Love this relaxed edit from Jason Lesh, Justin Buulolo, Aloha Aerials and Ryan Meichtry. Nice work! Beautiful waves and barrel riding…

The guys from the Surf Station dug this one up. As Matt O said in his blog, Kelly Slater + Rincon = Endless watchability. So true. Rincon is the perfect break for surfers with perfect style of which Kelly is certainly one. Here’s a clinic on style and form. Nice work Michael Kew and crew.

One of Jacksonville’s best kept secrets is the Catty Shack Wildlife Sanctuary. The Sanctuary (A 501-3 non-profit) is currently home to 40 BIG cats, everything from Siberian Tigers to Lions, to Panthers and many more! None of these cats were born in the wild. Rather, they were taken in to be cared for by the non-profit from a variety of different owners, for a variety of different reasons, primarily because the original owners were no longer able to care for them properly. They are open daily for tours and on Friday and Saturday nights you can go watch them being fed at night ($15/pp). It’s quite a scene. Lots of roaring and growling!We took our girls there with a couple of their friends, and they loved it! Here, a couple of the cats start getting restless just before feeding time…

Any wonder why they call this spot the Mentawai Wavepark? The man in the video getting barreled over and over is Christie Carter, official MD for Mentawai Wavepark. Not a bad place for an office.

Check out this incredible time-lapse video featuring thousands of images from the International Space Station stitched together by french photographer and filmmaker, Guillaume Juin. I’m actually a bit of a space geek, always one to be looking up at the sky and checking out celestial events. I love nature and of course, space, as Gene Roddenberry once wrote (and Captain Kirk said), is the final frontier. Thanks Ryan Ketterman for sharing this one with me. Seeing earth and looking out into our universe this way provides such amazing perspective about our world. It reinforces certain beliefs for me. But, I’ll leave you to watch it and formulate your own thoughts. Enjoy it, and go full-screen if you’re able! It’s spectacular!

A screen grab from the WestTown Teaser Video. Click the link to see the video.

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I was going through some old files today, updating my business portfolio on Contently, when I came across this old spot I conceptualized and helped produce in 2007. It was for a pitch we created for WestTown- a planned LEED-certified, mixed-used community that was to be Atlanta’s largest residential development in more than a decade (located in the west-Midtown area, thus the name, “WestTown”). The community was going to be a pioneering effort, expected a draw young professionals, artists, creators and those drawn to the development’s trendy urban location in a redeveloping industrialized area, not far from Georgia Tech. This, as well as its “live-work-play” and “sustainable” qualities. We came up with the theme of, “Go West” playing upon the west-Midtown location and the idea of going “west” for “opportunity”, as the neighborhood was going to offer affordable living in an otherwise expensive area. The video was intended to be a teaser for the community that would ultimately be formatted for both web and television. The music track is a song called, “Haley” from the album “Yuppie Ghetto” by the band, War Called Peace. It’s the closing song on the classic surf video, “Searching for Tom Curren”. Marc Rapp, a super-talented friend, NYC-based Creative Director and former employee at my old agency, Renaissance Creative, handled the digital development. We ended up winning the account. Unfortunately, before getting to market, the real-estate bubble burst, forcing the developer, Brock Built Homes, to put the brakes on the project. Atlanta missed out on what would have been a really cool, high-profile, signature neighborhood. Not to mention a fun, innovative marketing campaign.

When it comes to surf cinematography, a few trends have really propelled the medium forward over the last decade- GoPros; UAVs (Drones); and High-Def Super Slo-Mo, such as that which is showcased in this incredible short film from filmmaker, Chris Bryan, revealing the beauty of surfing at 1,000 frames per second.

This. Is. Incredible.

The opening sequence is a break called, Shipstern’s Bluff, located in Tasmania, an island state in Western Australia. I’ve featured other Shipstern’s clips in this blog that are amazing, but this one provides its own unique experience. Shipstern’s is one of the most dangerous and compelling waves on the planet, and watching fearless surfer Mark Mathews navigate this wave’s multiple shelves and jagged rips at the speed of molasses, is quite spectacular. The clip also features Kelly Slater, John John Florence and others. Check it out!

Wow, here’s another great one from Portugal, shot on a lay day at the Moche Rip Curl Pro. Although the winds were bad at the contest site, they were good up the road and a group of touring pros, including Kelly Slater, Taj Burrow, Mick Fanning, Josh Kerr, Kolohe Andino, Jordy Smith and others put on a brilliant display of surfing. The waves look nearly perfect and this crew really showcases how beautiful and FUN the act of surfing can be.

What can you say about this? Kelly Slater is 42 years old and is still the best surfer on the planet. Watch this clip (filmed on a lay day for the ASP / WSL’s Moche Rip Curl Pro in Portugal) for the “PERIOD” to that statement.

It’s funny how he calls out John John Florence at the end of the video. JJF is the heir to Kelly’s throne (only once Kelly decides to relinquish it). They seem to have a great deal of respect for one another, but are competitors and trade a lot of fun barbs, such as when John John called jokingly called Kelly, “Dad” in a recent clip.

Kelly has stated that he wants to surf better at 50 than he did at 40 and at this point, he’s on track to do it. Here he reminds the young guns who’s still the Top Gun.

I’ve posted some spectacular shots and videos of Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz before. Here’s another one. This spot is so naturally beautiful, and the waves look so fun. I had a friend who lived there for a while and he loved it, although he said it could get crowded and competitive in the water. At the same time. There’s multiple places to sit and plenty of room, overall. I think the only issue I’d be concerned with is the COLD water! But for waves like these, in a place like this… bring on the booties!

Wow, this is pretty crazy- a cardboard surfboard! It was designed by legendary surf shaper Jeff Doc Lausch for Signal Snowboards as part of their Cardboard Chaos video series. They are working with a California-based packaging company, Ernest Packaging, to make crazy things out of paper! They already made a paper snowboard, so they pushed it a bit more and built a surfboard, using a honeycomb design. It’s see-through- they say you can sit on it and watch the fish pass beneath you. Most incredibly, it looks like it rides pretty well, too. Check it out!

What can you say about this? Eric Geiselman is one of the Right Coast’s premiere talents. If you want to see some truly phenomenal surfing- explosive, with near flawless style, just click right here and enjoy. The drone (UAV) videography also reveals what lurks below the surface here in Florida- plenty of sharks. New Smyrna Beach in particular has more than it’s share around the inlet, but Eric is clearly having too much fun to notice.

I think the growing use of the aerial videography is going to continue to reveal what we’ve all been surfing over and around for years, without fully knowing it. I think this will probably make many people more uncomfortable; and a lot of people, more comfortable. While I have had a couple of nerve-wracking run-ins with very large sharks over the years, neither I, nor anyone I know personally has ever been bitten, and I know a lot of people who have spent a ton of time in the ocean here, over many years. Like my own personal encounters and the evidence in this video, it leads me to believe that if sharks were really interested in us as a food source, we’d have figured that out upon stepping in the water on most days.

As a third-generation native of Jacksonville, Florida, I’m not much of a cold weather guy. I start shivering when the water drops below 72. That said, winter surfing does have its appeal, as does the natural beauty of places like this in Vancouver Island. How beautiful is this? Enjoy!

Did she get through her heat?

Had a great time at the 2014 Sisters of the Sea / Saltwater Cowgirls contest on September 6th, at the Jacksonville Beach Pier! What a wonderful event this is for all surfer girls / women of every age and ability. The spirit of the event is really supportive, and I would venture to say that vibe does not come altogether easily or naturally for many women, or surfers. But it sure showed on the beach at this event, which has been held for about 15 years now, I believe. Very proud of Kaelyn who made it through three rounds in the most crowded division (the 12U Whitewaters). 1st place in her first heat; 2nd place in her second heat; and 4th in her third heat. She missed making the final by a single surfer! Arrggh, so close! Sorry, honey! Thanks to all the volunteers, sponsors and photographers, including Joey Wilson, who snapped this one.

Below are a few video clips of Kaelyn. There wasn’t much to ride the day of the contest, so Kaelyn’s strategy was just to ride each wave as far as she could. She had quite a few step-offs during the day. In her semi-final heat, I lined her up outside in what had been our sweet spot all day, but the peak had shifted over with the tide and she couldn’t find quite enough good ones. Oh well, next year!

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Wow- a real work of art. Here’s a video that is not so much about the joy of surfing as the joy of the ocean. Or more essentially, water. Get ready to be completely mesmerized. A stunning creation by Morgan Maasen.

I’ve never surfed Puerto Econdido, but it’s on my bucket list. It’s one of my favorite places to see on film and this is as unique a perspective of the entire scene in a cranking swell, that I have seen. Gotta love that drone videography!

Wow- what can you say about this? This is why I surf. It’s not what most of us experience, but is what most of us chase relentlessly, physically or emotionally. It certainly lends some pretty strong gravity to the feelings that can be achieved gliding on water in the middle of nowhere- someplace tropical, beautiful and empty, save for a few good friends. I love the drone photography here which like the RED cameras and Go-Pros, have and do continue to transforming video into a whole new medium.

Heaving straight up vertical slabs in the middle of nowhere. I love this.

On April 6th, I saved a screen grab from the Ocearch shark tracker mobile app showing a Great White shark, just off a local beach (see images, below). Ocearch is a research group that is catching, tagging and tracking the habits of sharks all over the world. The crew were the first ones to catch, tag and release an Atlantic Great White shark, including one that they caught right off the jetty at the Mayport Poles, perhaps northeast Florida’s most popular surfing spot. They almost caught a second, larger one in the same area. The shark they caught, which they nicknamed, “Lydia”, was 14′ 6″ long and weighed 2,000 lbs. Here’s a video of them catching it:

On April 6th of this year, another Great White that Ocearch had previously caught and tagged in Cape Cod, Massachusetts (which they named, “Katharine” (14′ 2″, 2,300 lbs.) pinged in near shore right at Mickler’s Beach, in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, my own favorite spot and home break (I live just one block away). Exactly one week later, a huge Right Whale washed ashore at Mickler’s and it looked like it had been savaged by sharks, which likely explains one of the reasons why Katharine was in the area. I posted a couple of photos of the whale remains (seen here) on Instagram, and they caused quite a stir when they were picked up and reshared by #Igersjax, the local Instagrammers Club in Jax.

It is a shame to lose such a big, beautiful creature as a Right Whale (which are endangered), but the Great Whites are also pretty magnificent animals. It’s the circle of life. Hopefully, Katharine was full, before pushing on…

Katharine, a 14′ 2″ 2,300 lb. Great White shark pinged in near Mickler’s Beach on April 6th, 2014

These remains of large right whale washed ashore in Ponte Vedra Beach on April 13th, 2014

This remains of a Right Whale that washed ashore in Ponte Vedra on APril 13, 2014

Katharine, the Great White Shark that was near shore at Mickler’s in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL