Shacked: Featured Stories

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ZJ Boarding House held their 10th Annual Haunted Heats Surf Contest this past weekend right down the street from their location in Ocean Park.

Surfers in Haunted Heats are judged on their costume, with the costume performance portion on the beach and then on how they surf as the character they are dressed up as. Many surfers enter as a group with choreographed dance numbers and battle scenes. Some bride the judges with candy or string cheese.

The Cheese Goddess.

Winning Best Grom Surfer with this wave.

The Grom-Zombie, who drove up from Carlsbad for the contest, took Runner-Up in the Groms.

A member of the 3 Pinatas who took Best Runner-Up Costumes.

Best Adult Surfer Winner

One of the North Korean Bombs on one of the bigger waves.

Kim Jong and his Bombs during their costume performance, that combined with their surfing, won them the Best Overall Trophy.

The Bee Gees Staying Alive on a wave.

The Pirates took a trophy for their battles on the sand and sea.

This is just a few of the shots, there are over 100 more photos of the all surfing and costumes.

Check out the huge gallery of all the photos, all full size and in high-resolution: Haunted Heats Photo Gallery

Words By Denis Sarmanho
Photos by Steven Lippman

Karina Rozunko for taking home the win in the Women's Pro division!

The Surf Relik Championship was the biggest longboard event of the last 10 years in California, the largest purse in California longboard history ($75k) and featured the elite of the planks on the magic rights of First Point in Malibu near Santa Monica in northern Los Angeles. This was a test event, with WSL level awards, and should be part of the World Circuit next year.

Joe Rickabaugh on his second place finishing in the logger division!

With a window of 15 days, the championship had epic waves on the first day, lowering a little during the finals. Due to a local rule, the event can not occupy the two days of the weekend, so it ended up being held this Sunday and Monday, October 8 and 9.

Tyler Warren took first this past weekend in the Logger division representing the icons of style.

A current leader of the WSL ranking, Chloé Calmon won the quarterfinals Hawaiian Crystal Walsh, her direct competitor in the world title race, which will have its decisive stage in Taiwan at the end of November. Previously, Carioca defeated former world champion Lindsay Steinridee, and in the semi-final was defeated by Malibu and event champion Karina Rosunko.

Ben Skinner gliding through the Surf Relik contest at First Point.

Since she joined the World Tour of surfing as a wildcard at just 17, Stephanie Gilmore, now 29, has lived most of her life on the road. In 2016 she put down roots in the historic surf mecca of Malibu. Now the much-lauded Australian sportswoman takes us through the surfboards, trophies, art and ephemera of her "country club for mermaids".

Several hundred people showed up to the Venice Pier on Saturday for a memorial paddleout in honor of beloved local surfer Liam Alexander Taylor. Known to most as Red, the always smiling 19 year old red head passed away on the 18th from a surfing accident. The entire surf and skate community of Dogtown was in attendance, as well as family and friends from Cambria, Ca, where Red also resided.

We put together a photo gallery of photos from the Paddleout, as well as the Pier Jumps, & Surf Session that followed.

Click here to view all the photos.

A Memorial Skate Session For Red was held later in the afternoon over at the Venice Skatepark (video coming).

Click here to view all the photos.

Do we need to enjoy nature in order to protect it? That’s one of the questions at the heart of a surfing art exhibit in Malibu this summer. The show was co-sponsored by the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, a new lab dedicated to environmental storytelling across cultures and media, with the Depart Foundation in Malibu.

When you enter the “Sea Sick in Paradise” exhibit, curated by artist and surfer Amy Yao in a pop-up space in Malibu Village, you might first notice a patch of colors on the wall across the gallery’s central open space. It’s a board wider than it is tall, divided horizontally into a wash of orange-pink above and gently rippled blue below. So you might stand for a moment, in between two oceans, facing Billy Al Bengston’s “Lost at Sea, 6:00PM” with Malibu Beach at your back.

It is one of many views of the ocean in the show, many of them, like Bengston’s, blurred, fuzzed, partial, out of focus. And in most of these images, the viewer is positioned like a surfer: on the beach or in a wave. It’s as if the pieces are meant to show you what it’s like to see the ocean as a surfer, with salt in your eyes. 'Sea Sick in Paradise' suggests that seeing like a surfer could help motivate people to protect the coast, perhaps even more than facts about threats to our oceans, beaches, and surf breaks.

Joel Cesare of the Surfrider Foundation, and a sustainable building advisor for the city of Santa Monica, made this argument in a panel moderated by LENS co-founder Jon Christensen, one of many events taking place around the exhibition this summer. Surfrider, Cesare said, is based on the “very significant connection” that people experience with a place “that provides them joy.” When people enjoy a place deeply, they begin to see it differently, and are ultimately moved to protect it. In Cesare’s words, there is a natural progression from “enjoyment to protection.”

Indeed, this is the story of the Surfrider Foundation itself, which was founded in 1984 by surfers to clean up and protect Surfrider Beach in Malibu. A version of this story is told in the art exhibit as well. In the surf movie “Forbidden Trim,” clips of which are shown in a back room, a military spy casts off his uptight persona during a semi-mystical encounter with surf culture. He experiences the transformative possibility of loving a wave.

Scholars in the environmental humanities argue that communities devoted to environmental protection are built on stories like these. Compelling narratives, often coupled with scientific knowledge, create powerful environmental movements. But not all stories do this work equally well. In the book “The Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks” , Raul Lejano, Mrill Ingram and Helen Ingram emphasize the importance of what they call “plurivocity”: “the ability of a story to be told in differing ways by different narrators.” The beach can and should be a place for such inclusive stories.

In his remarks at the panel, Christensen, who is leading a multidisciplinary research project on “Access for All: A New Generation’s Challenges on the California Coast ”, quoted poet T.S. Eliot: “The sea has many voices.”

The story of surfing has not always been a many-voiced one. Surfers have helped open California’s beaches to the public, but they have also made some beaches and surf breaks unwelcoming to outsiders. The show is aware of this tension. It represents and pushes against the exclusionary elements of surf culture. Jeff Ho’s mural “Black & White” looks like it’s written in a sort of code, except for the words “Locals Only.” Other works highlight more inclusive corners of the surf world. Eve Fowler and Mariah Garnett’s documentary “Life is Torture” explores the experiences of lesbian surfers. And Cristine Blanco’s “Sharks” shows three women of color suiting up for surfing. At the panel discussion on “The New Lineup: Surfing, sea-level rise, access, and inclusion in the 21st century,” Blanco spoke of finding her own way into the surfing lineup as a student in college in San Diego, and now introducing other girls to the ocean with Brown Girl Surf, an organization that gives young women in the San Francisco Bay Area, some of whom live just miles from the beach, their first exposure to the surf.

“Sea Sick in Paradise” includes many voices saying many, sometimes contradictory, things. The exhibit as a whole makes the argument that this “plurivocity” is an important feature of the changing culture of the coast. It is also, as Christensen argues, a key to preserving access for all Californians to the coast, and protection of the coastline in an era of climate change. But art is seldom so literal.

Could art’s focus on the beauty of surfing as easily lead to complacency rather than action?

Beauty is certainly on display in many of the fuzzed-out, idealized images of the ocean in the show. In “The Ocean Comes to Us,” by Peter Fend, a video of waves lapping at a beach loops endlessly on a vintage tube TV. In Tin Ojeda’s photograph “FJV Knost,” a surfer is a dark smudge on a hazy gray wave.

Most strikingly, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s “Ocean Essays” consists of a huge tube of painted nylon. It sits at the entrance to the exhibit. Walk in and you’re inside a wave, everything blocked out but the ocean’s immediate blue.

In another of the show’s video installations, a surf documentary plays on both sides of a hanging screen. On one side you can sit in a plastic chair and watch as usual. On the other, you’re forced by the tiny room to stand just a few feet from the screen. Standing so close that you can see the film grain in the projection, you realize that seeing something up close is not the same as seeing it clearly.

But then, as if to put an exclamation point on “Sea Sick in Paradise,” in the last image that people are likely to see in the show, a surfer rides through a curl made up of as much plastic trash as water. Zak Noyle’s photographic illustration “Wave of Change” is a beautiful and disturbing complement to the life-size model wave that invites visitors into the tube at the beginning of the show. Instead of cast-off materials (canvas and wood) used to make a beautiful wave, a beautiful wave is compromised by cast-off materials.

The sudden, clear-eyed view of what an unprotected ocean looks like does not displace, but does complicate, the show’s other idyllic ocean views. And an inclusive story — like the story told in ““Sea Sick in Paradise”” — should be complicated.

Photos: Jeff McLane |Courtesy Depart Foundation

By Amy DePaul.

Four years ago, Detroit native Mimi Miller had never been in the ocean. Now she’s a devoted bodyboarder, surfer and volunteer for the Black Surfers Collective — a group that, according to its mission, raises cultural awareness and promotes diversity in the sport of surfing through community activities, outreach and camaraderie.

On Aug. 12, you could find Miller standing on the shoreline of Los Angeles’ Santa Monica State Beach, clapping and cheering on newcomers who took part in the collective’s monthly free lessons to introduce black people to surfing, called Pan African Beach Days.

Being active in the L.A.-based collective, with its 799 members on Facebook, has allowed her to do something she enjoys in a supportive, vibrant atmosphere: “I love the community,” she explained in between chasing down stray boards and yelling “Good job!” to kids and adults alike.

About 111 people signed up for the Aug. 12 event, although the collective cannot safely accommodate such a large number. Still, a good 40 people, ranging from young kids to middle-aged participants, got training and coaching. Most did not have experience surfing.

Miller and the rest of the collective’s members are part of the proud if lesser-known tradition of black surfing, which some would argue goes back to native Hawaiians (descendants of Polynesians), who are credited with inventing the sport in the first place. Among the legendary surf icons are Montgomery “Buttons” Kaluhiokalani, a black Hawaiian whom Surfer magazine called “the father of modern day surfing.”

L.A. has its own lore, beginning with black surf pioneer Nick Gabaldon, who frequented the Inkwell Beach in Santa Monica in the 1940s, where black beachgoers congregated during segregation. Also, the late Dedon Kamathi, a radio host and onetime Black Panther, was a surfing devotee, as was police abuse victim Rodney King.

Founder and co-president of the Black Surfers Collective, Greg Rachal is a former skateboarder who found his way onto a longboard early on. “I’ve been in and out of the water all my life, since I was 13,” he said.

Rachal and his wife, Marie, are beach enthusiasts and a vital presence in the collective, which organizes camping and surf trips and takes a leadership role in an annual tribute to Gabaldon.

Rachal’s son, Greg Jr., 15, volunteers on the collective’s surf days because he likes giving back. He is on his school’s surf team, which sometimes comes as a surprise to his white classmates. Greg Jr. would like to see more African-Americans in surfing. Until then, he said, he enjoys defying stereotypes.

He’s not alone. Waterman Michael Brown Parlor has been surprising people with his prowess in lifeguarding, surfing and sailing since he was a college student in South Carolina in the 1970s. He’s retired from surfing and mentors female surfers in competitive events, believing girls don’t get the respect they deserve in the sport. He spent Pan African Beach Day encouraging newbie surfers and taking pictures for his Facebook page devoted to surfing.

Pan African Beach Day was launched a few years ago because too few black people in L.A. get to the beach, and they don’t always have a background in swimming to enjoy the water, Rachal explained. He credited the Surf Bus Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes ocean sports and safety in L.A., for helping make Beach Day a success by supplying the boards, instructing students and providing additional volunteers. Beach Days are open to anyone, although most participants are people of color.

Before they took to the waves Aug. 12, participants gathered on the beach for a talk about ocean safety and played some games that got them into the water. Then it was time to plop themselves on boards laid out in the sand, where they learned how to position their arms and feet and practice their “pop up,” the tricky move from prone to upright, ending in a stance with knees bent and arms extended.

After some popping up, volunteer instructors such as Rachal and other members of the collective took participants into the water, finding the right wave and giving them a push forward. Some newcomers rode the boards on their bellies, zooming into shore with their arms extended, while others proved agile enough to stand up, maintain balance and ride in — always an exhilarating moment for a student and instructor. Waves were small, and wipeouts were minor.

Participant Pierre Scott had attended a few Pan African Beach Days before and was having a good run, standing up and even angling into the barrel of the wave, not just riding into shore.

“I love it. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” Scott said.

“It’s a hype experience,” said Garry Maxwell, who chuckled about the language of surfing, explaining that “I’m stoked.”

Devin Waller was a beginner and felt a bit nervous. But she felt the stoke the first time she stood up on the board.

“It was awesome,” Waller said after the session ended, depositing her board on the sand. “Heck yeah, I’m going to do it again.”

Malibu’s tightknit surf community came together this week to mourn the passing of surf photographer Duncan McKenzie, a fixture on Malibu’s beaches known for his generosity and easygoing nature.

Social media lit up with dozens of tributes to McKenzie after it was announced he died last Tuesday, July 25--though no one contacted by The Malibu Times was able to share details of his passing.

“Duncan McKenzie was everyone’s friend and the surf community is truly mourning the loss of an incredible person,” Tracy Wright of the Mighty Underdogs wrote in an email to The Malibu Times. “He was friends with everyone on the beach, the kindest man with the sweetest disposition and an eye for some pretty iconic Malibu images. His big straw hat was a staple at First Point, running back and forth along the beach snapping photos of all of his surfing friends.”

One of those surfers whom McKenzie photographed and befriended was Kristina de Bree, who told The Malibu Times she first met McKenzie when he photographed her at a surf therapy event through the Mauli Ola Foundation a couple of years ago.

“I had gone to surfing events before, and it’s one of those things that’s really hard to capture--the surfing experience,” de Bree explained. “My parents would come with me to these events and I’d always have dinky pictures.”

De Bree, who said she had a “pretty advanced lung disease,” was able to tandem surf with professional surfer Bobby Friedman, an unforgettable experience. When she came back to the sand, she also received a priceless gift from McKenzie--photos of the ride.

“Duncan used to voluntarily go to these events and take pictures of everyone while they were surfing, and give them the pictures,” de Bree recalled. “He was such a sweet person.”

Another friend, Allen Sarlo, posted a tribute to McKenzie.

“He was such a gentle wonderful person,” Sarlo wrote in a message to The Malibu Times. “I know he is resting in a joyful place in heaven.”

Last weekend, a paddle-out at Leo Carrillo State Beach was held in McKenzie’s honor, with another event in the planning stages for the coming weeks.

A temporary memorial for McKenzie has been erected at Surfrider Beach.

Two is almost always better than one — save for mingling, binary hurricane swells (creating what’s known as the Fujiwhara Effect), where one subsumes the other and typically cancels out the potential for either to kick up quality surf. But Tropical Storms Hilary and Irwin, a pair of eastern Pacific storms spinning westward between Southern Mexico and Hawaii, could be an exception to the rule for Southern California this weekend and through Monday. Generous forecasts early this week reported estimates of wave heights not seen since Hurricane Marie in 2014. Hilary has since been downgraded as it travels away from the west coast of Mexico, but questions remain over the next 24 hours thanks to the uncertainty of the Fujiwhara interaction. Should you be waxing your step-up board this weekend in SoCal?

SwellWatch forecaster Nathan Cool answers some questions:

First, let’s talk hype factor. Should we be pulling out the 6’6″s this weekend?

I wouldn’t say so. For a hurricane swell for Southern California, it’s going to be significant. But that’s for a hurricane swell. We get much bigger swells in the wintertime coming off the North Pacific. South-facing breaks sometimes see bigger surf even from large storms that we get from the southern hemisphere. But this is unique for hurricane swells in that, a lot of times, hurricanes go directly west. They stay in colder water. This time around, this hurricane would have done that same thing. It would have been similar to, say, the swell that we got from Hurricane Eugene: it was fun, but there weren’t epic conditions.

When you put in the Fujiwhara effect — that is, Irwin’s binary interaction with Hillary, and potentially with some interaction from Greg, making it somewhat of a triple Fujiwhara — that’s a unique story. We could possibly get a better trajectory out of Hillary. It could possibly strengthen Hillary a little, too. Most of the time, with these storms, one will completely absorb the other. It’s almost like two binary stars in the cosmos, where they’re orbiting each other. If Hilary is swirling one way, it all of a sudden makes Irwin go back to the east, beneath Hillary. Them, if Irwin wants to go north, it pushes Hillary north. So they’re both influencing each other.

At one point, a few days ago on the models, it was coming with estimates with 15-foot wave heights in Southern California. But really, that was only for a short period of time. A lot of models have downgraded it since then. What seems to be confusing the models the most is the Fujiwhara. If not for that, the models would have a much easier time in predicting the conditions. But this is a new snag that are making things more difficult.

When surfers read the reports, what’s the most important variable to take note of?

The most important thing is to see where the swell will be coming from. That’s common with any storm, but especially so with this one. SoCal is unique – It’s hit from all kinds of different angles. We’ve got islands that block swell. Hillary has faded in strength right now, and that’s doing so before it crosses what I call our “surf-worthy rubicon,” which is around the longitude 110 W. When it crosses that, it still isn’t an ideal swell angle for Southern California — that’s when it’s about 160 degrees. That’s really tough. Most of the energy would get lost out to sea. Only some of it would brush Southern California.

Initially, some of the swell will be angled that way. As Hilary continues to travel, she will go further west, even if she goes further north. That’s where it improves the swell angle.

But you have to be careful about what breaks you select. During the peak of the swell, we’re looking at primary swell energy coming from 175- to 185-degrees, so Malibu will likely get blocked by Catalina. Orange County, especially Newport, tend to go off. Santa Barbara gets blocked by the Channel Islands at that point. San Diego surfers are going, Where’s the swell? because they’re facing the west.

So it’s a tricky angle for Southern California, but by around Monday, if things do hold true, the swell angle will widen a little more, for a southwest angle. We could be looking at 2-4-foot overhead at some points, and maybe some standout double-overhead sets as well [Ed. update, from Nathan Cool: new reports estimate more of a head-high + event for SoCal, because of the downgrading of Hilary and its weakened interaction with Irwin]. That’s if you can pick up that angle, and you don’t have anything blocking it.

Is there any preliminary reading with this swell that strikes a similar chord to Marie?

There’s not much relationship. Marie turned into a Category-5 storm. That was the big reason why we got such enormous surf from Marie. Also, speed was a rally important factor. Once we get to about 9 knots or slower, waves can pick up stronger and stronger fetch [Ed. Note: at the time of this story, Hilary was moving at around 11 knots]. Marie was a quick-moving storm. It was more of a slam-dunk type of forecast with Marie because there was no Fujiwhara. I’ve been forecasting for over 20 years, and this is the first time I’ve seen a Fujiwhara actually have a positive influence. Getting this binary dance between the two where one’s not consuming the other is sort of uncharted territory, and it’s why the models are having such a struggle.

Any other details worth noting in regard to tracking west coast hurricanes?

This thing falls within a 36- to 48-hour swell window, maximum. Most of the time, it’s a 24-hour swell window. Trying to forecast this far out, there’s still some uncertainty. We’re talking about 30-foot seas being only 700 nautical miles from Southern California, directing toward us. That’s very close. Instead of seeing 16- to 18-second periods arrive one day, and another day seeing 14- to 16-seconds, and seeing shorter and shorter periods, all kinds of swell will be thrown our way. Sets will probably be inconsistent, but but once again, it depends on how well you are exposed to that direction of swell.

Another great Ocean Park Surf Contest is in the books and the completion was excellent. We got lucky as we have for many years with great sunny weather and decent waves for the contest. The overall story this year is of competitors growing up with the contest and moving through the divisions, as well as veterans getting some good results after sticking with it for many years.

Once again held in the heart of Dogtown, the 7th Annual Ocean Park Surf Contest took place on Saturday, July 15th. The contest area was just to the north of Tower 26 in Ocean Park, Santa Monica. Once again the beach filled up with familiar faces, as well as several new surfers, some traveling from San Diego.

The trophies reflected this year's fun theme, a take-off on a popular TV show with a similar name.

Venice Beach celeb, Oscar, of Hecho en Venice clothing, one of the contest sponsors, cooked up some home-made chili to pour on the hot dogs and nachos, keeping our surfers and spectators well fed.