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The three million dollar Chinese storm

August 1, 2022

Anyone happen to notice a group of 14 young Chinese surfers roaming about the lineups of Southern California lately?

If so, you witnessed a cog in China’s master plan to someday surf their way onto the Olympic podium. They’ve sent their top surfers to California to train for four months ahead of the 2022 ISA World Surfing Games in Huntington Beach — the first qualification event for the 2024 Games.

Keep reading on Stab Mag.

How does a bar of surf wax cost nearly $10 in Sri Lanka?

February 13, 2023

When I strolled into a surf shop in southern Sri Lanka and saw that a single bar of surf wax was being sold for USD $9 each, I could tell something was seriously wrong. As a quick reference, surf wax goes for $2 in surf shops at home. For the average tourist enjoying the dreamy, tranquil beaches of Sri Lanka, it’s easy to forget that the country is still struggling through the midst of an unprecedented economic and political crisis.

However, for the visiting surfer, the signs of crisis are abundantly clear, most plainly evidenced by the 600 percent markup on a bar of wax that usually goes for a buck-fifty in the States. While all Sri Lankans have felt the effects of the emergency crisis to some degree, it has been hitting the surf community particularly hard.

So, what happened to Sri Lanka to make a basic surf commodity so exorbitantly expensive? And how has the country’s once thriving surf community managed to get through the trying times?

Keep reading on Teton Gravity Research.

Have you ever considered a surf trip to Colombia?

October 27, 2022

As this small, rickety taxi came within view of the ocean, I felt ready to surf whatever was on offer. It’s been one of those scenarios where I hadn’t surfed in more than a month and was desperate for it.

I unstrapped my board from the taxi’s roof and stood on my tiptoes to get a better view of the waves, and… was pleasantly surprised by what was unfolding before me.

Elegantly smooth waves wrapped around a jetty, gracefully gliding for hundreds of metres down a sand-bottom point. It was only waist-to-thigh high or so, but the way the swell lines could be seen bending out to sea reminded me of a mini J-Bay.

Keep reading on Magicseaweed.

A year after my father’s death, I’m still getting to know him; turns out his time with Pranksters wasn’t so merry

October 6, 2022

“The Pranksters are a bunch of a–holes.”

My late father wrote that after spending years hovering on the fringes of the Merry Pranksters — the 1960s band of hippies, social critics and acid-trippers who orbited around author Ken Kesey and spent time drifting about Santa Cruz County well before my birth.

But according to my dad, Dean Quarnstrom, who chronicled his time with the Pranksters in his journals, they were also pretentious, untrustworthy and noninclusive as they followed Kesey, their unquestioned leader.

Keep reading on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Op-Ed: Is the Kelly Slater Wave Co. system obsolete already?

November 2, 2022

It’s been seven years since Kelly Slater first unveiled his dream wave, captivating the minds of anyone who has ever touched a surfboard.

The central-California pool broke down the door for what was once thought possible by creating 10-second barrels over 100 miles from the ocean.

But the world of wave pool technology has grown lightyears since that eureka moment and, commercially speaking, Kelly Slater Wave Co.’s (KSWC) pool has fallen behind.

Keep reading on Wavepool Magazine.