Sunny Garcia In Critical Condition

Tandem Surf And Sport | NEWS

There are reports from sources that Sunny Garcia, 49 years old, World Champion in 2000, is in intensive care in the Oregon/Washingto region, USA after attempting to take his own life. Sunny is still alive, but in a critical condition, and those close to him are reported to be fearing the worst.

UPDATE: The WSL have confirmed that “Sunny Garcia is in the ICU in the hospital.”

Sunny has battled publicly with depression over the last 10 to 20 years.

Sunny is well known for being one of the more fire bolt, competitive, strong people in pro surfing ever since he came on tour as a young kid of 17 in 1987. Through the 90s, in an era dominated by Kelly Slater and the new school Momentum generation, Sunny was a beacon for traditional Hawaiian power surfing and achieved great success for it, winning the Hawaiian Triple Crown a record six times, and finishing top 10 in the year end rankings 11 times straight between 1990 and 2000. He is also a three-time winner and five time finalist of the highly regarded and heavily respected Rip Curl Pro Bells. In the year 2000, after going close many times before, he finally won the coveted World Surfing Championship.

Powerful, intimidating and outspoken, Sunny’s career has not been immune to controversy – featuring in verbal and physical altercations throughout a spectacular and colourful surfing career. In 2007, he served three months in prison for tax issues.

He told Surfing World in 2017: “For most of my career I was made to look like a monster. I’ve been in five fights in my entire life and of course they’ve all been documented. In the end you can’t think too much about that. All I can do is be the best person I can be today and know that I’m not perfect. That’s my right now.”

He and Luke Egan were the senior guys on tour for sometime in the 2000s, together they helped re-direct the world tour to better surf and a better deal for the pro surfers. Garcia retired from competition around 2008 and has competed in several other events such as the Eddy since then. In 2012, he won the WSL QS event the HIC Pro at Sunset Beach, aged 42 – a good 25 years after he became one of the world’s most respected surfers at 17.

He has three children and some grandchildren. Sunny has been a scary person to some people, but he has always worn his heart on his sleeve and is known to his close friends and family as a gentle and loving man. They in turn have loved and supported him right back, as have his many friends and fans throughout the surfing world. This of course doesn’t make anyone immune from the illness that is depression.

Today, tomorrow and onward, the surfing world is with Sunny Garcia.

We will report more details as they come to light.

If you or anyone you know needs help, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit the Lifeline website: https://www.lifeline.org.au

Damo Hobgood, Mick Corbett and More In Heavy Tube Action..

This Volte Wetsuits outfit have really forged a clear taste when it comes to picking team riders – no nonsense fellas that can pack a tube. Damien Hobgood’s here, starring, to remind us how good he is in case we’d forgotten (how freaking nice is that righthand point he threads?), while Mick Corbett sticks one of the biggest acid drops you’ll see in 2018. Underrated West Aussie Jerome Forrest and Duran is-that-his-real-name Barr rounding out the rest of the clip that introduces the VW team (Duran Barr?! That’s the best name ever). Enjoy the lads testing the durability of their rubber in some serious but fun… but serious Mexico, San Diego, West Aus, Fiji and Tassie.

Video by Volte Wetsuits

Kimchi And Barrels……Surfing Nth Korea

It wasn’t all about bombs and sanctions.

As President Trump wrapped up his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last week, he noted that Kim’s country sports a coastline dotted with “great beaches” — and no shortage of real estate opportunities.

“You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean, right?” Trump asked. “I said, ‘Boy, look at the view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo behind?’”

Few Westerners have experienced North Korean sun, sea and sand, but that’s not to say it’s entirely off-limits.

“He’s right, there’s a lot of potential”, says Nik Zanella, an Italian surfer who’s led three surfing tours to North Korea.

“I was surprised to see California-like bays with golden sands, red granite cliffs, clear water and no one on the beach,” he told Fox News in a Skype interview from China, where he coaches that country’s national surfing team.

“I was pretty blown away.”

Zanella says he used Google Earth to scour satellite images before his first visit, zeroing in on Majon beach on North Korea’s east coast.

Unlike California, the surf wasn’t huge.

“I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t looking for the next Malibu,” he says.

“If you take professional athletes to North Korea and if you build their expectations that they’re going to get sick barrels, then they will be disappointed.

“But the people on our trips didn’t really have that expectation,” he added.”

“We had intermediate surfers who were fine with surfing clean, shoulder-high waves, and they were really happy.”

Zanella also offered free lessons to locals.

“We taught maybe 100 people on the first trip, and they were stoked,” he says. “Every time we went back, the people we had coached were still doing it and they had taught some other people to do it, so there’s a little surf scene that was growing.”

But this isn’t your average beach vacation.

The State Department advises against all travel to North Korea, even warning Americans who do go that they should draft a will before setting off.

There’s also the ethical question of handing over money to a famously brutal and repressive regime.

“I never felt guilty,” Zanella says.

“I’m convinced that surfing is something that makes people feel free, and no one needs that more than people in that country.”

 

 

 

 

By Simon Owen | Fox News

That Magic Wax – Ross Clarke-Jones passes it on to the next frothing generation.

How does legendary big wave surfer Ross Clarke-Jones end up in any remote corner of the world at what seems a moment’s notice? With magic wax, of course! In a homage to the cult 1987 Quiksilver surf film Mad Wax, which launched RCJ’s career, the 51-year-old passes on the wax to a new generation of surfers to inject the fun and magic back into surfing. Watch as Kanoa Igarashi, Leo Fioravanti and Caroline Marks come face to face with the scariest thing in surfing — Ross Clarke-Jones in a full body wetsuit on the beach in Hawaii…

Complete with tunes from surf rock veterans GANGgajang, the throwback edit is as quirky as it is colorful. And the only thing better than the surfing is the acting… we think.

 

 

 

Director: Ben Nott, World Wide Mind: http://worldwidemind.com

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