With over 5,000 entries submitted to the Festival, this is an accomplishment that this exciting film will live up to, in its wide-screen presentation at the majestic Arlington Theater. This film shares the story of the skateboarding dynasty of Powel Peraltas grass roots beginning in Southern California. This is set to be one of the highlights of action sports program “To The Maxxx” at the prestigious Film Festival.

Many other great films are being presented during the ten day long Festival. The homecoming for the filmmaker of SPLINTERS is another special screening. Former Santa Barbara residents, Wes Brown, TJ Barrack, and Director Adam Pesce were all very excited to see their film screen in their hometown. SPLINTERS shares the story of the surfers of Papua New Guinea, to whom surfing is a key to a better life. In Pesce’s directorial debut, he follows four determined surfers leading up to the inaugural Papua New Guinea National Surfing Titles. SPLINTERS just won the Surfer Poll Award for Best Documentary this December in Hawaii at the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore of Oahu.

Director Stacy Peralta is well known with in both the actions sport community as well as his venture into mainstream documentaries. BONES BRIGADE is a personal and exciting film about a group of rag tag youths who turned skateboarding from a fringe pastime to a thrilling action sport and a multi-million dollar industry. Through a series of interviews, BONES BRIGADE team members reveal what it was like to be going through adolescence while struggling with the pressures of their sudden fame, as well as their own fears of inadequacy and defeat. Peralta’s past films include DOGTOWN & ZBOYS, RIDING GIANTS and MADE IN AMERICA.

Another award winning film at the Festival is LOST & FOUND Directed by Douglas Walker. A fascinating documentary on how Doug’s discovery of 30,000 long-lost negatives of old black-and-white photos of surfers at a flea market in Pasadena. They in fact all came at one time from Surfing Magazine and when Doug realized what he had stumbled upon, Walker begins a 3-year journey to find the origin of the photos. The who’s who of surfing past comes alive with the history in these iconic photos.

MINDS IN THE WATER Directed by Justin Krumb, follows the quest of professional surfer Dave Rastovich and his friends to protect dolphins, whales and the oceans they all share. Through Dave’s journey—a five-year adventure spanning the globe from Australia to the Galapagos, Tonga, California, Alaska and Japan—we see one surfer’s quest to activate his community to help protect the ocean and its inhabitants. From time spent on the anti whaling ship The Sea Sheppard to Takigi Bay in Japan Justin share what can be done to protect the ocean. Krumb is a longtime activist himself, focusing his time to bring more awareness to the oceans circle of life.

Dave Homcy is well known as one of surfing top cinema photographers. EL MAR, MI ALMA Directed by Stephen Jones, was filmed on location in Chile and shares the classic surf road trip with soul surfer Dave Rastovich and his passion for the nonprofit Surfers for Cetaceans.

Shaping of surfboards is a respected craft and art and BOARDROOM Directed by Marcus David, will have its World Premiere at the Festival. Before the big surf corporations, a handful of pioneers and watermen were building wooden surfboards in their garages. BOARDROOM honors the shapers of yesterday and today!

All of these new surf films are part of the “To The Maxxx” Programmed by Russ Spencer who has been with the Festival for a number of years. His insight and passion has lead this part of the Festival to be an audience favorite. These films are sure to have everyone excited about surfing’s rich history and community. Look for these films coming to your area soon! For more information or to purchase tickets please visit sbiff.org

The project developer, Hansa Urbana and the Mexican authorities allegedly orchestrated the terms of the announcement of the reinstatement of the project’s building permits and arranged the way the developer was going to react when the “partial” permits were publicly announced.

As a result of these revelations, Mexico’s Minister of the Environment, Rafael Elvira Quezada, was summoned to appear before Mexico’s Congress.

Mexico’s Senate is working to better understand the procedures that were followed which authorized the controversial real estate development of Cabo Cortes, located adjacent to one of the most robust marine protected areas on the planet, and the only coral reef in the Sea of Cortes.

During his appearance Elvira must reveal the details of the authorization process and update the future steps of that process in order to re-authorize parts of the polemic project that have been suspended.

The Senate has expressed that Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park is protected by international agreements. They also highlighted the fact that the “plan de ordenamiento ecologico” of Los Cabos – approved in 2011 — forbids building on costal dune ecosystems.

WiLDCOAST continues its effort to preserve one of the world’s most beautiful marine ecosystems and the home to whale sharks, humpback whales, sea turtles and schools of sharks.

For more information on Cabo Pulmo, please go to our website www.wildcoast.net or contact our Baja California Sur Field Coordinator Cecilia Fischer.

“Riding hulls is all about the feeling,” enthuses Alex. He then goes on to explain the feeling of speed you get from being deeper in the water, connecting more deeply with the wave and how he loves the way you can do whole rail grab turns or whip it back off the fin even on the smallest of waves. When I asked about the drawback of riding hulls, Alex explains, “they can be tricky with the waves here in Cornwall, which can make you do some weird surfing. If you want to surf hulls though, then you just get on with it. I enjoy knowing I have my own unique style when I surf and don’t care if it looks weird.”

Alex Rowse

This journey of hull riding excess started when Alex purchased a Michael Peterson inspired Fineline Surfboards Hull, whilst visiting California. “I bought the board after becoming interested in MP’s surfing but when I took it down to the beach I had a terrible time trying to ride it. They really are hard to work out at first but I was stuck with using it as I had no other board.” On that same trip Alex found himself at a party, where he met Brian Hilbers, owner and shaper of Fineline Surfboards. “Meeting Brian at the party was bizarre. He was so drunk that he dropped this big plastic mug full of booze on the floor, where it landed flat on its bottom and the entire contents bounced back up and all over him. But he just carried on with his manic explanation of riding hulls with out a pause,” says Alex. This chance encounter helped Alex to work the new board out and adjust his style to suit it.

Since then Alex hasn’t looked back and developed a quiver of Californian hulls, including boards by Ryan Lovelace as well as Brian Hilbers. This summer Alex joined the Empire Surfboards team and has been working with shaper Steve Croft to create hulls that are more forgiving at UK beach breaks. Steve explained how they achieved this – “basically, the boards have slightly less hull, a little more hip and are flatter or have slightly more vee in the tail than perhaps a classic California displacement hull would have. So, these hulls still displace water to sit deeper in the wave, have the trademark bladey rails and all the characteristics of riding a hull but will react quicker.”

Hull concept board

I asked Alex what the best thing about riding displacement hulls is, “with a hull you can strip surfing back because you don’t you have to do lot of turns and that intrinsic feeling of speeding along in the wave, it’s just a blast.”

Photos by Alexa Poppe.

Rowley and his girlfriend/videographer Minnie Vuong, from Torquay Victoria, have based themselves in Hawaii for three months to catch and document the monster North Pacific winter storm surf. Rowley and Vuong flew from the island of Oahu to Maui Tuesday night, and arrived at the infamous Peahi ‘Jaws’ cliff top before sunrise to see the 50-60 foot waves (15-18m) for the first time.

The surf at Peahi, aka “Jaws”, is considered the worlds biggest and most dangerous and until recently has been considered impossible to catch and ride without the use of a jet ski ‘tow-in’ and foot straps.

Rowley and a small group of big wave surfers including Shane Dorian and Garret McNamara pushed the boundaries of big wave surfing by refusing to ‘tow-in’ and choosing to ‘paddle-in’ to the monster waves.

“The waves were moving about 50k’s an hour and the wind was absolutely howling so every instinct is telling you it cant be done, but we did it- its unbelievable” Rowley said. In doing so Rowley became the first Australian surfer to paddle into the infamous waves at Jaws. I’m so proud to be the first Aussie to paddle in at Jaws, it was a historic day and we pushed the limits and survived”.

During the historic session Rowley rode a special 10’2” (3m) Al Merrick quad fin surfboard designed for 30-40 foot (10-12m) waves, but it nearly wasn’t enough. “My 10’2” is my biggest board but Jaws is so big and so powerful it felt like I was riding a toothpick- I need an 11 foot plus board!” Rowley and other surfers surfaced from wiping out under the waves thanks to buoyancy jackets and a new emergency inflatable airbag wetsuit. “Having a buoyancy jacket and the emergency inflatable wetsuit definitely gave me piece of mind that I would surface after a wipe-out, I don’t want to surf big waves again without one.”

Rowley’s biggest ride involved a vertical freefall take off from the top of a wave, which could have ended in disaster. “I was going to catch that wave no matter what happened, it was massive and I was in the right position and it was my time to go for it. I stood up and the wind hit me and tried to rip my board from under my feet as I started freefalling, I couldn’t see a thing but I pushed down as hard as I could and made the ride. It was like trying to catch and ride a Tyrannosaurus Rex with your bare hands- the best thrill but you’re so glad to be alive”.

Rowley’s biggest wave fulfilled his personal ‘Charge For Charity’ quest to paddle-in to a 50-foot wave whilst raising money for Breast Cancer Australia. “I caught the biggest wave of my life and achieved my goal wave height- now I am asking people to donate.”

To donate to Rowley’s Charge For Charity, visit www.jeffrowley.com for details.

Rowley’s rides from Jaws will be entered into the 2011-12 Billabong XXL Global Big Wave surfing awards. Rowley remains in Hawaii preparing for more giant surf which may hit somewhere in the North Pacific in coming weeks. The 2010/11 XXL awards were won by Shane Dorian and Danilo Couta with rides at Jaws last year.

There is now overwhelming evidence that we humans are altering the planet in such a way that, if we carry on at the present rate, it will soon cease to support us. In other words, our present way of living is not sustainable.

The major problems, which all feed off each other, include a population spiralling out of control, resources being depleted millions of times faster than they are naturally replaced and by-products of our energy consumption changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, which, in turn, is changing the climate. Most people refuse to believe these problems are real. They are afraid to reduce their consumer-based lifestyles because they think that the more they consume the happier they will be.

Thankfully, some people still get pleasure from ‘natural’ activities – things that money can’t buy. Traditionally, surfers have always been among these people. With a minimum of equipment we use a very small amount of the ocean’s energy to make us happy. We know that, after being out in the ocean at dawn with perfect waves and a light offshore wind, the feeling of owning a 42-inch television or a more expensive car than your next-door neighbour pales into insignificance.

However, surfing nowadays involves a lot of travelling and a lot of consuming of goods and energy before the waves themselves are actually ridden. Compared with a few decades ago, surfers are now consuming just as many, if not more natural resources as other members of society. The extra consumption is not seen as an end in itself, but simply a means of getting to the waves quicker to get more surfing done on better equipment. So, before we start to persuade other members of society to become more sustainable, we need to do the same ourselves.

Aimed principally at surfers, the book is divided into three main sections: our excessive use of energy, our obsession with getting from one place to another as fast as possible, and our over-consumption of material goods. Each section begins by explaining what we are doing wrong, and then goes on to suggest how we can put things right for ourselves and, lastly, how we can persuade others to do the same.

For more information check out the book at Amazon’s Store.

We gather in the park opposite the beach at Currumbin as before. So get your boards ready and bring the family and a picnic lunch. Look forward to meeting you all next year.

Please remember it is a non competitive and non commercial gathering of board riders and builders of these sweet craft.

It’s about shapers who craft these boards and those of us who enjoy the ride. Each year we see many new ideas on the the original theme and that’s what is great about the evolution of the fish. If you are not a shaper bring your fish and enjoy the stoke and celebrate the fish with everyone else who enjoys the ride.

If you have pics of boards you are building please feel free to email me or check the web site.