indian Ocean Issue (11). Conversations is the issue that most strongly reflects our goal of having the least editorial processing. All this edition consists of, as you’ll find, is people talking with one another. We reckon a lot of media these days is like the over-refined and sugar-laden food that’s so prevalent in our lives – a quick jolt of gratification then you’re left wanting. With Conversations, we hope the deliberately raw, unprocessed pages ahead satisfy you in a healthier, more nourishing way. Our attitude also shows in the…

Earlier in 2015, John and Belinda McGroder, along with their sons, Fynn and Duke, spent a quiet week aboard Barrenjoey, anchored off one of the sandier stretches of the Mentawai Islands. The beachbreaks afforded Fynn and Duke the opportunity to push their patented “Slipperydip” techniques. In the evenings, Dad would get the boys to recap their sessions J: How was your bodysurfing today? D: Good. Um. My best wave was the slipperydip. B: So you did some slipperydips on your own? Yep. What was your best wave today, Fynn? F: Ah, probably the big slipperydip one. Explain what a slipperydip is. It’s when you catch a wave, but then you pull back on it, but the lip sucks you over. Um, you hit the bottom, but then you get pulled…

“Ian W. Thomson is the director of out in the lineup, an award-winning documentary that explores the often unspoken topics of homosexuality – and homophobia – in the surfing world.” – Ben Douglas BD: How long have you been travelling around touring the film now? IWT: We released the film in February 2014 at the Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney where we won Best Documentary. When the American season started we picked up the Audience Award for Best Film at the San Diego Surf Film Festival and Best Action Sports Film at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Then we screened in Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and England – where we won Best Documentary at the London Festival. We also screened at the Pacific International Film Festival,…

When Hawaiian surf legend Gerry Lopez relocated to the mountains of Oregon all those years ago, the surf world was puzzled. Turns out Gerry was – and is – spending more time sliding water and snow than any other 66-year-old on the planet. Gerry has been in Hokkaido, Japan the past two winters and has placed himself at the juncture of yet another boarding revolution – the Snowsurf movement – where the snowboard designs of Taro Tamai allow an almost identical feel to that of riding a wave. Here Gerry graciously shares his thoughts with his no-lessgracious Hokkaido host, Shane Peel. SP: We’ve been talking lately about things that spring from living in the moment – from design to riding styles – what’s your take? GL: Some guys are creative…

“I talked to 53-yearold surfer-shaper and traveller Gary Burden about his ’80s and ’90s Sri Lankan infatuation and adventures.” – Bruce Usher BU: Where’d your love of Sri Lanka come from? GB: The first time I ever saw it was in a surf magazine about 1980. I just fell in love with these photos of Pottuvil Point and Arugam Bay. What made them different? They were perfect little right-hand points. They didn’t have a name and the mag didn’t say where they were. I knew it was somewhere in Sri Lanka, but I didn’t know where, so I kept the mag pages for two years and when I went in 1984 I went looking at every place I could find, just matching the photos up until I found Pottuvil Point.…

This conversation took place “in a divebar on the edge of the Earth in an emerging nation” not long after the miraculous rescue of South African surfer Brett Archibald, lost overboard for 27 hours in the Mentawais, April 2013. What happened? Well, after 24 hours, we’d given up. Y’know we’d cross-graphed the entire sector. So what’d ya do? I went up to the roof of the boat, lit 11 sticks of incense and prayed to my sister. You know she was my best friend, right? Yep. Well, she came to me, and showed me a bird’s-eye view of the guy, still alive and still swimming. But he wasn’t where we thought he’d be. I motored 10 minutes in the opposite direction and picked him up.…

“Sitting around in the garden of the J-Bay backpackers after being cleared from the water by a shark spotter, the talk, naturally, was about ol’ Bitey. In the background the chef was preparing for an afternoon BBQ. The chef was an odd one. Quiet, with coke-bottle spectacles. He had lines of cuts running from his left elbow to his hand, multiple scars that suggested a troubled past.” – Gary Young DTL: How was that? Hectic, Bru… JTP: Did anyone see it? I didn’t even hear the whistle. I just followed everyone else in. Frenchie saw it, he was white as a sheet Bru, kakked himself! JTF: I thought it was a dolphin! Then theys blowin’ the whistle and wavin’ T-shirts on the beach and it’s right next me!! Not too…

“Two quick exchanges. The first in the Bells Beach Car Park, Easter 1991. The second encounter is two weeks later, in the home Michael and Joan shared in South Tweed Heads, NSW.” –Tim Baker JP: Excuse me, are you Tim Baker? TB: Yes, I am. I’m Joan Peterson, Michael’s mother. Hello, Mrs Peterson, how are you? Nodding furiously. Tim I was wondering if you would like to interview my son? Yes, yes I would. Very much. Nodding even more furiously. The young ones never see him. They only hear of him and people say all kinds of stories. I want people to know what he’s really like, that he is in the land of the living. … … … … Later, on a quiet evening at the Peterson home. Michaaaeel.…

Pohnpei lies in the middle of the Pacific, and its waves – particularly “P-Pass” – are now surf-mag staples. Imagine having it to yourself for a decade! Allois Malfitani speaks with Richard Kotch. RK: There must be 20,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. How did you end up here? AM: A National Geographic picture changed my life… it was an overview of Kosrae with the waves wrapping down the reef. I read the article, did some research and booked a ticket to Micronesia. It was May 1st 2000. I arrived in Kosrae, but realiased it wasn’t what I was looking for, so a week later I flew on to Pohnpei … I remember flying into Pohnpei over Main Pass and seeing the waves bending in around the reef – that…

Down south WA holds a special place in Australian surfing’s heart. Rob Holt chats with pioneering surfer George Simpson. You’re renowned for discovering Three Bears. Can you give a snapshot of that adventure? Everyone had been going south towards Margaret River searching for new waves. Lefthanders hadn’t been found at this stage. I used to sit out at Yallingup and look up to the Cape and see all the bombies going off along the cliffs. In August ’71, it was on a Wednesday, I got Vicky Jaggaer to drive me, Mark Rudenburg and a Kiwi bloke called Mick Pearce up to Sugarloaf Rock. We trekked back to Yallingup to see what we could find. It was onshore, but we noticed this spot with a sandy beach and some waves breaking…

Vagabond surfer Kepa Acero, just after returning home from four months alone in the Angolan Desert of Africa. ML: What was the most challenging thing about the African experience, in particular your solo time in Angola? KA: The hardest part when you’re by yourself is that you feel so alone, but you have to keep going. You learn not only the travel, but in life, to keep going through the hard moments – that’s part of living. It’s not easy though, because most of the time in this society that we live in you don’t have time to stop and think about what you’ve done, and what you’re going to do. In travels like this it seems like time stops. When it starts again, you have a different thinking. Four…

Let’s kick things off with a spooky shark tale. Chris Binns catches up with fellow West Australian Taj Burrow to ask about his scariest moment in front of gnashing teeth. CB: Sharks have been a big issue in your home waters the last few years. How does that sit with you? TB: There’s a lot of talk of sharks at the moment. I’d be lying if I said they weren’t on my mind. Never once as a kid did I think about them around where I live, but at the moment it’s a frenzy. No pun intended. You can’t go down the street without people talking about what’s going on and you can’t go in the water without thinking about them. Something has obviously changed in our environment because there’s…

Back in 1969, Greg “Da Bull” Noll – already acclaimed as a big-wave great – purportedly caught a wave at Makaha so epic that it allowed him to let go of his ambition. He talks it all through with Lewis Samuels. LS: You were telling me about that wave at Makaha in ’69. GN: You have to step your way up into being a big-wave rider over many years. And you get to a point that you’re so goddamned consumed with the adrenalin you get from a big wave, the power, the noise, the board chatter, the speed, that you just become a junkie. Obsessed. But then there comes a time when your coordination isn’t as good as it was, your ability to paddle – you’re getting old in other…

“It’s hard to label the feeling you get watching Joel Fitzgerald surf Uluwatu on one of his self-shaped single-fins. It’s both classic and modern. It’s out of time and perfectly in the moment. It’s fast. And slow motion. It’s a ghost of his father, but it’s also right here and right now. Joel’s still dripping from an epic session out there when I grill him about growing up the son of a legend and travelling Indo for almost his entire life.” – Nathan Myers JF: My earliest memories of Indonesia are from right here [Uluwatu]. Dad [Terry Fitzgerald] first walked me through that cave when I was 12 years old. I was shitting myself. NM: What was Uluwatu like back then? You had to get a ride on a motorbike…

One of Horsies’ favourite selfdoubters, Dean Dampney, talkes Buddhist surf philosophy with his mate Ben Adcock. DD: Do you ever get with annoyed with yourself in the surf? BTB: I do if I start getting greedy. I know it’s time to see that maybe other guys deserve a wave. So how do you get the attitude right? It’s your expectations – maybe just wanting to get one good ride, and anything else is a bonus. How do you prepare yourself to be in that positive space? I think it’s just appreciating the circumstances coming together that make it possible to actually go for a surf. That’s enough to feel fulfilled before even paddling out. Our surfs today were so different. I had a great start, but then I’m like, “Oh…

Two-foot, sideshore rip bowl, North Burleigh. Some time in the early 1990s. Visitor one has dropped in, perhaps underestimating local fella’s ability to make the section. ULF: Oi! Fucken do that again and I’ll fucken... V1: Aw shit mate, Sorry, I... V2: Hey! It’s got nothing to do with you, fucken stay out of this. Well he’s my brother in law, so … Well tell him to get the fuck out of the water. Mate, he’s learnin’ and we’re surfin’, look, he won’t do it again, but we’re surfin’ RIGHTO, TELL YA WHAT, YOU’VE JUST MADE AN ENEMY FOR LIFE! Outraged, screaming.…

Multiple Longboard World Title holder Beau Young talks about life, music and critters. SP: So, Youngy: You won the World Longboard title in Brazil in 2000, then did it again in 2003 in Raglan – then you kinda disappeared! BY: Raglan was always gonna be my last event, no matter what. I was really getting into guitar and just did a quick transition to getting an album done and touring it. Then I stepped away from regular music and started writing animal songs for kids! I was living on a farm playing guitar, doing yoga and surfing a lot. Eight years later there’s 10 albums of material and we’re about to start recording shows for ABC broadcast. Ten albums of animal-based children’s music! Yeah … some would say it’s a…

A chat with 58-yearold Martin Irvine, about the early, glory days of Gisborne LM: So you lived and surfed around Gisborne decades ago? MI: Oh yeah. It was pretty amazing then. No crowds, places still being discovered, and places that older guys regarded as secret. They were really protective over some spots. Once, in early 1975 it would have been, I got taken to Waipiro Bay blindfolded by Jim Carney and Peter Calder. Carney was a board shaper and Calder a glasser, both were really good surfers Seriously? You were blindfolded? Yeah. They put the blindfold on when we drove out of Gisborne so I wouldn’t know where the place was. We drove up in this old English car that Carney had. A green Wolseley I think. Can you remember…

Al Mackinnon is a surf photographer who specialises in coldwater destinations. His old comrade Euan Bruce calls for a chat. EB: Madeira, The accident! What happened? AM: OK, yeah I was on a part of the point that I’d never surfed before… I got smashed into a rock. You know what it’s like, doing water shots on the slabs in Scotland. You hit the rocks but you just bounce off, especially when you’re wearing a wetsuit. But this time, I just knew straight away. The pain was instantaneous. I knew something was wrong. It was a bit of a scenario. There was a lot of water moving. The current was taking me down to Pequena. I couldn’t move my leg. It’s an ugly spot to get out of the water…

For the last decade or more, Kai Neville has shot, edited and produced some of the grooviest contemporary surf films around: lost atlas, Modern Collective, Dear suburbia, etc. So tell me this mate, you’ve done a bunch of movies everyone reckons are as the bleeding edge of progressive surf culture. Has much changed for you? Well, I guess the crew I started off with, that “young” crew, is now the “older” crew, which is pretty funny. It’s been almost ten years now. Guys like Dane, Mitch, Dion are all pushing 30. They still seem really young and relevant to me, but maybe we’re just really old now! I don’t know. There’s definitely a big shift towards Noa and Creed and a bunch of young guys now, it’s their time and…

We all have our brushes with fame. But some brushes are more famous than others. As White Horses’ NZ Bureau Chief Logan Murray learns in a quick yak with his mate “Gorilla” at Whangamata on the Coromandel Peninsula. GM: I grew up surfing around Auckland. Me and my best friend decided to do a surf trip in 1966, when everyone travelled by ship. All our friends were going to Australia, so we decided to go somewhere different. We ended up on a freighter heading to Durban. After surfing around Durban a few months we drove up to Jeffreys. LM: What was it like at Jeffreys at the time? The roads were all potholed gravel, apartheid was in control, and Jeffreys was really uncrowded, it was fantastic. There was just nobody…

Midwinter. Thurso, Scotland. Sandra’s Chip Shop. Saturday Night. “This is surfing in North Scotland’s winter. The odds are stacked against you. You’re small. Defeated from the start. But you suit up anyway.” – Euan Bruce SDM: I’m sayin yer girlfriend is fucken ugly. The speaker is short, with greasy, sweat-curled hair. His body sways with staggering drunkenness. … … … … … … … The large silent man says nothing. Yer bird. She’s a dog. She’s fucken mingin. The young lady in question shoots an angry stare at her oddly passive boyfriend. … … … … The queue progresses. Geez us, eh, chips. Wi cheese. And fucken, salt. And eh, vinegar. The short drunk man orders. … I mean, look at her. What a state. Our speaker turns again to…

Tim Baker and son Alex, in the car and going surfing. AB: I reckon this is a pretty good plan. TB: What’s the plan? Surf, then go for a bit of a walk, go to Kirra surf shop, see if they have the shoes. If they don’t go down to Volcom, see if they have the shoes. If they don’t come home and chill. And what do you want to ride? Do you want to ride the single-fin? Single-fin. I reckon you should know the answer to that by now. That’s just THE board. Why do you reckon you like it so much? Because it’s easy to paddle with, it just feels so smooth and I go so fast. Alex gestures to the streetscape. Imagine if all the way down…

A conversation between Neale Gordon and Logan Murray about a fairly ordinary character – and chapter – in the surfing history of Mahia, New Zealand. LM: So you used to hang out with Thuggy. Were you mates then? NG: We used to be, and then we didn’t get along. Well, when you did get along, what sort of things was he doing? The usual localism stuff. You know, hassling surfers, trashing their cars, that sort of stuff. He had this tool that he carried around in his car. It was a chainsaw file. You know how it has a sharp end that you can put in a wooden handle? Well, he sharpened that end on a metal grinder into a really sharp spear, and fitted the other end into a…

While on the subject of unique Englishmen, Guernsey correspondent Al Mitchell tells us about … Action Man! WH: Reckon old mate’s got enough boards? Pointing to man walking down beach track with two new boards underarm. AM: Haha. Reminds me of ACTION MAN. Action Man? This fella back home. Nice enough guy, but delusional about being a waterman. Hang on, I’m gonna record this. Right, speak to me of Action Man. Gets out iPhone and engages voice memo function. OK, he’s got more boards in his car than Base have in their showroom. He’s got these spoon-hull things, handplanes, absurdly pinny boards for the mushy nonsense we get back home. SUPs? Alaias? Definitely Alaias. SUPS, I’m not sure. So … Action Man, always sorted eh. Yeah, but thing is he…

Late in 2014, creative legend Gary “Gaz” Parker, his partner, Leticia “Teash” Nguyen, and a bunch of like-minded souls embarked on a motorcycle tour to Baja and beyond, going under the moniker of “The Howling Sea”. Here’s some dialogue, and Gaz’s great imagery. (More at thehowlingsea.com) “One thing you notice about Baja is the scarcity of vegetation. On arrival at one spot, my initial thought was where does one go to answer the call of nature? Jake gave us newbies the toilet etiquette lowdown.” – Teash JAKE AND TEASH T: What are the rules for pooing around here? J: Well, you walk waaay out into the desert, dig a hole, do your business and then bury it. Oh, and don’t forget to burn the toilet paper, or else the coyotes…

“Pulau Peucang, Sunda Straight, 2010. A group of eight mates take a detour to feed some monkeys, deer and pigs in the Ujong Kulong National Park.” – Ryan Jones RJ: Oi, Stu, take my picture with this monkey while I’m feeding it. SC: Yeah, righto, face me. … Monkey sinks its fangs into Ryan’s wrist. Oh fuck! You little shit! Shit!! Let go you fucker! EM: SCREEAAAAWKEEEEESSZ! Monkey screeches as it’s propelled into the undergrowth by Ryan’s wildly swinging arm. Holy fuck! Did that just happen!? Shit, your wrist’s bleeding. Oi, Olly! Oi, come here, quick! That fucken’ monkey just bit me hey, look, here, on my wrist, it’s bleeding. … Olly trots over. OTG: Fuck! Flustered, Olly takes a moment to compose himself. Um, OK, well, trust me, the…

Few humans can compartmentalise as well as the Alpha East Coast Local. AM: Haha! Well played, you got me again! 5.00pm. At the conclusion of three spirited sets of tennis at the local courts. You must come over for dinner soon. VP: Yeah that would be nice, I’d love to, cheers! OK, we’ll do it … see you tomorrow, waves should be fun in the morning! … 9.00am the next day, after a ruthless burning by Alpha Local on a wave the Pom waited an hour for. Don’t you even farking think of paddling for a wave that I want, you Pommie prick … who do you think you are? Fark off, go on, faaaaaark. … 2.00pm, same day. Phone call from Alpha Local. Hey, fancy a game of tennis?…

Ted Grambeau is the affable godfather of adventure surf photography. A supremely well-travelled fellow who’s humble and generous with his knowledge and experience. White Horses caught up with Ted over a coffee and went through a few images. MANOA AT TEAHUPO’O WH: Geez, how’s the scalloped texture in the water. How’s the lip? Ted: This would be one of my favourite Teahupo’o images, early 2000s I think, before the circus came down on the place every major swell. It’s unpublished. Not any more mate. So. Manoa Drollet? Yeah, it’s interesting, and a little frustrating. Guys like Manoa who have been at the ultimate frontier of what’s really the ultimate wave get paid so little, compared to, say, a kid prodigy. It’s strange. I guess their rewards come in different forms.…

There isn’t much that hasn’t been written or said about Albe Falzon’s definitive movie Morning of The Earth, so it’s lovely to hear a few revelations from the humble guru himself. GH: So – the premiere of Morning Of The Earth. Do you recall how you felt when you were in the theatre, sitting there and the lights went out? Well, I mean you must have been nervous, but at what point, once the film had started, did you think, “OK, I’ve done the right thing here. People like it”. AF: Well, I just remember clearly this moment because we were showing the film at the Manly Silver Screen, right on the beach, and I think there were … it seated four to 600 people … and I remember walking…