Blogs

A little over two months ago my friend Jane and I went on our usual walk to check the surf, slipping quietly past the local school and out onto the headlands overlooking rolling lines of swell. It is so easy to dismiss the simple beauties when enticing swell lures your attention forward...but on this particular walk we were struck by the striking beauty of the Frangipani flowers, swaying quietly in the soft sea breeze against surrounding thick green leaves.

The Frangipani trees, or Plumeria, around the Byron Bay and Lennox Head area are divine. Yellows, whites, pinks and reds, from the smallest cuttings to the oldest trees these flowers line the east coast.

Cultures throughout Asia and the Pacific have adopted these dazzling beauties associating them with love, friendship and even divine worship and it is common to be welcomed in many Asia Pacific countries with leis of strung Frangipani flowers.

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Grey skies have opened their arms to this latter segment of January. I don’t like to complain as we are much more comfortable in our current house on rainy days compared to our comrades on the Yeti farm…but I am a sucker for some sunshine.

Banging out deadline after deadline I find myself craving for Ben Harper’s voice to kiss my ears, singing “she’s only happy in the sun…”

I’ve always found it amusing the way humans communicate with each other about the weather. Conversation starts, mood breakers, silence stoppers….

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Kuni was reminiscing of his first days learning the ropes of photography. His sensei, ‘Akira’, sent him out to shoot anything he liked under the theme ‘passion’. Kuni took him back a bunch of photos representing his theme and from there he learned the basics of how to blend individual creativity with skilful photography.

The theme ‘passion’ is a great one to incorporate into our daily lives. With passion life becomes a blank canvas for us to decorate with each step we take towards our dreams. As surfer’s we can relate to a universal passion for the ocean, nature and that special feeling of riding over traveling water.

Sometimes it is worth reminding ourselves of our own interpretation of passion, so I decided to put together a little photo essay that gets my passion flowing!

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We have just come off a full moon and subsequent sizey swell here on the east coast of Australia. Whilst the waves were not perfect, the days and night either side of the moon were time for reflect and consideration of that word – perfection.

In the cabin where we are living just out of Byron Bay, our bodies dismantle peacefully at night with the departure of the sun, and reassemble early with her dawn return. In between there is silence, peaceful and bright. As I lay in bed the silence grows deeper and my body attunes to her melody. I smile as my senses awaken to the depth of nothingness.

The darkness is annulled in the moonlight. The sky above is littered with stars, twinkling like a child’s nursery rhyme. The distant ocean is roaring, alive with nature’s silent energy. Kuni stirs and peers through the bedside glass, the night’s weight dispersing swiftly from his eyes at the sight of the farm’s bordering trees, still in the windless air.

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There are all kinds of places in this vast, diverse world. And currently there are all kinds of changes taking place. You don’t have to believe in the end of the world theories or even all the current data concerned with Global Warming to at least acknowledge that our precious surf points face or have experienced dramatic changes in recent times.

I was privileged to look through some previously un-published photos from John Witzig’s collection just this week and there were images of local Australian breaks that just don’t reel like they used to. Not to mention the dramatically different landscapes surrounding these once almost deserted beaches (although if we are lucky enough we can stil find some untouched waves, the more reason to protect them).

I have blogged before regarding the importance for surfers to take responsibility for the future of our planet in order to maintain the balance and at the simplest level preserve the beauty of our beaches, marine life and delicate waves.

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There couldn’t be a better time to get away. With so many uncertainties in the world right now, perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves ‘what is this life all really about?’ A little too deep? Maybe…but really, for us surfers it’s times like these that can draw us to the chase of surf across the globe, searching for those peaceful, blissful moments when we are nothing but one with nature.

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Taking a break from Japan posts for a while, I wanted to share a blog about the current state of the surfing world and open the lines for communication as to where it’s all headed.

Two nights ago I finally sat down to watch Andrew Kidman’s awesome film, ‘Glass Love’. Whilst Kuni and I were up shooting in Noosa with Josh and Zac from Solace surf shop in late December last year, the boys mentioned this film over again as a life changing selection of surf footage, music and candid interviews with ultimate soul surfers. Not getting a chance to take a break from motherhood and constant deadlines, it was a blessing to slap the dvd into the player and lose myself in the beauty of Andrew’s work.

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It has been one month now since Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) released their 6-9month cold shutdown plan for the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and not even the first stages of the plan have been put in motion. Perhaps the plan was only really published to the public for some peace of mind, but it seems since the start of this whole controversy TEPCO and the government have done nothing but feed the public false promises.

Kuni went up to the Fukushima area last week and was able to meet with some of the nuclear power plant workers along with local surfers and hear the real stories, the real truths. It was said then that the shutdown plans were totally unreachable and should never have been promised to an already wary public. According to the workers interviewed last week, areas outside the 30km exclusion zone have detected radiation levels higher than the evacuated zone of Chernobyl, and only now in various international news sources is this kind of information being made public. To the majority of the Japanese public, such honest truths remain hidden. The workers interviewed expressed their concerns for the health of women, children and each other, in both the short term and long term, within the 30km radius and throughout the rest of the Kanto area.

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She’s fierce, this ocean of ours.

There are times when the power of the ocean takes our breath away. Quite literally. For most of us, this is usually when we cop a bigger than expected set on the head and are held down for longer than we are comfortable with. In times like these, we remember her power and embrace it. But then there are times, like these now in Japan, when the ocean reveals to us her true power. Mind blowing, life changing, earth moving power. Perhaps it’s only then we are reminded as humans, how small we are on this planet.

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You can only keep surfers out of the water for so long. Recently goregous weather and very nice waves have had Japanese surfers on the east coast of the island itching to get their feet wet, and many have given in to the wait despite the ongoing fear of radiation contamination.

Here in Ichinomiya, Chiba, we are close enough to the Fukushima plant to be concerned about drifting currents bringing highly contaminated water to our breaks. For the first few weeks after the Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake, tsunami and outbreak of the Nuclear disaster at Fukushima, we were lucky to see one or two brave soles entering the waters despite the obvious risks. But as time has passed, despite the ongoing desperate nuclear situation and constant release of radioactive material into the air and ocean, warm weather and very attractive surf have lured the Japanese back into the water.

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Food for fuel-pregnancy super foods

There’s no doubt surfers who surf regularly need more calories in keep their energy levels on par. For pregnant surfing chickies, our need for calories is much greater. Here are some great little calorie pick me ups to enjoy before/after surfing or anytime you need a quick energy kick.

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World travellers, surf destination searchers, team photographer and writer couple; how were we ever going to keep up our dream lifestyle once the little one came along? As we began to start hoping for our first child, these thoughts were constantly running through the back of my mind.

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The shuttle tales part 2.

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The shuttle tales part 1.

There was a time when surfers roamed Australia in beat up old rust buckets, hand made skateboards and even the trusty old foot sandal. Oh those were the days of empty lineups, nude babes waiting on the beach and camping out with friends right there on the sand.

The cars got better, the nomadic surfers were able to wander further, and more points were discovered. For the surfer, domestic travel was a wonderful thing. What a lifestyle it was, and the surfie sub culture blossomed throughout 60s and early 70s, an attractive movement welcoming free spirited, natural souls around the country.

They made clothes that suited their surf style, rubber suits to keep them warm down south, toyed with surfboard design and construction in backyard tin sheds and nothing made them happier than testing out their gear in the water. They had their own media; magazines, newspapers, movies. New films were welcomed by sold out audiences in quaint theatres and surf scribes aired their expressive opinions without restraint speaking out about politics, the environment, Yoga, drugs, DIY home building and of course, surfing.

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Here and happy in Byron Bay healing town. My one-year-old son Ryder and I together with friend Tomo and her two kids escaped wintery Japan just in the nick of time with the barometer dropping low as we were boarding the plane to sunny Australia a few weeks ago.

To my surprise the usually humid climate of Australia's east coast had copped three months of solid rain prior to our arrival but the clouds literally fled the morning we drove into the bustling surf town providing us with welcoming clear blue skies and steamy sunbeams.

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