Surfing World Magazine

Surfing World is the oldest, deepest and most respected surfing magazine in the world. Founded in 1962, it's become a cornerstone of surfing culture both in Australia and right around the globe. It's a premium, high concept magazine, showcasing the best surf writing and photography. It's both classic and contemporary, reflecting the kaleidoscopic surfing culture of today.

BOON-WURRUNG, EAST OF NAIRM — by Steve Parker • Wominjeka – welcome my friends. I am a descendent of the Boonwurrung people, part of the greater Kulin Nation which is situated across the area we now know as Melbourne and to the south-east. I live on Country, at Millowl, the traditional name for Phillip Island. Boonwurrung country comprises approximately half of the surfable coastline in Victoria, and its western-most point is theWerribee River in Port Phillip Bay, known as Nairm in our language.

THE WOMEN OF BLOKE’S ISLAND — Phillip Island Boardriders turn 60 • There’s a discreet, mythic quality to Phillip Island – Millowl by the Boonwurrung people who travelled there to harvest shellfish and mutton birds. It’s an easy charm redolent of surf-drenched enclaves both further east and deeper west. With the local surf crew there’s an ingrained respect for the community, waves, and frigid water that typify the place. Phillip Island is an understated kernel of southern Australian surfing.

Surfing World Magazine

THREE HOURS OF 1981 — a remarkable afternoon • Craig Garrard – ‘Boots’ – surfed Winkipop during his lunchbreak that Wednesday. “I had a really frustrating surf in the middle of the day. Twenty-five, 30 minutes. Just the normal. I had some new fins and wanted to test them out on a little epoxy 6’0” that I’ve been riding. There just weren’t quite enough waves. It was a pretty hungry pack. It was only three foot.” It wouldn’t stay three foot for long.

Tuesday in Old Gondwana

TED’S LAST RUN—it’s about what he leaves behind. • Late last year, Ted Grambeau pulled up in the driveway, unannounced. It came as quite the surprise. I thought he was in Portugal for starters, but hey, that’s Ted. He comes and he goes. Ted pulled up in an old hatchback with Queensland number plates that he’d driven from the Gold Coast all the way down to Torquay, a twoday drive. It struck me that I’d only ever seen Ted in hire cars and had no idea what he actually drove at home. The car was too small for his tall frame, and it took a choreographed series of movements to extricate himself from the driver’s seat. His bags and cameras were in the back seat.

WITH LOVE FROM GENERAL LUNA — the Josie Prendergast interview • Josie’s surfing is easy to watch. Amongst the daily mayhem of The Pass, she can slow time, a serene figure as she flows down the line, hands poised softly like a renaissance fresco, calming the collective madness around her as she goes. Watching her surf against a backdrop of littoral rainforest, you can understand why artists have been compelled to paint the scene. Josie is leaving Byron in five days’ time. She’s returning to her childhood home in General Luna, on the Filipino island of Siargao. She makes the trip every year to reconnect with family and a way of life she left behind when she was four years old. She misses the village kids mainly and is bringing them a boardbag stuffed with old surfboards. She’s cross-stepping between East and West at a time when both her homes are changing, largely because of surfing. Byron has been oversubscribed and overpriced for years now. But even remote Siargao is today far less remote, and post-pandemic, post-typhoon, is also being loved to death by tourism. Josie won’t be back in Australia till next year, by which stage – on the current trajectory – who knows what Byron will look like, and who’ll be living there.

SURF BUDDIES — what if you just saw what was there? Two frothers. • It’s a clear winter morning, and...