Here’s a link to driftsurfing.com, a website that used some of my photos and a story my wife wrote about our trip to Chile.

Pictured is Eli Andersen of Portland, Oregon, with a 15′ redwood paddleboard. Eli makes his own paddleboards and kayaks on which he does long, solo paddling adventures. This board was made from wood salvaged from his mom’s deck. It weighs about 50 pounds. Eli made it for a solo circumnavigation of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia that he will attempt this summer. He will paddle about ten miles a day. At this pace Eli will complete his trip in two and half months, his window being June 1st to August 15th.

Eli has already paddled the entire Oregon Coast—which also took him a full summer to complete—and solo kayaked the length of the inside passage from southeast Alaska to Washington. On his Oregon coast trip he paddled about fifteen miles a day, carrying four or five days of supplies and camping gear. Then he would hitch hike back to his truck, drive back to his board, camp for the night and re-supply and then do it all over again. There are very few roads in Haida Gwaii, so he will have to talk fishermen into dropping off supply packs at various locations on the islands.

Eli says he gets in rhythm when he is paddling about two miles from shore. There’s less current out there and it seems to be where he gets his best glide. He said that whales, dolphins and birds seem to prefer traveling along this watery thoroughfare as well. Eli does these paddling adventures for no other reasons than to see a place. No cause, no fanfare-he just really loves being out there.

One more shot of Gerry with his hand planer.

In early April I was lucky enough to be snowboarding Mt. Bachelor when the best snow of year arrived. While I was there I took these portraits of Bend resident and dedicated snowboarder Gerry Lopez at his shaping bay. He’s such a nice guy. He showed me his Clark Foam blanks, of which he probably has the largest stock pile left. Gerry’s surfing, positive attitude and dedication to healthy living has always been a big inspiration for me. I also find it very interesting that he moved from Hawaii to Central Oregon and started a new life. He’s seen so many changes in surfing, but instead of becoming jaded with crowded lineups he realized there are new places and experiences left to discover. I boarded a couple runs with him. He rips!

In the latest issue (May) of Surfer Magazine there is an article on a trip I took in January to frozen northern Japan. The beach was covered in snow and the ocean was 32 degrees, but we rode some fun right point breaks in one of the most scenic parts of the country. The photos in the article were taken by Brian Nevins. Here are a few photos I took. I will be putting together more words and a gallery with more photos for my portfolio website soon.

Todd Glaser photograph of me taken earlier this year halfway into a 16 mile round trip hike in search of surf and isolation in the Southern Hemisphere .

Hokkaido, 2007

I spent part of March and most of April in the Southern Hemisphere. Rode some waves and shared good times with good people. Covered a lot of ground.…drove 3000 kms in a week.

I will post a few photos here as they gradually become digitized. Will also add new galleries to my site soon…

Surfer Stuck In Snow, I-IV / Lake Superior, Duluth, Minnesota, 2005

In late September I spent a week in Southeast Alaska on a surf/beach cleanup trip. I was there with surfer/artist Chris Del Moro and photographer Todd Glaser, both of San Diego, as well as three Surfing Magazine contest winners –a lawyer, a graphic designer, a coast guard member and a department of the interior employee-who wrote in a explaining how they’d done their part for the environment. The Alaskan brewery, a craft style brewery located in Juneau, sponsored the trip. Our goal was to bring awareness to Coastal Code, an environmental non-profit organization that encourages people to pick up trash at their local beach.

We arrived in Juneau under rainy skies. It’s usually wet in the Tongass National Forest where it averages 90 inches of rain per year. And like most towns in Alaska, its state capitol is isolated. In fact, there are no roads in or out as it is situated on the Inside Passage surrounded by ocean, impassable mountains and massive glaciers that come right up to the coast. Growing up in Southern California it was a treat to see bald eagles, which are as common here as seagulls are at home. We watched as they soared back in forth in front of the owners of the Alaskan brewery waterfront home. For dinner it was a real Pacific Northwest feast, with fresh Dungeness crabs caught in pots just off their beach and Alaskan brew IPA and stout to wash it down.

Before visiting the town of Yakutat for a big beach cleanup and hopefully some surf, we spent three days in Juneau which consisted of a brewery tour, a zip line tour through moss covered spruce and pine trees and heli glacier tour, which turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done.

The weather in Alaska this summer was really bad . The local helicopter tour had to turn away 7,000 clients. We figured a trip for us wasn’t in the cards. But, our second day dawned with clear skies and we bee-lined it for the heli pad. This was my first time in a helicopter. I was a ball of nerves-heights really aren’t my thing. But the experience was well worth having to face my fears. We flew over gigantic mountains and valleys, inside an ice cave and came up on a foraging black bear and several mountain goats. We flew over the Juneau ice field, a perennial expanse of snow measuring 1500 square miles that forms the areas many glaciers. We landed on the Taku glacier where we drank from a small glacier stream. It was far and away the best water I’ve ever tasted.

Before I left home, my friend who had been to Yakutat at least ten times said I would be lucky to see Mt. Elias, the giant snowcapped mountain that’s forms a backdrop to the many surf spots located here. The mountain is the 3rd tallest in North America and the highest coastal mountain in the world at around 18,000 feet. Most people come to Yakutat and don’t see it as it’s usually shrouded in clouds. Arriving in the small town of 700 people, once again luck was on our side as the weather was clear as a bell and we could see Mt St. Elias gleaming in the distance across Icy Bay.

We checked into our cabin where we met a couple Native Alaskan surfers, Sammy and Joey, who were born and raised in Yakutat. They ended up being gracious tour guides during our stay. They took us to Harlequin Lake, a beautiful glacier fed, iceberg filled lagoon. Our 2nd day in Yakutat was rainy so we deemed it beach cleanup time. You wouldn’t think there would be much trash on the beach in this part of the world, but Alaska’s beaches are where countless tons of marine debris stuck in the North Pacific gyre, or circular ocean current, eventually ends up. We collected bags upon bags of trash, the majority of it fishing nets and buoys and plastic bottles. The amount of plastic we found made me never want to use a disposable container again. At the end of the day, we were all very tired-I never thought picking up trash would be so exhausting. We loaded our rental van and took all of our trash to the local dump. It was here we saw the mighty grizzly bear, about ten of them actually, all living as dump scavengers. While it was sad to see them subsisting on discarded human food, it was exciting to see my favorite animal so close up.

Coming to Alaska I had a list of things I wanted to see: grizzly bears, bald eagles, glaciers, tall mountains, the northern lights, and if I was really lucky, good surf. It was getting towards the end of the trip and I was able to check off most of these attractions from my list, except for the northern lights and, unfortunately, good surf. I’d seen the northern lights in Norway but had never had the chance to photograph them. We had a cold, clear night on our last night in Yakutat, which are ideal conditions to see them. That night I slept with one eye open and kept peering out the window like it was Christmas and I was waiting for Santa Claus, but, it wasn’t to be.

As for the surf, at this point in the trip we had one session in knee to waist high wind slop. The quality of the surf wasn’t anything to write home about, but the scenery was postcard worthy, and hey, we were in Alaska surfing alone near an 18,000-foot snowcapped mountain. Of course we all wanted a bit more and all hopes were pinned on our last day’s forecast, which looked good. Our flight wasn’t until 6 PM, so we had time for one more surf. Early that morning, we made the drive to a break called Snappers, a fun peaky beach break typical of the area. The forecast was accurate-the surf was overhead and for now, the conditions were glassy. As long as the wind didn’t come we prayed. We ended up surfing for 4 hours that morning then had another two-hour session after lunch. The daylong glassy conditions reminded our new friends Joey and Sammy of summertime Alaska, not early October which is verging on winter. So, we lucked into good surf after all. I guess I’ll just have to go back for the northern lights. Thanks to Alaskan Brewery for putting together a great trip, one with great people and one for a great cause.

www.coastalcode.org

In January I went on my first trip to Whistler and Blackcombe Mountains in British Colombia with some of the “Momentum” era surfers including Kelly Slater, Shane Dorian, Taylor Knox, Ross Williams, Pat O’Connell, Benji and Jason Weatherley, Greg Browning, Jay Larson, Taylor Steele, Saxon Boucher, Keith Malloy, Keoni Watson and Abe Lerner.

It snowed everyday of the trip. One day we took a snow cat into the back country where we enjoyed some super deep untracked powder. It was a great four days of boarding and hanging with old friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a few years.

At the end of September, I took my second trip to the coast of Newfoundland in Atlantic Canada. I first went to Newfoundland in 2003, spending most of the time in a moldy hotel room while it rained for days on end. I almost went home early, but photographer Rob Gilley was patiently tracking a hurricane forecasted to head our way and talked me into extending my ticket. We ended up surfing a perfect right point break that was as long as Rincon, but with no crowd, and he sun even came out.

This time we explored some never before surfed breaks along Newfoundland’s northern peninsulas. Here you can get north swells, so the surf is more consistent than in the south where you depend on fickle hurricanes. I was with Rob Gilley again for this trip, along with pro surfers Chris Del Moro and Alex Gray. One break we found gave you a short but sweet 3-second tube. It was fun, but you had to kick out right after your barrel or you would smash into a giant boulder. While we didn’t get the sought after long right point break on this trip, the scenery was beautiful and we had sun for most of the trip.