“Not all those who wander are lost.”
-J.R.R. Tolken
I’ve been wandering now for more than 7 years. As day three of our South
American journey is coming to an end, the light of the snow-capped Andes and
into our window is being replaced by the yellow glow of the fire. It’s
becoming clear as I get older that my life’s journey has just begun. As time
passes, life has a way of mellowing you out. I think that’s why people get
quieter as they age.
Travelling fast forwards maturity. I’m not saying I’m mature,I love being
immature and having fun. But I’ve noticed that when I’m traveling I go
through life-changing experiences every couple days. Staying in one place
breeds a closed mind, a naïve nature, and a slow pace of maturity, at least
for me. I’ve noticed that the times of growth in my life have involved
massive amounts of moving around, touring and traveling. Likewise, my least
productive times have been during months of staying put. This is exactly
why I chose to make the 7,791 mile journey from L.A. to San Carlos de
Bariloche, in the Patagonia region of Argentina.
The Patagonia region of Argentina is one of the most harsh, frigid, remote
climates in the world. Our village lies further south than the entire
continent of Africa. Further south than Tasmania. Dubbed the “Switzerland
of South America,” San Carlos de Bariloche is a quaint little town of less
than 200,000 people known for its snowboarding. It’s a stopping point for
budding boarders and touring professionals alike. For the rest of August and
into September, I’ll be snowboarding, playing live performances, and of
course, building the Greenhouse. Tomorrow we begin building. I’ll keep
you posted. Blog three is coming, so stay put.
The east coast hasn’t gotten many good swells from what I’ve heard this summer but thats all changing with Hurricane Danielle popping up. Heres a shot from Transworld about some of the New Jersey boys enjoying a little Hurricane D including Atwaters Luke Ditella
Darshan Gooch is getting quite a bit of coverage as of late and not only on the Atwater website. He was recently on the pages of Slide magazine riding his board upside down. He was on the cover of the Santa Cruz Visitors Guide just cruising around the beach and landed on the cover of the mag.
Darshan Gooch on the inside of Slide magazine. (Note that his board is upside down)
The Santa Cruz visitors Guide and if you look in the bottom right you will see Darshan just cruising by.
Boosting
We really have utilized our team in a variety of different ways and one way that I really like is these little posts that a few of our team riders send over that gives a little insight into how they live which for me is cool because it shows us a little bit of the country and we get to see these guys get creative with the camera. Here we have Darshan on his road trip up north where he bumped into Brian Forcom along the way
Years ago I had surfed this right-hand sand point with a few friends, there used to be a little trailer park that was quickly eroding into the sea. Since my last visit, the trailer park is gone, houses are dropping row by row and there seems to be no stopping.
Although there were no shortage of waves elsewhere, my girlfriend Grace and I were itching to yank the logs off our truck and have a good ol’ slide.
Usually when I’m on the road I’ll bring one of those little cheese ball disposable cameras to snap a few photo’s in the water. This was the first time I tried the whole hand held approach, ten piggies over.
A big part of the adventure up north is hiking into all these different spots and the uncertainty of not knowing what you’ll run into or find. Most of the time you may be looking for someone to surf with due to the fact that most places don’t have the accessibility like we do in California.
Other times you’ll pull up and find a wave in plain sight, some of which the setups are most unusual.
Every time i’ve been up the coast in these regions , I look forward meeting up with Atwater’s White Tiger, Brian forcum. Not only is he one of the coast’s most talented surfers, he’s the most humble, soft spoken guy you’ll ever meet. Check out Brian’s skills in the video editing room as well right here
Other than packing or roof dragging a few tubes, Brian Forcum seems to surf no matter what the waves and conditions are like.
Last Friday we headed out to The Home Depot Center in Carson for the first leg of the Warped tour 2010. We went out there to shoot some photos of our boys in Face To Face while they are on tour over the next 2 months promoting their new album and putting a smile on many a persons face.
We got there in the nick of time with Face to Face going on in about 10 minutes and so we hustled. They killed it up there putting on an amazing show for about 45 minutes. If you are in the neighborhood of any of the next Warped tour stops I do suggest that you make it a point to get up front and center during the Face to Face set, you wont be disapointed.
Mr Sage Hulls was on the Nutz show this morning on Transworld Surfs website. It seems appropriate that Sage is on a show called the Nutz show since what he does for a living is considered pretty nutz in general and if you doubt it just take a gander at the video below and you can see that Mr Hulls is a wild child.
