Sunfish off of Palos Verdes. Photo by Bob Wyler

by Carolyn Kraft

What on earth is that? This is a common exclamation upon meeting an ocean sunfish, the craziest looking fish inhabiting the same ocean layers humans frequent.

But this peculiar fish sports the coolest scientific name: Mola mola. Possibly Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, who scientifically named thousands of species, suffered a brief nervous tic and wrote the same name down twice on accident. We’ll never know what really happened, but the repetition makes Mola mola one of the easiest scientific names to remember and is frequently used by scientists and fish fans alike.

Strangeness always inspires comments and comparisons and the ocean sunfish is no exception. Top alternative ways to describe a sunfish include “a Frisbee designed by Salvador Dali” (Dr. Milton Love), “a big swimming head with fins attached” (Dr. Tierney Thys) and “a fish designed by a government committee.”

My mind conjured up an image of Victor Frankenstein leaning over the fish parts he sewed together shouting “It’s alive! It’s alive!”

In standard descriptive terms, the ocean sunfish is a roundish shaped fish that comes in a variety of gray/silver/gray-blue shades. Some sunfish have fancy shaded patterns arrayed around their bulging eyes. The front of the head slopes diagonally into a sharp nose-like point from the top and into a small puckered circular pink-lipped mouth from the bottom.

The ocean sunfish doesn’t have a normal fish tail or caudal fin. Instead, it has a bizarre looking stumpy rear called the clavus. “Clavus means rudder in Latin, and the sunfish uses it for steering. When they are trying to go fast they use it for propulsion as well. But it’s primarily used as a rudder,” explained Dr. Tierney Thys, marine biologist and ocean sunfish expert, who also serves as director of research at the Sea Studio Foundation.

This rudder is accented by two matching fins, one sticking straight up and the other sticking straight down forming the shape of a giant hang-loose hand sign. The pectoral (side) fins seem too small for the huge round body of the ocean sunfish, making it look like the designer lost interest and stuck on the last two fins without taking proper measurements.

Despite such an unusual set-up, the ocean sunfish can a reach respectable speed. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s website, ocean sunfish can swim as fast as 3.2 km (two miles) per hour and can travel as far as 26 km (16 miles) in one day, which comes close to the cruising speed of the yellowfin tuna. Not too shabby. Taking into consideration the size and weight of the ocean sunfish, its speedometer rankings are even more impressive.

The ocean sunfish is the heaviest bony fish in the world (not including sharks and rays). According to a scientific paper titled “The biology and ecology of the ocean sunfish Mola mola,” the heaviest sunfish ever recorded weighed more than 5,000 pounds and was close to nine feet long. The largest ocean sunfish look like vertical flying saucers that lost their way, landed in the ocean and decided to stay.

But the alien appearance of a sunfish is deceiving. Their inner mechanics are well equipped to handle an ocean environment. “Inside they are pretty much just a bag of watery muscle and their skeleton is secondarily cartilaginous [meaning made of cartilage],” said Thys. “Typically, bones are first laid down as cartilage and then they ossify, but with molas their bony skeletons have become secondarily cartilaginous, which lightens them up and their muscle is quite watery which lightens up them up as well.”

“Secondarily means its ancestors had bony skeletons and then as evolution went on its lineage went further and further out into the open ocean and away from being a coral reef fish,” explained Thys. “In the open ocean having a lighter skeleton was an asset, plus a bigger body and no tail was better too.”

So the terms secondarily cartilaginous means the Mola mola evolved to have a skeleton consisting of cartilage after having a bone skeleton: bone first, cartilage second. And for the sunfish this arrangement works well and allows them to haul clavus in the ocean despite their massive size.

To get around, Mola molas move their strange dorsal (back) fin and anal (bottom) fin near the clavus from side to side. The fins look like vertical wings, which sometimes move in unison and sometimes independently at the back of the wacky, round body. Somehow this simple system allows them to dive up to 1,000 to 2,500 feet deep.

At deep depths ocean sunfish hunt jellyfish and gelatinous zooplankton, which is a catch-all term for a group of delicate animals related to jellyfish. Luckily for Mola molas, gelatinous zooplankton is found from the ocean surface to the seafloor, making it the perfect easy meal. “Typically those kinds of animals aren’t huge in calories, but their ubiquity, the fact that they’re found in lots of places may make up for what they lack in high calories,” said Thys.

As ocean sunfish traverse the layers of the ocean, sometimes they take time to float and lay on their side at the ocean’s surface. This is how they acquired their common “ocean sunfish.” It looks like they are catching rays.

While it’s not clear exactly what sunfish are doing at the surface, it’s possible that catching some rays isn’t that far from the truth. “We see that they tend to come to the surface in colder oceans, and spend time at the surface warming up between dives to very cold water,” said Dr. Thys. “So the working hypothesis is that they are warming themselves up.”

There are other reasons to hang loose at the surface, too. “When molas are at the surface they can be cleaned by birds and have their parasites burned off by UV radiation,” Thys said. “But being at the surface is also very dangerous because you can get sunburned and birds can peck your eyes out, so it’s kind of a mixed blessing.”

The risk may be worth it for sunfish because many parasites find their bodies to be an appealing home. Researchers have counted more than 50 parasites living on and in one Mola mola!

Ocean sunfish live in temperate and tropical waters all over the world, including off Southern California’s coast. Adults usually hang out alone, except when males and females come together during mating season to broadcast spawn in the water column. Young ocean sunfish less than two feet in length tend to hang out in schools.

Unfortunately not enough is known about the ocean sunfish to draw any firm conclusions about their population size or conservation status. This is scary considering the numbers that end up as bycatch. “Twenty-six to 29 percent of our drift gillnet by catch is mola,” said Thys. “In California, we’re trying to get a sense of their numbers and the impact of bycatch. We have an inkling that the fisheries may be impacting the population, but it’s a little too early to say definitively.”

For readers interested in adopting a Mola mola visit www.oceansunfish.org. Your support can help ensure that these enormous, weird looking fish live to fight another day and continue to make people gasp in wonder. If you happen to see one, feel free to flash the hang-loose sign as a friendly greeting.

For more Wild Things or to contact Carolyn Kraft visit www.oceanwildthings.com B

How the Taplin Bell was won, and lost, in the one of the greatest lifeguard races of all time

Dory racers David Cartlidge and Dan Bender from LA County Central Section lifeguard team row towards shore in Friday night’s Judge Taplin Medley Relay. Photo Ray Vidal

If there was any doubts what the South Bay Section was up against, they were dispelled in the waves off Avenue C on Friday night by a swimmer named Kicker.

The Bud Stevenson Lifeguard Intracrew Medley Relay kicks off the International Surf Festival. Teams of lifeguards from beaches from San Pedro to Malibu compete in a combined run, swim, paddle, surf ski, and dory race that is the second-oldest and most revered of local surf race events.

On Friday night, the swim portion of the event was almost all that mattered. The team from Central Section (Venice) included three Olympic-caliber swimmers, most prominently 2000 Olympic Silver medalist Chad Carvin. He has become the most dominant waterman the area, anchoring what has become a Central Section dynasty. The team has not lost a Stevenson relay since Carvin joined four years ago.

But on Friday night it was Kicker Vencill’s turn. The Kentucky native was an Olympic hopeful in 2003 when he tested positive in a drug test. He was later vindicated and won a lawsuit against the supplement company that had caused his positive test, but it was too late to salvage his Olympic dream.

Vencill has found redemption as a lifeguard. He followed Carvin Friday, and when he got in the water the race was still surprisingly close. When he emerged, Venice had an insurmountable lead.

“It’s just an amazing thing to be able to take your God given abilities and utilize them in an occupation that saves lives,” Vencill said. “And then to become part of a tradition like this, that honors the great watermen that came before us, and to keep that tradition and celebrate it…It’s just unbelievable. It’s so great.”

But the Intracrew Relay was only the warm-up. Many of the lifeguards wore face paint and crazy colored costumes. Laughs were abundant.

Saturday night’s Taplin Bell competition was another matter all together.

The Taplin, which began in 1936, is a similar relay, comprised of swimming, paddling, and rowing around buoys 200 yards from shore. Like the Intracrew, the Taplin takes place at night because the lifeguards still must work during the day. It is the oldest and most revered lifeguard competition in the world. The winners’ names are inscribed on a perpetual trophy that is an old ship’s bell.  Those who make it on the trophy join some of the great local waterman of years past – the likes of Greg Noll, Dale Velzy, Dewey Weber and Tom Zahn.

“It’s a little more for the blood,” said Michael Murphy, the leader of the South Bay’s LA County Southern Section team. “You won’t see costumes tomorrow night.”

Southern Section’s Mike Murphy and Central’s Ryan Aronson duel to the beach. Photo by Ray Vidal

The race promised to be especially blood-driven among the brothers Murphy. Michael, 31, and his brother Chris, 30, are stalwart members of the Southern Section team. Their little brother, Brian, 28, three years ago left the Southern Section team and joined the Central Section (unlike the Intracrew, the Taplin is divided by larger areas, making the 16-person team even more elite).

“I was really bummed when he transferred sections,” Michael Murphy said. “I was upset about it, which is another reason this means a lot to me. I loved racing with him. We had a couple years where all three of us where on the same team and it was pretty special. Brian is pretty much one of the best, maybe the best, board paddler in the country. Racing against him is cool, but racing with him is much more enjoyable.”

The South and Central sections are bitter rivals. Central – which includes Santa Monica and the Venice swimmers – wrested the trophy from the Southern Section in 2008 after a long period of local domination. The trophy had remained at South Bay lifeguard headquarters every year but one from 1993 through 2007. In 2009, a close race was blown open by Carvin, who opened up a more than 30-second lead, allowing Central to cruise to another Taplin victory.

Few people gave the Southern Section much of a chance this year.

Gary Crum, the director of the International Surf Festival has his name on the bell 11 times, mostly as a dory man for the Southern Section. But as he watched the swimmers from Venice Friday night, he shook his head. Crum said that Carvin, Vencill, and Juan Delgadillo – a former USC water polo star – are three of the top five ocean swimmers in the country. Each, he said, was fully capable of adding at least 15 second leads on their respective legs of the swim.

“That is a pretty steep hill to climb,” Crum said. “These are all elite athletes. But these are among the elite of the elite.”

The South Bay could not be easily dismissed, however. Their ranks included Catalina paddleboard race champion Kyle Daniels and Mel Solberg, a dory racer whose name is on the bell 15 times, more than any competitor.  And then there were the unknowns, including the conditions and emerging team members.

Crum noted that in surf racing, a single wave can change everything. Paddlers fall off their paddleboards, boats flip, and exchanges are fumbled. At Avenue C this weekend, a close shore break promised to make things dicey – one boat capsized on Friday night.

“If you are not the favorites,” Crum said, “you pray for surf.”

Under Murphy’s leadership, the Southern Section also has groomed several young lifeguards. Murphy is deeply committed to it. He has been involved in the Junior Lifeguard program for several years and conducts weekly clinics for lifeguard that focus on paddleboarding skills.

“Mike Murphy has had a lot to do with bringing the next generation into lifeguarding,” said Mel Solberg.

It isn’t easy to pass the tests required to join the lifeguarding ranks. And it’s even more difficult to make a Taplin team. Solberg, 45, remembers. He was 19 years old and cocky as hell, a young lifeguard who thought beating the old guys in time trials would be easy. But it took him five years to make a Taplin team.

“I was an okay swimmer and started my career up in Zuma,” Solberg said. “That first year in the time trials I got fifth place, and they take four swimmers. Next year, sixth, then fifth, then seventh…I’m thinking, holy cow, these guys are in their late 30s. How does this happen?”

Finally, he and another young buddy tried dory racing.

“We got our butts kicked so bad,” he said. “That was a big eye opener – that real experience, ocean knowledge and wave knowledge, has so much to do with the Taplin.”

One of Murphy’s young protégés made the Taplin team this year in only his second year as an LA County Lifeguard. Austin Bates, 20, had Murphy as a Jr. Guard instructor. He remembers when Murphy told him he was training for the Catalina Classic.

“I remember he pointed out to the island. ‘That is where I’m paddling.’ I’m like, ‘Whoa!’” Bates said. “It totally blew my mind. That’s insane. So to see him do that…I want to do that, too. I want to be like these guys, being 12 years old and not knowing what it was like, then learning about guys like Greg Noll, Tom Zahn, these old lifeguards. I look at all these guys and I want to be a part of that.”

Somewhere along the way he lost his way. He got out of the water and into trouble in high school. But when he reconnected with Murphy, Daniels, and waterman and swimmer Anthony Vela, something clicked with Bates.

“I got into some trouble, mixed up a little bit with the wrong crowd, going down the wrong road,” he said. “I definitely would not be here today if this life hadn’t pulled me out. Having this dream, day by day, got me through it.”

Last winter, he became so determined to make the Taplin team, he went to Australia to work on his paddling. Bates returned a different paddler. When the Taplin trials finally came, he was so nervous he threw up. But he went out and paddled like his life depended on it. He made the team. On Saturday, a few hours before the race, he was sitting at home wearing the cool parka that only Southern Section Taplin team members are given.

“I haven’t taken it off,” Bates said. “That was one of the biggest attractions, that visual – I wanted to be that guy on the beach wearing that parka. Because only 16 guys wear the parkas…I’m stoked.”

The race

The sun was down, the shore break pounding close, and the swimmers were warming up. Southern and Central, among the eight Taplin teams competing, were side by side on the beach. There were no costumes and few laughs.

The gun sounded and Kicker Vencill dove into the water. His long, sinewy form quickly disappeared into the darkness. Southern Section’s Micah Carlson stayed right in his draft and finished the first leg just a few seconds behind.

The other six teams were already far back. In the second leg, Southern’s Pat Jacobsen stayed right with Central’s Juan Delgadillo. On the third leg, a remarkable thing happened. Out by the buoys, Southern Section’s Jeff Hart overtook Central Sections Nick Sullivan. The Central crowd began chanting “Carvin! Carvin!” as Hart emerged from the water with a five second Southern section lead.

“I tried to get mine,” Hart said. “I knew Carvin was coming, and so I tried to get as much as I could.”

The Southern beach was going wild. It was indeed a steep hill, but they were climbing it. They knew if they could keep it close, their paddlers could beat Central. But Carvin was his beastly self. He immediately devoured the lead. Vela swam anchor for Southern, and he swam well, but by the time Carvin hit the beach, Central was ahead 30 seconds.

“The first three legs they were able to get on our guys and draft on them,” Carvin said afterwards. “But with him hitting the water ahead of me, he couldn’t draft me. I could see where he was, and I went by him. And there was no getting behind me.”

The first of the four paddleboarding legs was crucial. Brian Murphy was paddling for Central. If he opened an even bigger gap, the race could be all but over. But young Southern paddler, Shane Gallas, held his own. There was still hope. Gary Crum was pacing and bellowing on the beach.

“The other guys aren’t Brian Murphy,” Crum said.

Kyle Daniels flew into, and through, the water. He took away 24 of Central’s 33 second lead, and handed it off to Bates. The young paddler was hyped, and ready. He brought Southern almost even. His team piled on him as he collapsed on the beach and Mike Murphy took to the water.

“Mike is getting it,” Crum said. “This is coming down to the boats.”

Murphy had opened up a five second lead by the time he reached the buoy, then lost a few of those seconds coming in through the surf.

It would come down to the boats. As an old dory man, Crum couldn’t have been more delighted. He was dancing on the beach. “This is what it’s all about right here.”

The first two dory teams stayed within a few strokes of one another, with Southern holding on to the lead. But on the second leg, Central’s Jon Van Duinwyk and Anto Boghokian caught a wave on the way in to pull even. It was a big turning point. The third teams stayed within a few strokes of one another, but in the surf, one of the Southern rowers’ oars popped out of its oarlock. When Chris Murphy jumped in the boat for the anchor leg, he missed about five strokes while trying to get the oar back in.

Central pulled a boat length ahead. Two hundred yards out, at the buoy, you could see the experienced Central team turn towards shore a second or two ahead of Southern.

Rob Pelkey and the legendary Capt. Dan Douglas – who competed in his first Taplin decades ago with Gary Crum as his dory partner – held their lead coming through the surf. Douglas ran up the beach to the finish a bare four seconds ahead of the Southern section boat. He raised his massive arms in triumph.

For the third year in a row, the Taplin Bell was going back to Venice.

Brian Murphy was jubilant. He didn’t look at it as partisan victory of Central over Southern. It was more a matter of everybody lifting each other.

“It’s my hometown here, and I grew up here,” Murphy said. “I always say, we are lifeguards for life. It’s not ‘I’m only a lifeguard at this beach, or at that beach.’ It doesn’t matter where you are in the world – I’ve been on airplanes with Mike and we’ve saved people. I think whatever brings out the best in two people, whether it’s brothers or worst enemies, is an event worth racing.”

Each member of the winning team would gather at the bell and ring it once for every time their name was inscribed on it. Tom Seth, a paddler for Central from Manhattan Beach, would ring it 12 times. He was closing in on his buddy Mel Solberg, with whom he’d won six Taplins earlier in his career with Southern. That evening Seth noted that the competition improved their lifesaving skills.

“It could save a life,” Seth said. “Guys push each other, and everyone gets better.”

In fact, the brothers Murphy have a competition among themselves for rescues. Last winter, Brian pulled ahead of Mike with a dramatic rescue.

“It was one of those run, swim, run, swim, run, paddle rescues – three rescues in the span of few minutes,” Mike Murphy said. “I had a couple hairy rescues this past winter, too, and had to use the board a few times…but he’s got the lead there, too. It’s really a special thing.”

When Central gathered huddled around their boat to celebrate – everybody pounding on the boat like a drum – Douglas grabbed his crew’s attention.

“Hey everybody, a round of applause for our competition,” Douglas said. “South Bay took us to the edge. Let’s say South Bay, on three….South Bay! South Bay! South Bay!”

Kyle Daniels was standing not far away. He was smiling ruefully.

“I’ll be thinking about that one in January,” Daniels said. “You know, somebody has got to be second, and if we are going to be second in a race like that, it’s not so bad. Both teams poured their hearts into it, and it’s a cliché down here, but that’s surf racing – a wave will separate it.”

“That was the best Taplin race ever. You won’t see it any closer.” ER

Central Division Captain Dan Douglass raises his arms in triumphant after he and Rob Pelkey anchored the final leg of the 2010 Taplin Bell Relay. Photo by Ray Vidal

Despite helping Central section win Saturday night’s Taplin Bell Relay doryman David Cartlidge wasn’t about to celebrate with his teammates. Sunday morning, he and fellow doryman John Van Duinwyck were scheduled to compete in the Surf Festival Doryman’s Relay.

“Everyone calls this the hangover race because everyone stays out late celebrating Taplin,” Cartlidge said as Sunday’s relay was about to begin.

In fact, one of his chief rivals reinforced the race’s reputation by failing to show Sunday  morning.

The Surf Festival race is part of a series sponsored of the National Doryman Association. The series culminates each September with the Great Catalina Dory Race, a 24.5 mile race from the Catalina Isthmus to San Pedro. Cartledge and Van Duinwyck finished second in the Catalina race last year. The two have been racing together for three years.

They also finished second in last year’s Hermosa race.

“A lot of things went wrong for us last year, false starts and what not. We did not want to repeat that this year,” Cartlidge said.

The Hermosa race is a three lap relay around a buoy at the end of Hermosa’s 500 yard long pier. The dorymen row individually out to the buoy and then back to the beach where they trade off with their partners.

Unlike the Taplin Bell race, Cartlidge and Van Duinwyck leapt out to an early lead and were never in danger of of losing it.

For more information on the Lifeguard Dory Races visit www.nationaldorymans.org. ER

The 49th Annual International Surf Festival competition kicked off Friday night with the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Championships at Avenue C in Redondo Beach.

Prior to the competitions, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter coordinated with a lifeguard Bay Watch to demonstrate how victims rescued by the lifeguards can be lifted into the helicopter for transport to a hospital.

The 6-lifeguard run relay was won by the Torrance/Redondo Beach/Cabrillo team. This is the fourth consecutive win for the Torrance/Redondo/Cabrillo lifeguards.

The 4-lifeguard shallow water sprint relay was won by the lifeguards from Dockweiller. The 6-lifeguard rescue board relay was won by the Zuma lifeguard team, who had also won the relay in 2008 and 2009.

The main event of the night was the Bud Stevenson Lifeguard Intracrew Medley Relay. Teams consiste of two runners, four swimmers, four paddleboarders, one surf skier, and four two-man dory teams.

The Dockweiller took an early lead, but it was the Venice team that pulled through and won the competition for the fourth year in a row.

Venice swimmer Kicker Vencill helped his team gain what proved an insurmountable lead. Vencil represented the U.S. at the 2001 World University Games.

Venice lifeguard Chad Carvin also contributed to his team’s early lead. Carvin won a silver medal with the American 4x200m Freestyle Relay Team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney Australia.

Other members of the Venice team were runners Pedro Cardos and Tyler Contrasy, swimmers Juan Delgadillo and Azad Al-Barazi, paddlers Shota Guterres, Keith Benzer, AJ Lester, and Nick Sullivan, surf skier Dan Murphy, and dory crews Dave Cartlidge and Nadia Dan, George Akopyan and Andrew Czer, Anto Boghokian and David Carpenter, and Danny Douglas and Dan Bender. ER

Velzy-Stevens Paddleboard race record holder Kyle Daniels (center) prepares to pass the torch he took from fellow lifeguard Mike Inscore (right) to Inscore’s son Hogan (left).

“You have to race my son,” Inscore told the 21-year-old Daniels.

Inscore’s son Hogan was four years old.

On Sunday, at the International Surf Festival Velzy-Stevens Paddleboard Race, Inscore held Daniels to his 13-year-old promise.

Daniels has won the Velzy-Stevens race every year since its inception in 2000, with the exception of 2003 when he didn’t compete. And he won it again on Sunday in a time of 17:15. But the second place finisher cast doubts about whether or not Daniels can continue his streak through 2011.

Placing second, just over one minute behind, was Los Angeles County Lifeguard Cadet Hogan Inscore. A measure of the nearly lifelong bond between the two paddlers was the fact that Inscore was paddling a board borrowed from Daniels. It was the same board Daniels beat Australian lifeguard Jamie Mitchell on in the 2006 Catalina Classic. Mitchell had not previously lost a paddleboard race in five years.

The bond between the two paddlers was not unusual for the Velzy-Stevens race. Elle Inscore, 13, placed second in the women’s division, behind Los Angeles County Lifeguard Tracey Crouthers.

Lifeguard Tom Seth, set aside the competitive drive that helped him lead Los Angeles Lifeguard County Central Division to victory in the Taplin Bell competition the previous night to paddle alongside his 13-year-old daughter Emily.

Manhattan Beach resident Tom Horton, who last month competed in the Molokai Channel Paddleboard Race in Hawaii, paddled with his 13-year-old old son Cole.

DJ O’Brien, of Redondo Beach, a Catalina Classic competitor, paddled with her 14-year-old daughter Mattie.

Mike and Lisa Caputo, of Manhattan Beach, paddled with their 13-year-old daughter Skylar.

Scott Rusher of Manhattan, another Catalina Classic competitor, finished fourth overall Sunday, then circled back to pace in his 13-year-old daughter Keala.

Catalina Classic paddler Bill Caras, of Manhattan, paddled with his eight year old son George.

Lifeguards Heidi and Erik Nelson of Torrance paddled with their 15-year-old son Taylor.

Mac Borman, of Redondo, paddled with his stepdaughter Jennifer Stevens, 16. The race is co-named after Jennifer’s deceased father Terry.

The Honea sisters Hayes, 13, and Hali, 11, paddled with their dad Jeff, but only as far as the pier. Dad continued on for another 18 miles in preparation for the upcoming Catalina Classic.

Peter and Janette O’Campo of Hermosa paddled with their two daughters Nikki, 13 and Natalie, 12.

Brothers Will, 17, and Jack, 15, Elliott of Buffalo, New York, paddled together.

Greg Dellenbach of Manhattan and his son Matt, 13, paddled together.

Brothers Oscar, 13 and Jeremy, 11, Ocko Michalak of Venice paddled together.

The race’s sole tandem entry was Palos Verdes fire fighter Phil Ambrose and his young cousin by marriage Erin Deyo, of Shreveport, Louisiana. It was their second race together. Last year was her first time in the Pacific Ocean.

Aside from the large number of related paddlers, Sunday’s race was also notable for the fact that for the first time it was nearly won by a stand up paddler. Trevor Baxter of Torrance covered the two mile course in 17:55, finishing second over all, just 40 seconds behind Daniels. Gene Smith was second in the SUP division, and seventh overall.

For complete results visit www.surffestival.org. ER

The lure of the water was too much for Rochelle “Rockie” Curdes to ignore.  A recent graduate from Mira Costa, Curdes played ice hockey, softball and basketball during high school but admits she was captivated by what she calls a “love-hate relationship” with rowing at the Marina Aquatic Center (MAC) in Marina Del Rey.

The decision to focus on the aquatic sport not only earned the 18-year-old from Manhattan Beach a record-setting national championship for her crew, but a college scholarship to San Diego State University.

“Some of my friends who were in Junior Lifeguards introduced me to rowing and I thought it would be easy,” Curdes said. “But it turned into a love-hate relationship. Rowing six or seven days a week from September through May is extremely hard work, but I can’t get enough of it.”

Curdes admits it took some adjusting getting used to carpooling for practices but it turned out to be a rewarding experience.

“I’d leave right after school and not get home until about 7 p.m.,” Curdes said. “But the drive gave us time to bond as teammates and the ride home provided an opportunity to wind down to get ready for homework and family dinner.”

Curdes was the stroke on the Women’s Youth 4 Boat team that recently won the U.S. Rowing Youth National Championship in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the girls broke the national record by approximately 12 seconds, completing the 2,000-meter course in 7 minutes, 8.59 seconds.

The team pulled away 750 meters into the race for a 2 ½-length victory and the first for a MAC women’s crew.

The stroke’s responsibility is to establish the crew’s rate (number of strokes per minute) and rhythm. Because of the great responsibilities, the rower in the stroke seat will usually be one of the most technically sound members of the boat.

Serving as coxswain was Curdes’ Mira Costa schoolmate Chloe Kojima, who is entering her senior year. Both played vital roles in the record-setting performance which included teammates Maureen O’Hanlon (El Segundo), Grace Riccardi and Chelsea Shannon.

The coxswain steers the boat, motivates the rowers, and coordinates the power and rhythm of the rower’s strokes and is usually the “eyes and ears” of the boat.

“I’ll let the crew know where we are in the race,” Kojima said. “I’ll yell things like ‘We’re on their third seat,’ or ‘We’re one boat length ahead.’ When I watched the video of the race, I realized we could have coasted for the win, but during competition you just keep going strong. It was a great experience and very special to get the record. We slammed our hands in the water at the end. We were so tired but beaming with smiles. We were told that our time would have been second at the collegiate level.”

Curdes and Kojima were particularly proud of how the MAC crew overcame adversity, including a four-hour delay because of lightning and thunderstorms. Kojima said the team waited for the weather to clear by playing “stupid games” inside a van.

“We were not huge girls,” Kojima said. “We average maybe 5-foot-6 in height while other teams had girls that were 6-foot-2. It shows that good, clean rowing and mental toughness can win.”

While Kojima prepares for her senior year of high school and another season of rowing at MAC, Curdes begins her collegiate career majoring in international business and as a member of the Aztec rowing team.

“I had wanted to go to college in the Midwest, but changed my mind,” Curdes said. “San Diego State has a beautiful campus, has a good program in Division 1 and all the coaches are women, which I like.”

Curdes added, however, that she wouldn’t be there without the tutelage of her MAC coach Zohar Abramovitz.

“I love my coach at Marina. Zohar is such a good coach. He’s very low key, but gets his point across. I owe him a lot.” ER

This weekend, Spyder Surf will host a reopening party for its newly remodeled, 27-year-old, Hermosa Beach shop on Pacific Coast Highway. The party will feature free hats, hotdogs and hamburgers, live music and celebrity surfers signing autographs, including pro surfer and Surfrider Foundation spokesperson Tim Curran.

Jack’s Hermosa Beach store manager Travis Wilkerson. Photos by Kevin Cody

Next weekend, Jack’s Surf, a few blocks south of Spyder on Pacific Coast Highway, will host a grand opening party for its new store featuring rapper Mickey Avalon, celebrity surfers signing autographs, giveaways, and raffle tickets to the upcoming U.S. Surfing Championships in Huntington Beach. A portion of the day’s sales benefit the Surfrider Foundation.

No one in the Southern California surfing industry believes the timing of the two shops’ celebrations is coincidental.

Since learning of Huntington Beach-based Jack’s Surf’s plans to open a 6,500 square foot store in Hermosa, Spyder co-owner Dennis Jarvis has been waging an aggressive, preemptive offensive.

Last Friday, lines of gremmies, 100 deep, formed outside Spyder’s downtown Hermosa store to have posters autographed by Volcom surf stars Bruce Irons, Coco Ho and Alex Gray. A ticket raffle promised a trip for two to the 2011 Volcom Pipeline Pro contest in Hawaii.

Two weekends ago, Jarvis hosted an unprecedented, private surf contest in Manhattan Beach for the CEOs of Volcom, Quiksilver, Billabong and Hurley. The four brands account for over half of the surf industry’s $7 billion a year in annual sales. Contest winner Volcom CEO Richard Woolcott, a former pro surfer, won first rights to paint a surf mural on the outside of the newly remodeled Spyder store.

An unspoken statement made by the CEO surf contest was that surf industry leaders should first of all, surf.

Jarvis is a former pro surfer and still shapes Spyder boards. His store’s motto is “We live it.”

Jack’s co-owner Bobby Abdel, while acknowledging that neither he nor his brother Ron surf, pointed out in an interview in his new store last week, that their kids and cousins, a dozen of whom work for Jack’s, do surf and skate.

In an Easy Reader interview in November, Abdel said he was similarly criticized for not surfing by a Newport Beach competitor when he opened a store in that beach town about 10 years ago. The Newport competitor printed bumper stickers that read “We surf, do you?”

Abdel fired back with a stinging sticker that read, “I pay my bills, do you?”

“I am still in business and he is out of business,” Abdel said.

Spyder Surf manager Josh Kearney (who recently returned from the Van’s Warp tour with his band The Darlings) and former Mira Costa surf star Chris Bromden in the skate section of their newly remodeled Pacific Coast Highway Store. Photos by Kevin Cody

Cutting to the core

Despite surfing’s laid back image, the business side has been cutthroat from its beginning. Like Jarvis, most surf shop owners come from a competitive surfing or surfboard shaping background and the passion characteristic of athletes carries over to their business.

The very first surf shop, opened by pioneer Hermosa Beach shaper Dale Velzy was shut down by the IRS. Velzy suspected he was ratted out by fellow Hermosan Dewey Weber, whom Velzy had taken under his wing and taught to shape. Within days of Velzy’s shop being closed, it reopened as Weber Surfboards, with Velzy’s inventory. Weber Surfboards grew to be one of the sport’s most successful brands. Velzy’s business never recovered and he never spoke to Weber again.

Eddie Talbot, owner of ET Surf, Hermosa’s oldest shop, almost didn’t live to see his shop’s first anniversary. Shortly after he opened ET in 1972 a Molotov cocktail exploded at his front door at three in the morning. Talbot was sleeping in the back of the shop, which was filled with highly flammable surfboard blanks and cans of explosive resin. Fortunately, the breaking glass woke him, enabling him to save his life and his business.

Talbot was never able to prove who woke him that night, but he had his suspicions.

The economy was depressed and local surf shops were being undercut by garage surfboard shapers. The surf shops hoped to stop the garage shapers by refusing to sell them materials. Talbot wouldn’t play along.

One day Grant Reynolds, who ran the largest surfboard factory in Hermosa, visited Talbot’s shop and warned him to stop selling surfboard blanks.

Talbot told Reynolds that if he ever set foot on his property again he would shoot him.

Talbot became Jarvis’s mentor in the mid 1970s after giving the 13-year-old, fatherless store rat a job mixing resin. Within a few years Jarvis was a professional surfer and shaper with his own line of ET surfboards. He called them Spyderboards after his favorite comic book figure.

In 1983, Jarvis left ET to open Spyder Surf. Neither will discuss the reason for the breakup, but it’s generally believed Jarvis wanted a bigger role in ET than Talbot was willing relinquish. Three decades later, though the two speak fondly of one another – Jarvis dedicated an instructional book on surfing to Talbot – the two still don’t speak to one another.

For almost as long as Talbot and Jarvis haven’t spoken, Talbot and Becker Surf co-founder Dave Hollander didn’t speak. Talbot suspected Hollander of conspiring to block his shop from carrying one of the major wetsuit manufactures.

After years of the two ignoring one another at industry gatherings, Hollander walked up to Talbot at a trade show and said, “Hey, Eddie, this is silly.” Talbot agreed. They talked about their kids.

Meanwhile, Hollander’s and Jarvis’ relationship turned chilly when Jarvis and partner Dickie O’Reilly opened a second Spyder shop on Pier Plaza, between Becker’s Pier Avenue shop and the water.

Still, the tensions between the owners of Hermosa’s three largest and oldest surf shops are merely tepid family squabbles by comparison to the furious passions ignited by Jack’s expansion into Hermosa.

In April, an anonymously administered Facebook page appeared titled Keep Jack’s Surf Out of the South Bay. Within 48 hours the page had nearly 2,000 fans. The number has since reached over 3,400. Most of the postings called for boycotting Jack’s, frequently playing the localism card. Jack’s, they pointed out, is from Huntington Beach, Hermosa’s longtime rival for the title of Surf City. But others pointed out that competition is the American way. Hadn’t Becker opened a store in Huntington? The overriding characteristic of all of the posts is an underlying passion rarely expressed for retail outlets, with the exception of restaurants.

Becker Surf co-founders Steve Mangiagli and Dave Hollander sold their stores to Billabong, but kept their surfboard factory.

Why Hermosa?

Though Abdel denies it, surf industry insiders commonly believe Jack’s expansion into Hermosa was motivated, in part, by a comment Becker Surf co-founder Dave Hollander made about the Abdel brothers, which they took to be defamatory.

Like Jack’s, Becker Surf owns five stores. And like Jack’s, it markets beyond the hardcore surfer to followers of the surfer lifestyle.

Why else, the reasoning goes, would Jack’s open a store in a saturated market during a down economy? Hermosa Beach has seven surf/skate stores, nearly one for every 1,000 of its 9,000 residences. That’s two more surf shops than it has coffeehouses.

Surf industry sales, statewide, are reportedly off 30 percent.

During an interview last year, Hollander said the offending remark was not an attack on the brothers’ ethnicity, but on their business practices.

“It was three or four years ago, the first of December, they went 20 to 30 percent off in all of their stores, which amounted to declaring a price war,” Hollander recalled. “Surf retail relies on perceived value. At the time, industry leaders were trying to get everyone to hold prices, to stay together as a tribe.

“Would Apple let this happen? If surfing is hot, why is it on sale during the holidays?” Hollander said he asked.

“I sent an email to three of my sales managers that read, ‘Arabs 1, Industry 0.’ They went for extra sales at the expense of the industry’s perceived value, sucking us all into a price war that no one won.

“A little while later at a trade show I was told the Abdels were saying, ‘If Hollander wants a war, we’ll give him a war.’ They sent me a cease and desist letter, which I turned over to my attorney, who said ignore it.

“If I’d said, ‘Industry 1, Arabs 0,’ I can see why they’d be mad. But I was saying they won.”

Hollander said he phoned the Abdel brothers to clarify that it was their business practices, not their ethnicity that he objected to.

At the time Jack’s signed the lease for its Hermosa Beach store, a strategy to weaken, and perhaps mortally wound its chief Southern California competitor might have looked attractive.

The precariousness of the surf industry was demonstrated in March 2009, when Active, the state’s largest chain of surf/skate lifestyle stores, including one in Plaza El Segundo, filed for bankruptcy.

Because of the recession, now going on three years, Hollander had already cut the low-hanging fruit from his company.

In a May 2009 TransWorld Surf  interview, Hollander said that business began plummeting so quickly at the end of 2007 that, “I pulled all the numbers apart and I thought surf was going out of fashion, which I’ve always thought is a real possibility. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that can’t happen. There are a whole bunch of stores that were selling Izod and stuff that are out of business because they thought preppy was going to be around forever.”

By the start of 2008, Hollander told TransWorld, he recognized it wasn’t just the surf industry, but the entire economy that was spiraling downward.

He responded by cutting staff from 135 to 85, cutting his executives’ salaries and converting his Huntington Beach location to a Becker Basement outlet store. In January of this year, he closed the Huntington store and Becker’s 15-year-old Corona Del Mar store.

Compounding the challenges facing Becker has been roadwork strangling traffic on Pier Avenue through the summer.

But if knocking out Becker Surf was part of Jack’s Hermosa playbook, that page got crumpled up at the end of May. That’s when Hollander and partner Steve Mangiagli announced they had sold the company they co-founded with shaper Phil Becker in 1980 to Billabong for an undisclosed amount. Billabong is a $1.6 billion a year, publically traded conglomerate. Its brands included Von Zipper sunglasses, Honolua Surf Company, Kustom shoes, Palmers Surf wax, Nixon watches, Xcel wristwatches, Tigerlily swimwear, Sector 9 skateboards, Element skateboards, DaKine surf leashes and Billabong’s own apparel and wetsuit lines. Last week Billabong bought RVCA, another popular surf apparel line.

Billabong CEO Paul Naude has indicated the Becker acquisition will not affect Billabong’s relationship with Jack’s or any of its other retailers.

“Whatever entity owns a store is irrelevant. Each competitor will have to find its own place,” he said.

But the acquisition would seem to assure that Jack’s, which is known for its aggressive buying power, will not have an advantage in this area over Becker.

Responding to local suspicion that the Becker sale was triggered by Jack’s move into Hermosa, Hollander and Mangiagli have pointed out that the Billabong negotiations dated back five years and began in earnest in early 2008, well before the two became aware of Jack’s Hermosa store plans.

Becker and Hollander retained ownership of their surfboard manufacturing business and the right to use the Becker name for their boards.

Also coincidental to Jack’s arrival in Hermosa is ET Surf’s plan to increase its square footage by 50 percent. Next month Talbot plans to knock a hole in the wall between his Aviation Boulevard shop and the neighboring auto repair shop.

“I’ve been trying to buy the auto repair building for 33 years. Finally, last year, Mr. Drasen, the 98-year-old owner called me and said, ‘Eddie, do you want the goddamn thing?’ I said, ‘Yes, but not now.’ He said, ‘Take it, or I’m selling it to someone else.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”

ET Surf’s Shannon Dieringer on the store floor, which is largely unchanged since ET opened in 1972.

More or less

During last Friday’s interview at Jack’s, while workers were busy building displays and stocking shelves, Abdel said his new store will bring new customers to the area and not simply cannibalize existing surf shops.

His Huntington Beach store is surrounded by a similar concentration of surf shops, helping the area to attract shoppers from around the world.

Abdel diplomatically declined to comment on Hollander’s email, and denied suggestions that animosity toward Becker influenced his decision to open in Hermosa. He also said he is not concerned about Billabong’s acquisition of Becker.

He pointed to his Billabong display, noting it is the largest brand display in his new store. He said he began looking for a Hermosa Beach location two years ago, but was unable to find one large enough until the former PetCare building became available. Jack’s most recently opened store, in Irvine, is 9,000 square feet. He said that despite the economy the year-old store is doing well and he plans to open another store in San Clemente next year.

“When the sun is out, the economy is good. When the sun is not out, the economy is bad,” he said.

Abdel was born in Palestine and emigrated to the U.S. from Brazil with his family when he was 17. They settled in Huntington Beach because an uncle lived there, he said.

The family became close friends with the owner of Jack’s Surf Shop and acquired it in 1972.

“At that time, there were just four or five surf brands – OP, O’Neill, Hang 10… We grew with the business,” Abdel said. “Every time something new came up, we added it – Boogie boards, skateboards, women’s clothing… We wanted to make shopping easy for the customer.”

In 1989, during redevelopment of Huntington Beach’s downtown, the Abdels undertook a three-year long remodel of their flagship store, which is across from the pier where the U.S Surfing Championship is held each year. The 16,000 square foot store became one of the first surf superstores. It carries more than 100 different styles of Vans shoes, alone, as well as most other major surf and skate shoes.

At 6,600 square feet the Hermosa Beach store is small by comparison to Jack’s other stores, but still large by Hermosa standards.

“We don’t carry just one or two items from the different brands. We carry their whole line, from A to Z so people don’t need to drive around,” Abdel said.

The store’s hardwood floors, flagstone counters, themed departments and creative lighting are more suggestive of a Nordstrom than a traditional surf shop. The store also has an unusual amenity for Hermosa – ample, easily accessible parking.

Abdel described his new store as high end without high end prices.

“We don’t try to recoup the building improvement through higher prices,” he said.

Jack’s sponsors over two dozen surfers, including top pros such as John John Florence of Hawaii, and promising local surfers such as Peninsula High’s Ford Timberlake.

“If we don’t support young surfers we’ll never have another Kelly Slater,” Abdel said.

Spyder co-owner Dickie O'Reilly manages the upscale Pier Plaza store.

Counter punch

Spyder’s remodel is designed to allow the shop to expand its core surf customer base to a broader market. Jarvis is adding a “seasonal” department that will feature back to school merchandise in the fall and snowboarding in the winter. Like Jack’s, he will have a junior’s department.

To strengthen his claim on core surfers Jarvis has added a 550-square-foot board display room. In the room is a CAD work station where he’ll collaborate with surfers on their custom board designs.

“If you want another board just like the last one, we can call up the old board’s template. If you liked the old board, but it was pushing too much water, we can reduce the nose rocker,” he said.

A 52-inch-wide, wall-mounted monitor will allow customers to watch the designs develop.

Hollander, who continues to oversee the Becker shops, said he plans a “down to the studs” remodel beginning in late fall.

“We’re going to surprise some people, but we’ll keep the Becker flavor. Our Hermosa store is soulful, but a little tired. We’ve wanted to remodel for years,” he said.

ET Surf has remained unchanged since Jarvis was a shop rat there in the mid ‘70s. Merchandise hangs from the rafters and aisles require a guide to navigate. A sign on the side of the building says, “If you see it cheaper, holler.”

Talbot said that’s all going to change with the expansion.

“We’ve taken photos of Jack’s and are going to copy it, only give it more soul. Like Spyder’s new addition. We’re trying to have as much neon and make it as clean as possible,” Talbot said during a phone interview this week, while he was driving home from a surf trip “up north” with his 14-year-old son. It was his son’s birthday.

He was joking.

“We’re changing absolutely nothing. As far as the dust on the floor, there may be more in the new store. It has those old, green, triangular skylights, like you see in old warehouses.  We’re keeping all that stuff just the way it is.”

Talbot said he’ll use the additional space to display his collections of old surfboards and skateboards. The new space will give ET exposure to traffic on Pacific Coast Highway.

He said he’s not concerned about Jack’s opening.

“I’d tell them, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood. Let’s have some fun,’” he said. ER

Volcom's Richard Woolcott acknowledged taking an unfair advantage of his fellow CEOs by practicing for the contest. Photo by Dave Gregerson (20foot.com)

by Kevin Cody and Mike Purpus

It’s doubtful that a Congressional subpoena could have compelled, without a fight, appearances by the CEOs of the surf industry’s four largest manufacturers.

Bob McKnight’s Quiksilver, Paul Naude’s Billabong, Bob Hurley’s Hurley and Richard Woolcott’s Volcom account for nearly half of the roughly $7 billion in annual U.S. surf industry sales.

But despite gray skies and small, mushy waves, the four goofyfooter oligopolists all assembled Sunday morning on the sand at Rosecrans Avenue in Manhattan Beach to compete where they got their starts – in a surf contest.

Each CEO was accompanied by a trusted gunslinger from their stables of professional surfers. McKnight brought Australian Julian Wilson, the 2006 18-and-under world champion who is featured on the cover of the current Surfer magazine. Hurley brought Yadin Nicol, another hot young Australian aerialist. Naude and Woolcott bet their companies’ reputations on local talent. Naude enlisted Dane Zaun, a member of Mira Costa High School’s 2008 U.S. Championship team. Woolcott had former Palos Verdes High standout, turned big wave charger and “Drop Zone” video star Alex Gray.

Core credibility

Quiksilver's Bob McKnight stays low and stable, the way he runs his company. Photo by Dave Gregerson (20foot.com)

Publicly traded surf manufacturers tread a thin line between success and sell-out.
“I organized Quiksilver so that the enemy, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Guess, Old Navy and Gap would quit sucking the life out of the surfer, stealing our vibe with checkbook marketing,” McKnight stated before his company eclipsed the enemy.

Sunday’s CEO surf contest was orchestrated by Spyder Surf shop owners Dennis Jarvis and Dickie O’Reilly as a not so subtle challenge to the CEOs to prove they haven’t lost their souls.

Spyder’s motto is “We live it.”

“I reminded them about why we all got into this business, and how much fun it used to be. I said, ‘Let’s have a fun day at the beach, even though South Bay surf is always crappy in the summer because the Peninsula and Catalina block the south swells.’”

Jarvis picked Rosecrans, at the north end of Manhattan Beach, even though his two Spyder stores are in Hermosa Beach, because as bad as Manhattan is in the summer, Hermosa’s summer surf is even worse.

The format, devised by South Bay High School Surf League director John Joseph and Arbor Snow and Skate’s Charlie Ninegar, called for 20 minute, man on man heats.

The first prelim heat was Wilson versus Zaun. Heat two was McKnight versus Naude. Heat three was Woolcott versus Hurley. Heat four was Gray versus Nicol. The prelim winners would compete in the finals for first and second. The losers would compete for third and last.

A towering canvas

Hurley's Bob Hurley cranks up the competition. Photo by Dave Gregerson (20foot.com)

The contest began to take shape four months ago when Jarvis and Dickey began remodeling their Pacific Coast Highway shop. They were looking for a creative way to make use of the store’s new, 22-foot-high signature tower.

“Surf artists are incredible. So I went to our four major brands and said, ‘I’ve got an idea for something that’s better than just putting your stickers all over my windows.’”

His idea was to turn their artists free on Spyder’s new tower.

“I wanted something that says surfing is more than a sport, it’s a lifestyle and that’s why we do it,” he said.

Jarvis is a former pro surfer whose relationships with McKnight, Hurley, Naude and Woolcott date back three decades to when he was a 13-year-old shop rat at ET Surf and they were pedaling board shorts out of the trunks of their cars.

“Dickie and I were in a meeting with the Volcom execs and Woolcott, and he said, ‘Okay, I’m in. But we want to be the first to paint the tower.’ I said, ‘You’re a ripper. Why not a contest and the winner gets to be the first.”

At Sunday’s contest, the CEOs each insisted he was just there for a good time and to show support for Spyder, and by extension, all the other small surf shops struggling with the recession.

By mutual agreement the press wasn’t notified. The only spectators were the competitors’ reps, their women and kids, and judges Jarvis, O’Reilly,  Ninegar, Havoc TV’s Brian Robbin and former Mira Costa surf coach Kevin Sousa.

“I’d do this any Sunday. It’s just like surfing with my neighbors in front of my Newport Beach house at Orange Street,” said Hurley, while watching McKnight and Naude jockey for position in their first heat.

“Of course, we each want to win,” added the former shaper who went on to head Billabong USA from 1983 until 1998 when he founded Hurley. Four years later, he sold Hurley to Nike for an undisclosed amount, estimated to be in the $100 million range.

Fun and games

Billabong's Paul Naude keeps an eye on what's ahead. Photo by Dave Gregerson (20foot.com)

“Crush and rule,” quipped McKnight as he exited the water from his heat. The famously competitive businessman, who co-founded Quiksilver USA in 1976, declined to expand on his comment.

“The Waterman’s Ball,” Naude answered when quizzed about what the two had talked about between waves. The former South African pro finished third in the Pipeline Masters the year McKnight started Quiksilver.

While the other competitors affected a soulful calm, Woolcott, the youngest of the CEOs, made no effort to disguise his intentions.

“Dude, I’m going to smoke them,” the former NSSA nationals champion told Jarvis while stretching before his heat against Hurley.

Asked what made him so confident, Woolcott answered under his breath. “I’ve been practicing.”

Woolcott picked a 5-food-4 Estrada fish and sat inside, where he tore apart the shore pound.

The other CEOs waited outside for set waves, and waited and waited. The strategy might have worked on longboards, but in keeping with their core images, they all rode shortboards.

McKnight looked like Alec Baldwin trying to hustle waves instead of chicks on his Channel Island thruster. Glimmers of past greatness were erased  by less than elegant dismounts. Hurley hustled, but couldn’t pump enough speed into his 5-11 thruster.

In the CEO finals, Naude clung to his outside set strategy on his Pavel quad and was shutdown by the rising tide. Woolcott kept playing in the shore pound, and on wave count alone, out scored Naude 8 to 2.

Even with Gray struggling to find waves in his final against Wilson, Woolcott was able to make good on his boast and bring home bragging rights and first shot at the Spyder tower for Volcom. ER

Grote video on Dane Zaun is an Innersection contest entry.

South Bay surfing and skating buddies Matt Grote and Dane Zaun have teamed up to produce a film for the Innersection.tv video competion. The two attended Mira Costa High together. Grote is now attending Brooks Institute of Film in Ventura.

“This contest requires a surfer and filmmaker to team up to produce a segment that that might appear in a full length surf movie. It’s challenging, you have to be original but still appeal to every demographic to get the votes,” Grote said.

To view Grote video of Zaun and show your support by giving it your vote visit   http://innersection.tv/video/138

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Easy Reader’s Surfing Santa