Hurry to the Annual Ocean Film Festival starting this Friday.  There will be an opening party Friday night at The Aquarium on the Bay and then two solid days of films ranging in topics from Surfing to Oceanography and other exploration.  The movies will be shown at the Cowell Theater in the Fort Mason Center.

Check out www.oceanfilmfest.org for more information or call (415) 561-6251.

It will be my first time checking it out.

Here is a really cool event that I want to pass on to get more people involved with.  Check it out and tell your friends.

Swim 4 Life to benefit SurfAid International is your opportunity to turn a couple hours of effort into life-saving support for isolated regions of the world.

Teams and individuals register in advance and in the days and weeks before the event get sponsored by friends and family for a 30 minute swim at one of our four pool venues.

Prizes will be awarded to all participants based on their fundraising totals, and the top fundraisers, top fundraising teams, and top swimmers receive premium prizes like new surfboards, surf vacations, and high-end gear.

Sign up today for Swim 4 Life! Locations & Dates

The Maverick’s Surf Contest is on this Saturday January 12th after a much anticipated wait having missed the window last year with no significant storms to speak of. This year has had some really good warm up sessions from Mavericks and Ghost Tree to Cortes Bank and Todos. Great weather is forecasted. It will be broadcast live online as well as at AT&T ball park on the jumbo trons.

Taken from the MavSurfer site:

“We cannot stress it enough, don’t try to come watch the event. You won’t be able to see anything. If you can’t resist the urge to come out and you make it through traffic, respect the coastside residents and the surrounding areas. Maverick’s is located smack dab in the center of a very eco sensitive area. Use common sense, stay on the trails and pack out all your trash and if you see any on the ground pack that out as well.”

The surfers will be in top form to tackle the large waves forecasted. Stormsurf.com is showing the swell to be between 15-18ft on the buoys, which can mean up to 60 ft faces.

Jeff Clark said a lot of the boys were headed up to Nelscott in Oregon for their third annual big wave contest put have turned around with the news of the contest being on.

Nelscott was a success last year, but I didn’t hear whether or not it was definitely on this weekend or if they were just headed there to warm up in hopes it could be on. The site hasn’t been updated in a while. Hopefully they can postpone any planned event as I think Mavericks takes precedence.

Stay tuned for what is sure to be big wave riding in Northern California at its best.

My good friend Dante has been sending me photos and updates from Taiwan every month for most of the year. Everything from killer days on the West Coast to crap days on the East coast and vice versa.

He even took the time to send me photos of his trip to the Phillipines and the lineups there. I would love to post his emails too as they are a riot and always make me laugh out loud…although, he’d probably fly over and put his foot up my arse talking about Interpol…daaaamnit!!

Since I haven’t posted any of them for the whole year, I thought it a perfect time to do a year in photos or something to that effect, by Dante…well, all except this one where he is in front of the lens.

Check out the rippa. Raised in Santa Cruz and then tackled the North Shore before many of you readers were even born. This guy is a living legend and is still ripping it up all the way from the Maldives to the West Coast of the US of A.

Check out this photo from September of a mysto pointbreak that went unsurfed for years and was only recently discovered by a crew of burly ex pats…Dante being one of them. This is one of the better waves to be had when its on.

This next photo is one of my favorites as it looks so playful and fun. Having to wear the full neoprene get up these days, it is a shot like this that reminds me of the freedom of jumping in with just your trunks, feeling the warm sun on your back, eating mangoes galore, and washing it all down with a couple pijoes.

The Isle of Formosa is a beautiful place, sometimes you have to squint a little, but it has some real raw beauty not found in too many places anymore. I was lucky enough to experience a time when there were very few people in the water and we could discover and name new spots each weekend.

I think every one of our crew named a spot from Firsts and Seconds to Palm Point and leftovers to AK and BoardWalks. And who can forget ‘Tha harba’ or ‘Boulder Cove’. We certainly weren’t the first ones there, just ask Rene who has been there since Martial Law or other guys that were stationed there and surfing Taiwan back in the 60’s, but it sure felt like it at times.

The best sessions I’ve had there were with just a handful of friends. I think this is going to be the start of a series showcasing some of those sessions.

The fact that you can still find a slice of surf paradise all to yourself is something not to be taken for granted.

Dante gets much respect for being a good friend and sending me all these photos that I can share with the world, but more importantly his ninja talents of getting solo sessions in while everyone else is still sleeping and always finding that peak down the beach all to himself where he can find peace and meditation.

Thanks bro for the pics and may you be blessed with empty lineups in 2008. Happy New Year!!

Well we went from 15 foot to about 2 foot overnight.  I awoke to knee to chest high little nuggets on New Years Day with a nice offshore wind holding up the little tubes.  Not quite enough to get excited, but a ton of people were out enjoying the beautiful San Francisco weather.  I chose to hang on the beach and fly my trainer kite with my boys.  I’m actually headed out for a surf momentarily as the swell is slowly on its way back up and the winds are going to shift onshore this afternoon.  On a time crunch now.

Still thinking about the waves from the past couple days and the beautiful sunset.  My friend Adam at NewYorkSurf.com posted a couple shots I sent over to him.  Fun to see my shots somewhere other than my own site.

Here is one of my favorites from the final moments of light in 2007.  Nice lines everywhere you looked.

About to go draw some lines of my own.  With more storms on the way and nearly 8 inches of rain expected in the coming days this may be my last chance to get some sunny perfection for awhile.