Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 421 i Surfing World Magazine

The beautiful Birrarang (Yarra River) that runs into Nairm has played a significant part in our history, representing a time of change. The Dreamtime story has been passed on and was even documented by the first European settlers in a conversation with one of our Boonwurrung elders under a meeting tree in Hobsons Bay. See, Nairm wasn’t always a bay filled with water. The Birrarang (meaning ‘River of Mist’), was a smaller wurneet (creek) that passed through a large, flat, grassy plain before running into the warreeny (ocean) as a waterfall near Portsea. Nairm was a rich and plentiful hunting ground, filled with guyeem (kangaroo) and barraeemal (emu). The shorelines were home to bush food like murrnong (yam daisy) and walert (possum). Unfortunately, around 10,000 years ago, people of the…

Lots of questions, the obvious first. What was he doing here? Ted doesn’t need a reason to be anywhere, but I ask regardless. “Soooo… it’s little bit awkward at the moment,” he answers with a nod toward the car. “Sort of… jumping around from place to place right now.” Ted was currently homeless, by choice. Before leaving for Portugal, he’d packed up his Gold Coast apartment, put everything in storage, and moved out. Now back in Australia he was bouncing between friends’ houses, travelling around the country at a loose end. “I’ve always got a room wherever I go,” he offered with a chuckle. “I’m finding out who my friends are, although it’s generally a three-day limit with their hospitality.” For most people, becoming homeless marks some kind of rock…

“I had nothing,” recalls Don Munro bluntly of his upbringing in Maroubra. “I came from a very poor background.” Like most young surfers in the ‘60s, before any real surf industry existed, Don went straight into a trade, starting out as a panel beater. But like many young surfers from Maroubra, he wasn’t short on ambition and already had a plan to get out of there. “My mother was in the rag trade. She was a specialist sample hand. She was not just a good seamstress, she had a good design sense too and I bear the fruits of her abilities when it comes to design. I look at things a little bit different to other people.” Don married early, and with wife Linda spent two years in South Africa,…

Phillip Island Boardriders Club turned 60 earlier this year; young against the span of an ancient continent, old enough to be hugely significant to the social fabric of the island today. Mal Gregson – life member, club legend, still shredding north of 60 – recalls how the club was formed back in ’63. “The Stephenson and Kavanagh brothers – along with San Remo fisherman David ‘Yardo’ Johnson and Peter Connelly – were the genesis. They chose two blues representing the sky and the ocean as the club colours.” The first club champion was John ‘Jerka’ Jenkins with Geoff Hasforth winning the juniors. Robert Hosking – 15 at the time – is still dragging on the singlet 60 years later. In 1969 the club came up with $200 for a contest…

Last year they spent two weeks up in the Aleutian Islands. It’s a long way from Bells, but for Ben it’s an area he’d already spent plenty of time in. Last year’s trip was his sixth. On his first trip, he’d put his van on a ferry to Alaska, then drove it back, surfing his way south. He fell for the waves, the mountains, driftwood beach fires and elemental landscapes that drove the journey inward. “I saw a guy riding his pushbike, solo, with a trailer, towing a surfboard,” he recalls. “I was like, what? How hardcore. That really stayed in my mind.” Soon after Ben met an American surfer in Nicaragua, and the pair hatched an idea to head out into the Aleutians, off the coast of Alaska, which…

Ethan Ewing almost went one better and became this year’s world champ. He fell just a couple of points shy, and for a few fleeting moments that day Australian surf fans – and the whole of Stradbroke Island – dared to dream. Outwardly, world champ or not, you wouldn’t see much change in his demeanour. That’s Ethan. The world title would’ve been great – if nothing else for the scenes on Straddie – but where he’s taken performance surfing over the past two years might, in time, be the more significant marker. World titles are a little arbitrary in modern times. This year, there’s been nothing arbitrary about Ethan’s forehand slice. So true has his forehand been, that it singlehandedly forced the judges to change how they judged. They’ve weighted…

And this one guy. The guy is riding a short mal, not quite a mini-mal. He has large facial features and is wearing a hat. He’s a competent surfer. He also loves to talk. He gets into a conversation with Hannah, then he gets into one with me. He tells us both quite a bit about himself – recently moved from Sydney, surfs every day, doesn’t mind if this spot is a bit sub-standard because it keeps down the numbers, and he’ll swap quality for quantity most days. He and I both catch waves, so we’re paddling out when Han gets her own wave, and I shout out, “Yeah!” Then, as me and the guy sit up on our boards to wait for the next set, he looks over to…

“I flew from Mexico City to London and I was standing at the carousel and none of my shit turned up. No boards, no bags. Nothing. Nobody knew where it was. They had no record of it. I’d lined everything up for me to arrive in Namibia at the primo time for the swell, and I only had a six-hour layover before my Jo’burg flight. I was like, this is not happening. I had four brand-new Pyzels in there, a whole magic quiver. They didn’t turn up in London and they still haven’t turned up now, weeks later. The best bit was they charged me $500 excess baggage for them. Anyway, I decided to wing it, jump on the flight and find boards at the other end. My dad was…

The human brain does some mighty weird shit when exposed to the cold. An ice cream headache, or brain freeze, is your body’s unsubtle way of letting you know it’s cold out. It does this by stabbing you between the eyes with hot needles. Your first duckdive assaults you awake. After the second you see god and sprout rainbows from your ears. Dunk three is the devil’s work, punishment for sins uncounted. Four duckdives and you’re out. Out of the water, into your heated car, and off to buy a neoprene hood. Science has a less interesting take on what it calls a “cold-stimulus headache” (sphenopalatine ganglion neuralgia). Your brain itself doesn’t get cold, even when your head frigging throbs. Your brain is insulated by protective tissue and cerebro-spinal fluid.…