Surfer

I remember changing into my wetsuit on the sidewalk in the twilight, watching lanky egrets stand statuesque in the Oneonta Slough, a winding offshoot of the Tijuana River that fronts the southern stretch of coastal Imperial Beach, California. The qui

I recently sat down at a bar in the San Diego airport while waiting for a flight to San Francisco, and the bartender and I got to talking about surfing. He asked me what my home break was, and when I told him Ocean Beach, his eyes widened. “Whoa, you

“People are aware of the issues the environment is facing now and are working to help. But this problem isn’t going away easily. All of us need to act.” Having a career in surfing is a surreal thing. I first realized that it was possible when I was 1

“The Challenge from Down Under”: This is a mad piece, in every sense of the word. Mad-angry, mad-crazy, mad-funny. It is nine pages of barbed wire dipped in psilocybin, wrapped in a gorgeous afternoon of waves at Honolua. You know the day: Bob McTavi

Surfers often follow a herd mentality. (Haven’t you noticed that every time you pick an empty beachbreak peak to paddle out at, someone will paddle up right next to you rather than to the identical empty peak down the beach?) For better or for worse,

Last summer, Florida’s Treasure Coast found itself under siege by an unusual enemy: a noxious, guacamole-like cyanobacterium, more commonly known as blue-green algae, which had overrun waterways and contaminated many local beaches. The invasive algae

In late 2008, Surfing magazine ran a cover image of what appeared to be an endless left-hand sand-bottom barrel, accompanied by a blurb that read, “20-Second Tubes: On Location in Africa.” The story inside introduced the world to what might be the be

Would Kelly Slater have won 11 world titles if not for his formative sessions at Sebastian Inlet? Could John Florence have become the best surfer in the world if Pipeline didn’t exist? It can’t be overstated how much influence one wave can have on a

While details are vague concerning which swell direction and conditions are required to bring this rare righthand barrel to life in Italy, it’s clear that the break was first created by a freak accident roughly five years ago. “They were working on t

The landscape of the Solomon Islands is the stuff of travel brochures. But as beautiful as the scenery may be, the country is steadily losing land to rising sea levels. Not far from this island, five other islands have been completely swallowed by th

Between the Northern Baja cities of Rosarito and Ensenada lies a stretch of coast wholly unrelated to either municipality. For the traveler heading south on Mexican Federal Highway 1, on crossing a bridge at the south end of La Fonda, this stark regi

Since 2011, Praia do Norte has drawn thousands of visitors to witness Portugal’s newly-famous big-wave break. The view from Sitio, looking down on Nazaré’s beachside promenade and more tranquil surf zone. On big winter swells, though, water will cros

The quote on the previous spread, from the very first issue of SURFER, is easily the most iconic line in the magazine’s history. It says a lot about what surfing is all about; it also says a lot about what John Severson was all about. Severson was a