White Horses

The uncomfortably small canoe was barely wider than my hips. We’d been hunched over for several hours with our knees almost up around our ears. Every lurch from a tug on the rudder or shove from a passing log threatened to knock us into the drink and

Believe it or not, I’d wanted to go to the Marshalls ever since I was a little tacker. As a kid I was more interested in looking for seashells than anything else, and it was kind of a fantasy to look at maps of the world. I remember looking at the Ma

The best wave in the country is guarded by a notorious local. He patrols his spot with tough skin and a sly wink. The right-hander peels empty most of the year, with only frigates and sea life to witnesses its ethereal perfection. We had a week. Jake

Shamali Sanjaya, a confident, 30-year-old mother and surfer from the small Sri Lankan town of Arugam Bay, serves as the president of the country’s first all-female surf club. She leads group meetings, organises beach cleanups and co-ordinates surf tr

When I think of my good friend FX and years gone by, I have to cast my mind back to the early days in Tahiti. Originally, the reason I ended up going there so often was because the Qantas flights from Sydney to Los Angeles could not make it in one ju

I looked again to the east, hoping for the greyness of dawn to arrive. I was huddled down with seven other people in a makeshift bed made of two tandem paragliders. My body ached, we had no food and our only jug of water had been contaminated with sa

I saw the boat approaching from the horizon, travelling at a rate of knots. Even from a distance I could make out that it was a local style longboat, and the wing-like plumes of white spray being propelled skyward indicated that its driver was redlin

Pio lives in a small village a two-day walk from the nearest town centre, or a three-hour boat ride if you have the cash and contacts. He has never made the journey to the other side of the island or visited any of the small stores that sell imported

Yvon Chouinard told me about it. We were chatting about travel, eating sashimi and drinking beer astern a yacht in the Tuamotus. Founder of Patagonia, Chouinard had seen much of the tropics – surfing, sailing, exploring, bonefishing – but he hadn’t s

Directly in front of the Chatham Hotel pub is a little curve in the shoreline that produces a perfect, peeling right. It’s not a real wave, as in rideable – it’s barely ankle high, and breaks right on shore – but if you were GI Joe it’d be six-foot S

What the fuck is that?” George pointed at the box and looked at me. I shook my head. The large cardboard box was tied to the makeshift wooden sidecar of an old scooter. There were holes poked into the top. “What is that?” Charl asked the man on the s

It’s been almost five years since I left the Island. The night terrors don’t come as often now but when they do, I wake up drenched, tangled, drowning in hot water. The Island sits thousands of kilometres from the nearest landmass. Surrounded by the

“Just don’t swim in front of him!” I was warned before I got into the water. “It makes him feel uncomfortable”. I nodded empathically, but thought to myself: I’m about to get in the water to photograph a three-ton, ocean-swimming elephant. How can I

I brought my young family from Sydney to Port Moresby in 1990 on a three-year work assignment for the national PNG telco. The capital city was a pretty rough back then. Friends back home thought we were mad and wondered if we’d come back alive – they

With a light breeze on the mainsail and a two foot swell slapping the hull, I raised the bottle to the setting sun and watched the rum glow a deep rich caramel as it met my lips. There was simply no greater set of circumstances. I nodded my head, too

The hire-car groaned as it lurched and rolled from side to side. Once we’d crawled slowly through the ditch, we trundled along a stretch of washboard track that set our teeth rattling, before gearing down again to take on another ditch. My body brace

By Marianna Campbell | St Lucia QLD Subscriber since issue 30 As long as I can remember our family holidays have been surf trips. We definitely favour tropical island destinations over trips requiring steamers. In the early ’80s my parents took six m

I still distinctly recall the first time I saw Marie-Pascale. It was the 1986 ASP banquet held at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel – that imposing pink monolith built between the two great wars. I was 17 and had been dating a pro surfer on the tour for a few

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