Making Friends With The Neighbours

Johnny Abegg is someone I admire - as a surfer, a man and as a friend. He is the kind of person who is unfailingly honest, generous and kind, and has a laugh that is impossibly infectious. His latest film, Two Weeks , is about to start touring from Sydney down to Tasmania. His latest film is raw, honest and brave and is a labour of love documenting two weeks he spent in the Tasmanian wilderness during a tumultuous time in his life. If you find yourself close to one of the venues, do yourself a favour and get along for a look and to support this independent film. xx

Just like a ghost you've been a-hauntin' my dreams, but now I know, you're not what you seem...

Jamie Watson rules. Seriously though, PineappleLuv is the bomb! Check it!

I was looking through the mess on my noticeboard today, and found three hand scrawled* pages pinned up behind a photograph. I knew exactly what they were - they were notes I sat and wrote on the back of some flyers after watching a surf film showing some time ago. I'm going to share the notes with you, but I'm not going to tell you which surf film it is, as I don't really think it matters. In the end, reading over my thoughts, I think they are pretty generic to many of the surf films I have seen (although there are, of course, some excellent exceptions to this rule). I do want to say that the imagery and sounds in the film that I prompted these notes were beautiful and thoughtful, and that I'd had a particularly confusing conversation that day, so was feeling a bit raw and I remember both the images of water and the music affecting me in ways I wasn't expecting in terms of my responses. I think I cried. But even that, even that could not hide the fact that it was,...

So where were you yesterday afternoon? If it wasn't here, then you were totally missing out. (Thanks, Holly)

More and more. Better and better. I wouldn't go back a single day.

I see dolphins a lot. I know that is connected to spending time in the ocean, but I honestly seem to be a magnet for sea life. Especially dolphins. The other week I was driving into town from the highway when I looked up and saw this cloud that looked disarmingly like a dolphin jumping out of the ocean. Now, I'm notoriously suspicious of dolphins (I find all that "smiling" is slightly creepy and I can't forgive how much they can look like sharks) but I was compelled to stop and record it. Ok, so I was a moment too late to get it in all its jumping perfection, but you can see what I mean. And that afternoon when I went surfing, the water was slightly murky after all the rain. Not gross, just not clear. I was paddling back out after a wave, when two dolphins jumped out of the water, side by side. They leapt out of the face of the wave and crashed into the water in front of me, speeding under my board and away. It was a very dolphin day that one. In Noosa there was a dol...

My friend, Izzy, showed me a link to this film, Oceanides . I'm pretty excited to see it!

My friend sent me a link to this cool film about a skateboarding program in Kabul. Pretty cool, huh! If you would like to find out more, check out the program's comprehensive website, Skateistan (I especially liked the students' blog). Skateistan is Afghanistan’s—and the world’s—first co-educational skateboarding school. The school engages growing numbers of urban and internally-displaced youth in Afghanistan through skateboarding, and provides them with new opportunities in cross-cultural interaction, education, and personal empowerment. Our students come from all of Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. They will not only develop skills in skateboarding and skateboarding instruction, but also healthy habits, civic responsibility, information technology, the arts, and languages. The students themselves decide what they want to learn—we connect them with teachers who will enable them to develop the skills that they consider important. Since Sk...

The New York Times reported on the first ever women's big wave surfing comp. Excellent news, huh! With a smattering of locals and members of the news media, flocks of pelicans, a spouting gray whale and some of the best male riders in the world looking on along the central Oregon coast, three women charged down 20- to 25-foot-high waves in the first female heat of the Nelsott Reef Big Wave Classic, one of five stops on the male-dominated Big Wave World Tour. And they even reported that, Male surfers agreed it was high time for women to have a competition like this to compete in. “These girls are putting in time around the world,” West said, “and they deserve more.” Cool. However, there were a few jolting sections to the article that I think should be highlighted. For example, this is an interesting paragraph, Officially an exhibition, with no prize money, the competition had the look of something that was thrown together at the last minute. All competitors, m...

In Australia, one of the players for the Canberra Raider's rugby league team, has been embroiled in controversy over a photograph of him apparently receiving oral sex from a mate's dog as a prank. I actually can't believe that is even a sentence. Anyway, to put it bluntly, it was licking his balls. The bare bones of the story is that the photo was widely distributed via Facebook and Twitter, and an edited version has been all over the news. It's been an absolute debacle. The whole thing seems really weird more than anything and I'm not quite sure to make of it all to be honest - the photo is more gross than messed up, like an odd thing to have yourself photographed doing. However, there is one thing that I am finding terribly distressing and infuriating. Football in Australia, in fact let's be honest... Sport in Australia is not known for it's particularly ethical attitudes to women and sex. I'm not going to bang on about my opinions on the litany of se...

Don't go that way. There's some steps further along here a bit. I turned from where I'd been looking at the surf and the rocks and the potential entry spots and faced the man who was speaking to me. He was middle-aged, round, with a beard and a kind face. And he was offering advice! So you're not from Noosa then? No. I just got inspired to come up for the day. I heard there were waves. I had only surfed here a couple of times before, earlier this year with friends. But on this occasion I had come up on my own. I drove up from the city found a pretty good parking spot in amongst the chaos, walked down the lane I knew led to the beach, bumped into some friends who were leaving and who lent me some wax, and made my way through the bottom carpark and along the boardwalk. The break was busy - well, it was Noosa on a Saturday after all - but that doesn't really bother me. Especially since there were nice looking waves to be had. And I was feeling relaxed. I didn't e...

Can't get this song out of my head lately... The Lady Is A Tramp (Duet) Uploaded by eXsistenZ1968 . - Watch more music videos, in HD!

If you read this blog, you may have realised that I am as interested in the social, people-y parts of surfing, just as much as I am with the ocean and waves bits of surfing. As such, lineups are right up my alley. I find them intriguing. This isn't really surprising when you consider that the bulk of my surfing goes on in the busy breaks in and around Byron Bay. The surfbreaks there - especially my beloved point breaks - are crazy places, populated by any number of crew from beginners to professionals, from shortboarders to SUPs , women and men, young and old, and so it goes... Lineups like this make for intriguing spaces to watch and experience and negotiate and play in. I love them. I love watching how everyone occupies their own little space, how certain surfers think they're getting all the waves because they don't bother to look further down the line. I love to see how people deal with aggression, with getting hit on, with being patronised, with being hooted by a str...