How’s this for a concept? The Tasmanian Surf Life Saving Association is going to teach big wave chasers “safety survival skills to help them when out in the water”. You can check out the video news item on the ABC’s website by clicking here.

The wind came up late and that meant there were glassy and solid conditions at Dee Why on Weds morning, tthe 26th of May. I had Sony’s ultra-slim waterproof DSC-TX5 tucked into my wettie so I shot a few stills and some high def video. The weather was rainy and grey, so the action’s not too colourful but the little camera worked quite well. I put about a minute and a bit of clips together along with a taste of a Dave Kowalski tune. Enjoy!

Watching this made me want to go surfin’! These guys look like they’re having so much fun on all kinds of different water vectors.
Kudos to Nathan Oldfield for another good one…

Critical Sliders from Nathan Oldfield on Vimeo.

This is something I made for my friends at The Critical Slide Society. It features the slipperyisms of Sage Joske, Kameron Brown, Brett Calller, Jacob Stuth & Matt Cuddihy.

For more Critical Slide goodness please visit: thecriticalslidesociety.com/ & criticalslidesociety.blogspot.com/.

The song is called ‘Let Go’ by The Villainares. For more Villainares shizniz please go to: http://myspace.com/thevillainaresband.

Thanks for watching a freefilms.com.au thing.

Highlights reel from 2009 Billabong Bali Pro Junior

Billabong Pro Junior Bali
Tuesday July 21st to Monday July 27th 2009
Association of Surfing Professionals Australasia Grade-5 Rated
Prize Money – $AUS30 000
Keramas/Bali

An epic final day at the Billabong Pro Junior – Bali
Performance surfing in 5 feet perfect barrelling Keramas, one of the world’s highest performance waves.
Great Barrel rides, huge scores and celebrations as Australia’s Dean Bowen
takes the final at the Billabong Pro Junior Bali – the Association of
Surfing Professionals (ASP) only rated event in Indonesia for 2009.
www.aspaustralasia.com

Billabong Pro J-Bay 2009 finals highlights

Check out the J-Bay 2009 finals highlights reel from www.billabong.com on RealSurf.tv.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Layne Beachley at Cape Solander (video hosted on surfline.com)(aka “ours”). It was shot by none other than Tim Bonython. Very, very impressive pit!

Pic grabbed from online ver. of video by Tim Bonython.

CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO THE VIDEO ON REALSURF.tv
The nominees have just been announced for the 2009 BILLABONG XXL GLOBAL BIG WAVE AWARDS. Regarded as the Oscars of surfing, the BILLABONG XXL AWARDS recognize the athletes who ride the biggest and best waves over the last year everywhere in the world, based on the photographic evidence. The ninth-annual event hands out over $130,000 in cash prizes in an array of categories including the Ride of the Year, the XXL Biggest Wave, Monster Paddle and Monster Tube. Here are the nominees for the Ride Of The Year Category, check all the rides on www.billabongxxl.com

You know how it is. You’ve seen a name someplace and somehow it’s associated in your mind with “good”. Somewhere along the way I’d heard about this guy called Seasick Steve, so when I heard he was playing in Sydney, I checked youtube to see if I could find any of his clips.

There are heaps of them.

And the guy is a phenomenon. His kit is straight out of a junk yard:  a stomp box,  a trashed three-string (!)  guitar and a slide. He looks and sounds like the kinda guy you find up the back of a truck repair shop somewhere in the deep South.

But does he get on it!

Cut my wings

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Doghouse boogie

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Save me

a brief interview with Seasick Steve

Came across this very interesting video of Gerry Lopez and Jock Sutherland talking about the history and their experiences of Pipeline. It’s part one of six and in this episode they give us brief bios before Gerry talks about trying to surf Pipe the first time in 1962 – and meeting Jock, who already had it wired. Although we see the two champions bantering on a dimly lit stage (they’re actually at the Patagonia surf shop in Cardiff, California) , their chat is liberally illustrated with great stills pictures from Jeff Divine and Surfer magazine.

Discovery credit goes to dailysurfvideo.com which looks like a site to add to the bookmarks!

More about Mr Lopez in my post entitled Where’s Gerry

Sharks that jump out of the water and spin are apparently reasonably common along the coast of Florida*.  In this short video you can see one of these critters in full flight just behind a guy on a mal…

*According to the map accompanying this entry in wikipedia, the same species can be found in Australian waters.