We have come out of our winter slumber and into the Spring of Springs. The surf on the mid north coast has been variable but fun and a break can always be found according to wind direction.
We are pleased to see Ellie Brooks rocketing up the ranks and gaining sponsorship with Rusty. A well deserved reward for relentless effort. You will find earlier articles on Ellie through our blog archive at side of page.
Some other update news: The Canon 7D and 500mm Sigma lens are the ducks nuts - good investment.
The plan for another major film release is on track for Feb 2014.
The plan for the studio to have a long term and sustainable future is on track
Surf Art will be an additional feature and we are hoping to have resident
artists on board soon.
ABOVE ALL WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU!!!!! COME AND VISIT.
1248 MARIA RIVER ROAD CRESCENT HEAD.
We were flicking through a surf mag the other day, and came across an article about Herbie Fletcher. Yeah I know, who is he? or oh yeah I recognise the name from somewhere? Well he is the father of Christian Fletcher and Nathan Fletcher. I think Christian has made some sort of impact on being a bit of a wild boy, talented surfer, and also had issues. Who cares? If I am not mistaken, I think it was Christian Fletcher who first started doing Airs? Anyway he is a charger.
Back to Herbie Fletcher......Herbie is 64 years old and is in great shape, given the generation he grew up with. That age demographic were heavily into the experimental drugs like LSD, heroin and the like. You may view todays 64-65 years olds as old weirdos, and of course you have that right, but jesus they were at the leading edge of everything great and everything bad. Some made it out the other side and others did not. Herbie made it and look at him now.
He grew up in Huntington Beach, in the late 1950s but at the leading edge of change in surfboard design and everything else that was new. He was very familiar with competition as Huntington was pretty close to the only place that had surf contests.
He now lives in Hawaii, as in the day, there was no other surf destination that could produce waves the size power and perfection of Hawaii. Pipeline was tested and triumphed and along with Garry Chapman, Herbie opened up backdoor pipeline. A first. That was is 1967 when Herbie made Hawii his home.
Jimi Hendrix and other great music icons would go and party in Hawaii and Herbie got to be friends with all of them. These guys were serious "life testers".
One statement by Herbie in the article seems to have hit home with me and my observations on the subject, and it is in relation to drugs........"Great surfers have a lot of adrenalin and they like the rush, you know. So when they get involved they go far and so it's hard to get out from underneath it too. We've seen a lot of them go that way. It's sad........"
I am sure surfers in the future will be quoting Kelly Slater, and other modern day surfers. They will be relating stories of bad trips in nightclubs and how they got through it. They will talk about a guy called Andy Irons who like a shooting start was here and gone. Just like Michael Peterson, different souls, adrenalin seekers, haunted or hunted.
It doesn't matter, because the endearing thing about surfing is its ability to have a history, to have an evolution and to cleanse itself. It truly is a brother and sister hood that only surfers understand.
That is why we love it and we film it, and it is not all in the water..............................
It gets in the blood and changes perspective........just like drugs.
Aloha
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