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About the Editors
PAUL DIAMOND grew up in Washington, D.C. He worked as a photojournalist for United Press International in Pittsburgh and later taught writing at Ohio University and Tulane University. He now lives in Seattle and works as a writer and editor most of the year. He spends his summers with a pack of kids at surf camps in Oahu, Costa Rica, and Baja California.

TYLER McMAHON grew up in Virginia. For three years he worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer building rural aqueducts in El Salvador. Now he teaches writing in Idaho and surfing in Southern California. Tyler will complete his MFA in fiction from Boise State in 2007.

Contributors
Fernando Aguerre |  Shawn Alladio |  Steve Barlotti |  John Brasen |  Carlos Burle
Susan Chaplin |  Butch Connor |  Chris Cote |  Joe Doggett |  Rick Doyle |  Ran Elfassy
John Forse |  Terry Gibson |  Jenny Hedley |  Glenn Hening |  Buzzy Kerbox |  Nate Lawrence
Ben Marcus |  Michael Migdol |  Nathan Myers |  Steve Pezman |  Jeff Phillips |  Bruce Savage
Magilla Schaus |  Jamie Tierney |  Mark "Finger" Taylor |  Rex Witkamp

FERNANDO AGUERRE was born and raised in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. In high school, he organized and disc-jockeyed parties of 2,000 people or more on weekend nights. The local military mayor of the city banned his parties. So he turned his attention back to his favorite sport, surfing. A year later, in 1977, the military banned surfing in Argentina. In response, Fernando founded the Argentinean Surfing Association, which eventually lifted the military ban. In 1979, Fernando, along with his brother and mother, opened the Ala Moana Surfshop in Mar del Plata. While Fernando attended law school, the surf shop evolved into one of the leading beach clothing manufacturers in Argentina. In 1984, with a law degree in hand, Fernando turned down job offers and left Argentina to visit his brother, Santiago, in San Diego, California. Soon thereafter, Fernando and Santiago were leading 500 visitors a year on guided surf tours to Isla Natividad in Baja California, Mexico. In 1985, Fernando and Santiago used their $4,000 in savings to start Reef. The two-man, one-desk operation sold 3,000 pairs of flip-flops in its first year. Reef quickly became the largest beach sandal company in the world. In early 2005, the Aguerre brothers sold their remaining shares of Reef. Currently, Fernando is the president of the International Surfing Association (ISA). He surfs as much as he can at Windansea, his home break in La Jolla, California.

SHAWN ALLADIO is the founder of K38 Water Safety and K38 Maritime Security Training. She is the mother of two and one of the few women to venture into the men’s world of extreme big-wave surfing. There are many brave men who aren’t asleep in the deep because of Shawn Alladio. She is one of the world’s most experienced personal watercraft (PWC) drivers in heavy water conditions. She has a thriving business teaching PWC driving and rescue techniques. She educates law enforcement, lifeguards, tow surfers, and the military. She is the only female instructor in the entire Navy SEALS program. She also provides water safety management to big-wave contests around the world. As a professional PWC racer, she holds national and world titles for endurance racing. In 2005, Shawn was awarded the National Award of the National Water Safety Congress for superior efforts in education. And, since 1993, she has represented 200,000 registered PWC owners through the California Department of Boating and Waterways.

STEVE BARILOTTI, Surfer magazine’s editor-at-large, began surfing in Santa Barbara as a teenager. During his tenure as staff editor for Surfer, from 1989-91, Barilotti covered the gamut of the surf scene and co-launched the award-winning Beach Culture magazine. A veteran photojournalist with more than 500 articles and photos published worldwide, the ever-nomadic “Barlo” has ventured to the most remote fringes of the surfing frontier over the last decade. Steve’s essays were recently featured in the anthology The Perfect Day and The Surfer’s Journal’s book of portfolios of renowned surf photographers Art Brewer and Ted Grambeau. A Southern California native, Barilotti is currently working on an anthology of his own work, as well as several documentaries.

JOHN BRASEN is the editor of Pacific Longboarder magazine (since 2001), and before that was co-publisher of the Australian Surfer’s Journal (1998- 2000). A sporadic contributor to Tracks and Surfing World since the 1970s, his former guises include extended stints as a musician, darkroom operator, photographer, advertising copy writer, scaffolder, steel fixer, bartender, banana farmer, brick layer, truck driver, and commercial fisherman. A lifetime surfer, he is fifty-three years old, lives at Noosa Heads in Queensland, Australia, and surfs every day possible . . . a longboard at the points and a mid-length at the beachbreaks.

CARLOS BURLE was born in Pernambuco, Brazil, and now lives in Rio. His father, a chicken farmer and a race car driver, helped him save money to buy his first surfboard at age thirteen. He surfed his way in ASP competitions but left the pro surfing circuit in 1986 to pursue big-wave surfing on Oahu’s North Shore and on Easter Island. He remained largely unknown until February 1998, when he beat out the world’s best big-wave surfers to take first place at the inaugural Reef Big-Wave World Championships at Todos Santos. (Shawn Alladio, another contributor to this book, rescued him twice during this competition). The contest earned him national hero status in Brazil. In November 2001, he towed into a 68-foot face at Maverick’s (on a Waverunner® borrowed from Shawn Alladio). You can see him in such movies as 100-Foot Wednesday and Billabong Odyssey. He surfs regularly in the Red Bull Big Wave Africa contest, the Mavericks Surf Contest, and at contests held at Jaws and Todos Santos.

SUSAN CHAPLIN is a writer and a photographer. Her work appears in The Surfer’s Journal, The Surfer’s Path, SWIM magazine, and the Caribbean Compass. Chaplin is an avid surfer and athlete. She twice completed the Ironman triathlon in Hawaii. In 1993, she set off solo on a worldwide surf trip that would take three years and touch twenty countries. Chaplin now focuses on paddleboarding. In August 2004, she became the first person to paddle the five big channels between Guadeloupe and Grenada. Chaplin lives fulltime on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, where she writes, surfs, and paddles.

BUTCH CONNOR was born in Los Angeles in 1960. He lived in Southern California until after high school, when he joined the Navy (in Florida) for a four-year tour. On returning to California, he moved away from the crowds of Southern California to the wine country of Northern California. There he divides his time between raising three children and his other passions: surfing and photography. Butch is a technician for the telephone company and has worked in this trade for the past fourteen years.

CHRIS COTÉ was a former half-assed pro surfer. Sponsored by companies like Ezekiel, Billabong, Hurley, Reef, Arnette, and others throughout his career, he used his wit, humor, and good looks to acquire money and free clothes—rather than his mediocre surfing ability. After the pro surfing sham ended, Chris worked as a marketing guy for most of the same companies he rode for—another well-executed scam to do little and still get paid. After writing a few articles for Surfer, Chris was seated at the round table of handpicked experts to start TransWorld SURF magazine in May of 1999. Chris wormed his way from the simple title of writer to the illustrious title of editor. Along the way, Chris was published in Playboy magazine, various international magazines, hosted a variety of surf events, got married, toured nationally with his band Kut U Up, and even got barreled for his first time ever in Indonesia. As of now Chris is in his cubicle in Oceanside, California, plotting and planning how to somehow buy his wife one of those really cool Louis Vuitton purses she’s had her eye on—she’ll have to keep waiting. He’s also in development of a new talk show called Meet the Pro. Look for it on channel 2,789 very soon. He loves you all, by the way.

JOE DOGGETT is an award-winning outdoor writer and photographer with the Houston Chronicle. He has held that position since 1972. He lives in Houston, Texas, and writes three columns a week, primarily covering the traditional outdoor sports of fishing and hunting. He is also a contributing editor for Field & Stream magazine. Doggett started surfing in 1964 in Galveston, Texas and remains an active surfer. He sold his first published article, a fictional piece on storm surf in Texas, to International Surfing magazine in 1965. He is a goofyfoot and rides a single-fin longboard.

RICK DOYLE was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1954, and started surfing at Windansea at age eighteen. Facing a low lottery draft number, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and spent four years repairing missile guidance systems on F4 Phantom Jets during the Vietnam War. Honorably discharged in 1976, he settled in San Diego to surf competitively and to work as a carpenter and as a foam-injection molder at Jim Mizell’s “Aquatic Energy” surfboard factory, in Huntington Beach, CA. He attended San Diego State University (1976- 1980). While in college, he held an internship with Surfer magazine under the mentorship of Tom Servais, Art Brewer and Jeff Divine. He worked for a decade as an NFL team photographer for the San Diego Chargers. He continued to shoot for surf magazines while holding a position as staff photographer for Windsurf magazine under editor Drew Kampion and photo editor Craig Peterson.

For the past twenty-five years, he has worked as a traveling surf and sports photographer. His images have appeared in Sports Illustrated, NFL Game Day, ESPN, Surfer, Surfing, Windsurf, Wakeboard, Waterski, Vogue and various other magazines and newspapers. He has produced three films Red Water (with Dana Brown), Silence (with John Dulich), and Native State. Currently, Rick lives in Waialua on Oahu’s North Shore.

RAN ELFASSY can’t shake the feeling that he’s the luckiest guy in the world. Currently living in Hong Kong and working as the senior editor for various medical publications, Ran nurtures his love for science, the sea, mountains, and life with his adventurous wife. Beyond chasing waves, Ran has been using his art to raise awareness of environmental conservation. As of February 2004, he has made and sold a different weekly self-portrait on eBay. With an end goal of making and selling 350 different images, Ran hopes to document his adventures and make this world a slightly better place. The photos and tales of his adventures can be found on his website: www.ranhasa.com.

JOHN FORSE, 57, began surfing in 1962 and quickly became obsessed with it. Now he is a heavy equipment operator and a producer of surf videos. He has produced such videos as The Endless Winter, Another Endless Winter, and Nelscott Reef, First Assault, a movie about pioneering tow-in surfing at the reefbreak out in front of his house in central Oregon. He has been featured on numerous local and regional TV shows on surfing. He is also a part-time commercial actor. His articles have appeared in Surfing and Surfer magazines. He operates the website Nelscottreef.com.

TERRY GIBSON was born, raised and lives in Southeast Florida. The son of passionate outdoors people, he grew up surfing and fishing in the Gulf Stream and exploring the Everglades. He’s traveled widely, including surf trips to nearly every Spanish-speaking country with a coastline, and to British Columbia and Madeira, and of course, South Africa. Gibson is currently a Managing Editor of the Florida Sportsman Communication Network, one of the world’s largest outdoor publishing entities. He regularly contributes to Surfer, Surfing, ESM and other surfing publications. In 2006, Gibson was honored by the Florida Wildlife Federation as the Outdoor Writer of the Year, because of his emphasis on teaching surfers, anglers, divers and hunters how to influence environmentally proactive change.

Former professional surfer MATT GEORGE has been a senior contributing editor/photographer for Surfer magazine since 1985. Of note was his 1998 feature film In God’s Hands and his 1999 NBC series Wind On Water. Both opened to mixed reviews. Matt also directed and hosted the TV show Surfer Magazine which aired on ESPN from 1987 to 1998. He is currently at large in Indonesia doing tsunami aid work with Surfzone Relief Operations, his nonprofit foundation based in Newport Beach and San Francisco, California.

JENNY HEDLEY, 25, is the writer/producer/director of Surfabout: Down Under, an experiential memoir filmed in Australia and New Zealand (Official Selection of the 2006 International Festival of Cinema Technology). Her essays, including “Indo: One Woman’s Adventure” and “Australia,” have appeared in Surf Life for Women magazine, and her photography is featured in Golf Living. A recent participant at USC’s Summer Production Workshop, Jenny worked as a production assistant on Walk the Line, a Fox 2000 film, and is working on her feature screenplay, xyy.

GLENN HENING is well-known for his accomplishments as a surfer both in and out of the water. In 1984, he founded the Surfrider Foundation, a leading environmental protection organization. In 1995, he started the Groundswell Society, which has been called the “voice of conscience for modern surfing.” An experienced writer, traveler, and public speaker, Glenn is observant, incisive, and often outspoken. He has been profiled or interviewed in many publications, including Reader’s Digest and the Los Angeles Times. He surfs every chance he gets, usually across the street from his home in Oxnard Shores, California. Recently he self-published surfing’s first “epic” novel, Waves of Warning.

BUZZY KERBOX started surfing at age ten in Hawaii. He turned pro at eighteen and surfed the pro circuit from 1977 to 1983, landing in the top 10 six years straight. In the ’80s, he split his time between professional windsurfing, modeling, and surfing. In 1992, he innovated tow surfing with Laird Hamilton using a Zodiac in the outer reefs of Oahu’s North Shore. In 1994, he began towing in at Jaws in Maui. At age forty-nine, he is still a waterman, and still towing in to the largest waves on the planet. He won third place, twice, in the 32-mile Catalina paddleboard race, and he completes annually in the Molokai Channel race and in professional longboard events. He lives in Maui with his wife and three boys and works for the Honolua Surf Co. as a team rider and spokesman.

NATE LAWRENCE is staff photographer for Surfing magazine. He divides his time between Santa Cruz, California and Kuta, Bali.

BEN MARCUS was an editor at Surfer magazine for ten years. He now writes freelance for a variety of publications and has a couple of books to his name: The Surf, Skate and Rock and Roll Art of Jim Phillips (Schiffer Books), Surfing USA!: An Illustrated History of the Coolest Sport of All Time (Voyageur Press), and The History of Surf Wax (forthcoming from Schiffer Books). Currently he is writing two illustrated books: The History of the Surfboard for Voyageur Press, and a book of action sport stickers and patches for Schiffer Books. Ben writes articles for The Surfer’s Journal, Surfer, Surfing, L.A. Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and anyone else who is willing to put up with him. He lives in Malibu and surfs occasionally.

MICHAEL MIGDOL is a stay-at-home wife who loves to cook, read, write, garden, and craft. He is publisher and editor of Automatic magazine, which he has taken from relative obscurity to national prominence.

NATHAN MYERS is managing editor of Surfing magazine. A graduate of UC Berkeley, he was the primary researcher for The Encyclopedia of Surfing and has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Surfer’s Journal, Australia’s Surfing Life, and Surf Europe. He lives in Encinitas, California.

STEVE PEZMAN was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1941 and began surfing in 1957 in Orange County. He spent the summer/winter of 1962 and 1963 in Hawaii riding the North Shore before the crowds developed, when there was still a pioneer vibe to the experience. Returning to California, Steve attended Long Beach City and State colleges, lifeguarded, and served in the merchant marines (delivering stale beer to Vietnam in 1965). In the late ’60s, he began shaping custom surfboards with short stints at Hobie and Dewey Weber before settling in at Haley, Vardeman, and finally his own company, Creative Design Surfboards (with partner Stu Herz), which began as a contract shaping business that introduced private label manufacturing to the surfboard industry. The business became a Huntington Beach surf shop on Coast Highway during that town’s golden era. In 1968, he began freelance writing about surfboard design and travel pieces for Petersen’s International Surfing magazine. He became associate editor in 1969, but five months later the magazine folded, and he moved to Surfer magazine as associate editor (taking over editor Drew Kampion’s position) in 1970. Later that year, Pezman became publisher of Surfer and served in that capacity through 1991. Currently, he is the co-founder and publisher of The Surfer’s Journal with his wife and business partner, Debbee. He writes and speaks out about surfing when the chance presents itself. He has three sons and lives in San Clemente, California.

JEFF PHILLIPS started surfing while studying abroad in Australia. Since then, he has traveled the world in search of epic waves, often accompanied by his Border Collie, Idaho. A Bay Area native, he returned to surf Ocean Beach for years before moving to Santa Barbara to pursue his master’s degree in environmental science. He now works as a Fish and Wildlife biologist. Through the years, he has chronicled his adventures in short stories, essays, and a newsletter he writes for friends and family to document monthly conditions and new surf stories. When he’s not surfing, Jeff satisfies his taste for adventure by mountain biking, rock climbing, fly-fishing, and white water rafting.

BRUCE SAVAGE, who also goes by Tubesteak, Sabrina Wentworth, Terry- Michael Tracy, The Great Kahuna, and The Pit Commander, was the point man in the complex social structure of Malibu during the ’50s and ’60s. Tubesteak has written numerous articles on surfing which have appeared in such magazines as Life, The Surfer’s Journal, Longboard, Surfer, H20, and Sports Illustrated, and many books, including World Without Violence by Arun Ghandi, Men who Ride Mountains by Peter Dixon, Stoked (new edition) by Drew Kampion, and Above the Roar by Matt Warshaw. He also appeared in the movies Damn Yankees!, Gidget, and Riding Giants. These days he goes to the beach on weekends to brush up on Legendhood. He has seven children, all grown up: Pamela, Patrick, Michael, Jonathan, Jennifer, Moe, and Jocelyn. The story “Miki Goes to the Movies” falls somewhere between the lines of creative non-fiction and historical fiction.

MAGILLA SCHAUS is a Great Lakes surfer, Buffalo firefighter, activist, and actor. He has swum across Lake Erie four times, twice handcuffed. He is the co-director of the Eastern Surfing Association’s Great Lakes District and the president of the Wyldewood Surf Club. He has contributed photography to Longboard and Eastern Surf Magazine. He is a contributing editor and photographer to the book Surfing the Great Lakes by Peter L. Strazzabosco (Big Lauter Tun Books, 2001). His film credits include the surf movie Unsalted and the B-grade Hollywood productions of Shadow Creature and Tainted. Magilla is married to a Canadian Great Lakes scuba instructor, with a fourteen- year-old stepdaughter who surfs. He resides in Buffalo, New York and St. Catharines, Ontario.

JAMIE TIERNEY is a freelance journalist and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He’s written extensively for Surfing, Surfer, The Surfer’s Journal and the Los Angeles Times, among others. He currently works as the editor of Quiksilver.com. Since his “Bad Juju” experience, he has never again driven a car with his surfboards strapped to the roof.

MARK “FINGER” TAYLOR has been surfing in the Northwest since the mid-1970s. He has homes both in Washington state and on the northern Oregon coast. He learned to surf in the mid ’60s, growing up on Oahu, and then living on Kauai in the early ’70s. His work in the marine industry for a propeller manufacturer takes him up and down both coasts of the U.S. He travels with a board, and you can usually find him in the water when he’s not working, giving him many opportunities to injure himself again and write more stories.

REX WITKAMP was born in 1975 in Florida. He is half Dutch and half Nicaraguan. He learned to swim before he learned to walk. Rex’s surf travels have taken him to Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Rex’s wife, Sabrah, is the vice-president of Sisters of the Sea, a non-profit which organizes the largest women’s amateur surf contest on the East Coast. They live in St. Augustine, Florida. Rex was medically discharged from the Army only months after volunteering to serve.