Table of contents for September #59.5 2018 in Surfer

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine what it would be like if all social media platforms merged into one. Now imagine if, somehow, that monolithic übernetwork became an actual, physical place. You’d approach the entrance to Instwitterbook and admire the sleek design and warm, inviting colors of the façade. You’d step inside and marvel at the staggering number of people filling the room and interacting with one another—and be perplexed by how many cats also seem to be roaming around. But as impressive as the size, scope and intuitive nature of this place are, something doesn’t feel quite right. Upon closer examination of the crowd, you realize that while some people are engaging in a meaningful exchange of ideas, just as many seem to just be screaming at…

Before this season, you hadn’t won an event since 2012. Fast-forward to today and you’re a world title contender. What’s changed? This year I’ve just got a different kind of a mindset. I’ve always been really competitive and have worked really hard, but this year I think I’ve learned how to work smarter not harder. Before Snapper, I just surfed way more than I ever did before, which I know sounds funny and so simple, but I made it a point to surf two times a day, rain or shine, no matter what. I heard you were surfing five hours a day, every day. Yeah, four hours a day was the goal. I come here, to Torquay, Australia (Bells Beach area) for like a month each year to visit my…

I’m not quite sure what to expect when I pull up to Mick Fanning’s house. It’s been three months to the day since his retirement from competitive surfing and he’s been strangely quiet. For months—no, wait, make that years—before he called time on his luminous career, it seemed like no other surfer in the world even existed. It was all Mick, all the time. The champ went out in a flash of shark teeth, an emotionally-wrought day at Pipeline and, ultimately, the warm admiration of surfers worldwide. But now? As I walk up the driveway I picture walking in and finding the three-time World Champion sprawled on the couch among pizza boxes, beer cans and trophies in a dark, depressive funk, contemplating his waning starshine, his plunge into the abyss…

The rivalry between Kelly Slater and Andy Irons in the 2000s is the stuff of legend. The two competitive surf titans were seen as diametrically, cosmically opposed. Their conflict was presented as light vs. dark, establishment vs. vanguard, “I love you, man” vs. “My whole driving force right now is to take his little pretty picture and just crush it.” Today, however, we know it wasn’t quite so black and white. The recent documentary, “Andy Irons: Kissed by God,” delves into the tumultuous life of the Hawaiian three-time World Champion and sheds light on his fiery clash with Slater. In his interview for the film, which spanned five hours and included more than a few tears, Slater described the rivalry as more nuanced than what the outside world perceived. He…

So your son, Banks, is a little over six months old now. I’m guessing things are pretty wild for you at the moment. Yeah, it’s the most amazing thing ever, but it’s also probably the hardest thing ever. It’s a learning process just trying to maintain your own lives while still being the best parents you can be, and you figure things out on a daily basis. Obviously the decision to become a parent is never straightforward, but it probably gets even more complicated when you’re a professional surfer in the prime of your career. Were there other parents/professional athletes you looked to for inspiration in how to pull it off? The person who I looked to most was probably Bethany [Hamilton]. I’ve always looked up to her, but seeing…

How’d you get your start in surf photography? I’m from the southeast of France. My dad was a sailor and I spent all my weekends on the boat, exposed to the ocean. I discovered surfing when I was 8 and photography when I was a teenager and quickly started taking photos of my friends surfing. I went to Paris for photography school, but I really started missing the ocean, so I decided to quit school and move to Hawaii. I worked for a windsurfing magazine in France and I had a good connection who lived in Maui. I was only 19 when I landed on Maui and I didn’t even know where I was going to spend my first night. I had no budget so I built my first water…

“I shot this during a large west swell in western Sumbawa while on a trip with some good friends,” says photographer Trevor Murphy. “While most of the surf world comes to Indonesia searching for its famous lefthanders, we stumbled upon this empty right. What’s special about this shot is that we decided to drive away from the sure thing and take a gamble on a maybe. Most of the surf adventurers today get pretty caught up on technology and trolling the internet feeds for their next trip location. Sometimes you just have to put the phone down, step away from the herd and do it the old-fashioned way.”…

How did you get into agriculture? I grew up in Hawaii. I put surfing above most other things. I had to be creative as far as eating went so that I wouldn’t have to make lots of money and instead could just surf. When I was a teenager I wound up going to Molokai and was adopted into a Hawaiian family by the hanai system. My job was to hunt and fish and grow food for the family. I pretty much surfed all day, every day, and the rest was fishing and hunting. I wanted to grow food and I wanted to learn to do it the right way by regenerating the soil. What made you decide regenerative agriculture was the right way? I grew up around the sugarcane and…

How old are you, exactly? Your mustache makes it very hard to guess. [Laughs.] I’m actually 23 years old. That’s funny because so often the lines you draw look like an homage to an older generation. Did you grow up watching a ton of old surf films? Yeah, definitely. I didn’t really know much about surfing when I started, but a good friend of mine had all these old surf videos, so we’d go over to his house and watch them. The first surf movie I ever saw was “Many Classic Moments,” with Larry Bertlemann and Buttons [Kaluhiokalani] and Mark Richards. To this day, anytime I see a ‘70s single fin it brings me right back to watching that movie—such a rad era, they were just so creative and had…

In the early 2010s, images of Australia’s Laurie Towner pulling into some of the world’s heaviest barrels were splashed all over magazine spreads and website galleries. Supremely casual in waves that buckled the knees of some of the most revered big-wave surfers on earth, Towner thrived at notoriously nasty breaks like Ours and Shipsterns. A long career seemed to stretch out before the talented charger, but in 2014, his longtime sponsor, Billabong, suddenly dropped Towner from their surf team. Shocked, he tried to piece together a pro surfing career by attracting a different sponsor, confident that his past accomplishments would buoy him through rough professional seas. When no other brands came calling, and with a young family to support and mortgage bills stacking up, Towner picked up a hammer and…