Surfer

Can one wave change your life? It’s a question I’ve pondered a few times, typically after a really good day of surfing (e.g., when you somehow make a bottomed-out, Santa Ana-groomed barrel that was actually way beyond your skill level) or a really ba

Words by SEAN DOHERTY Photos by RYAN CRAIG Dave Rastovich looks like he’s been washed ashore. He is lying on the southern edge of the Australian landmass, on a beach, on a spongy bed of rotting seaweed, in repose, hands folded across his chest, legs

By ASHTYN DOUGLAS In early March of this year, a low-pressure system blitzed through the Western Atlantic and delivered some of the biggest waves the Dominican Republic had seen in over a decade. At La Puntilla, the island’s premier big-wave spot, lo

Words by NATE ZOLLER Photos by DYLAN GORDON Sir Ernest Shackleton was a pioneer in what is now called the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Underfunded and overambitious, Shackleton set out to cross the entirety of Antarctica via the South Pole by

By JUSTIN HOUSMAN A stubborn, selfish man, who I very much doubt even visits the ocean, might forever change the way we view beach access in California. For what seems like a decade now, Vinod Khosla, an obscenely-wealthy man in Silicon Valley, has f

During the last week of July, one of the biggest swells to ever march through the Southern Indian Ocean assailed the islands of Indonesia with unrelenting waves. On the island of Nias, locals and visiting surfers watched an ever-growing blob in the s

By TODD PRODANOVICH According to esteemed historian, author and former SURFER editor Matt Warshaw, it’s an uphill battle getting surfers to click on links with terms like “history” and “encyclopedia” in the headline. “People hear those two words and

The midweek crowd at Ala Moana Bowls on the south shore of Oahu was light despite the dreamy shoulder-high left-handers consistently peeling along the reef. But even with plenty of waves to go around, the small local crew fell into an exclusive rotat

By MATTHEW SHAW On a warm June day, under Indonesia’s harsh midday sun, a row of soft turquoise peaks is stacking up and bending into a wide cove tucked neatly behind a headland overrun by tropical greenery. A pack of 10 or so local surfers scraps fo

By WILL BENDIX Photos By ALAN VAN GYSEN An old air conditioner rattled on the wall of the sterile, beige room as the visa agent dropped a thick mound of paperwork in front of me with a thud. The small Durban, South Africa, office was sweltering, yet

By ZANDER MORTON The public perception of surfers has come a long way since their portrayal in 1982’s “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” but surfers still battle stereotypes, especially around school campuses. Just ask any surfer who’s come to class wit

By ASHTYN DOUGLAS Photos By WOODY WOODWORTH On the 14th floor of the towering Central Civil West Courthouse in Los Angeles, the clock on the wall of a small, oak-paneled courtroom ticked past 10:15 a.m. as judge Carolyn Kuhl emerged from her chambers

By ASHTON GOGGANS Photos By NICOLA LUGO No one knows exactly how or when the Canary Islands were first settled, but the indigenous Guanches people existed on them, 60 miles off the southern coast of Morocco, for centuries before the Spanish conquest

By TODD PRODANOVICH For the highly anticipated third season of “Planet Earth,” set for release this fall on BBC, Sir David Attenborough and his film crew went to Southern California for a look at some truly unique creatures. “Lower Trestles was an ob

By ASHTON GOGGANS 78 “San Simeon, CA,” 2014 79 “British Columbia,” 2016 80 “Derrick Disney, San Francisco, CA,” 2017 81 “January Storm,” 2017 82 “Samoa Beach, Humboldt, CA,” 2016 83 “Maui,” 2014 84 “Topanga Canyon, CA” 2015 Few young artists avoid th

As told to ASHTYN DOUGLAS “The love of surfing is universal. Everybody loves to get shacked. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, what religion you believe in or what your skin color is.” Surfing keeps kids off the streets. It gives them someth

By JUSTIN HOUSMAN I was in a bar the other night when somebody played the Pearl Jam song “Corduroy” from “Vitalogy” on the jukebox. The rollicking guitar and raspy vocals instantly catapulted me back to high school in Morro Bay, California, when I li

By ZANDER MORTON For the most part, big-wave guns have looked much the same for the last few decades. Sure, shapers have made incremental changes to volume, fin placement, rocker, bottom contours, etc., but the general shape of a big-wave surfboard l