The surfboard shapers and designers at Infinity, consist of master craftsman Steve Boehne and his two sons Dan and Dave. The Boehne family tree takes a lot of pride in the heritage that they bring to each shape. Steve, who taught the rest of the crew the many lessons in sculpting foam, shaped and glassed his first board in 1960 at the age of 13.

The first Infinity Surfboard was shaped in 1970. It is a 7′ balsa single fin with #1 proudly printed on the tail. It has never been ridden but hangs as a memorial on the wall. Since that time, more than 30,000 surfboards have been carefully created. They on the other hand, have taken the drop and drawn every possible line that perhaps 35,000 or more riders could think of.

Steve discovered surfing in 1959. His first board was a balsa Velzy -Jacobs. He surfed Torrance Beach and Palos Verdes Cove. The early surfing culture was strong in “South Bay” even before the Beach Boys records. He built about a hundred boards in his garage until 1968 when he went to work shaping for Gordie Surfboards. Gordie was a master craftsman and really helped Steve refine his classic longboard shapes.

Shortboards exploded on the scene around ’69 and Steve shaped about 50 boards a week for several shops in Huntington Beach for the next couple of years. He and Barrie were married in 1971 and together, they opened the first Infinity Surf Shop. It was in an old gas station on 5th and PCH in Huntington beach. The hand painted sign boasted perfect surfboards, hopefully that meant perfectly suited.

Follow Us If you would like to check out some of the new Infinity surfboards in the kelp bed shop.

Information and images Courtesy of http://infinitysurf.com

Beach Girl

• Pendants
• Solitaires
• Necklaces
• Ear Rings

Great for gifts! Check out the Poerava selection on The Kelp Bed!

SHOP MEN’S | SHOP WOMEN’S

Last week, while channel surfing with my daughter, I had the misfortune of stumbling upon the film Blue Crush. I instantly knew I had to find another activity, this being a movie she enjoys. She likes this female North Shore with it’s tired plot and cheesy dialogue; exactly the reasons I can’t stand it. I sat through fifteen minutes of…well…whatever was happening; girl has boy-issues, girl has wardrobe issues, girl has other-girl issues, girl attempts giant Pipe and has reef issues. Longest fifteen minutes of my life…

And then this weekend, I was having lunch in a cafe that plays old 60′s Beach Blanket Bullshit movies. This one was Ride the Wild Surf. The sound was off, so it was tolerable. In case all those ‘surfploitation’ flicks all run together and seem all the same to you (as they should), the story follows three surfers, one of them Fabian (huh?) and the other Tab Hunter (seriously?) who come to Hawaii in search of big surf. That didn’t make a distinction between the other 60′s flicks, did it..? I’ll admit it was pretty cool picking out the actual surfers in the big wave sequences like Dora and Greg Noll. And you know the rest: the film cuts to close-ups of the actors ‘surfing,’ which in actuality, was the actor balancing on a Radio Flyer wagon in front of a rear-projection screen with waves in the background. Assistants then sprayed them with water while jerkin’ around the wagons to give the desired effect (no shit..)

Wow….bitchin’.

It was right about the time I watched Tab Hunter wipe-out (and boy was he one handsome queen…) that I wondered, as every surfer has for decades: when will Hollywood make a surf movie with an interesting plot, characters and dialogue? You know, those three simple ingredients that make a movie good…

Now, let me clarify “surf movie.” According to Wikipedia, surf films ‘fall into three distinct genres:’

the surfing documentary – targeting the surfing enthusiast
the 1960s beach party films – targeting the broader community
fictional feature films with a focus on the reality of surfing

I’ll exclude the ‘surfing documentary’ of course. Five Summer Stories, Endless Summer, and countless others are surf flicks, and don’t count. You know: surfers….surfing….killer soundtrack….shot of a Reef model from behind every so often. Surf flick….you follow? And to be (somewhat) fair, the 60′s surfploitation films don’t really count either. They were trying to cash in a trendy craze, and that they did. Even into the 80′s there were movies being made designed to cash in on the sex appeal of the sport. Remember Hardbodies? An 80′s sex-comedy originally made for Playboy TV, but released as a feature film, with Courtney Gains. Courtney…..fuggin’……GAINS. I’d rather watch a porno with Abe Vigoda. Filmed in Hermosa Beach, home to such famous breaks as…uh…that one beach break…umm…the one by the snack bar, uh…….YA…exactly.

But the ‘fictional feature films with a focus on the reality of surfing’ films…those little gems. Hasn’t been too many of ‘em, but they haven’t exactly hit the nail on the head with the whole ‘focus on the reality of surfing,’ now, have they?

We’ve all seen North Shore (I even saw it when it was in the theaters) and you probably even found it entertaining back in the day. Up until that time, Big Wednesday was about the only film to feature a plot based around surfing. It came after the Beach Party films and before the rest of the crap that’s hit the screens since. Good plot. Cool characters, loosely based on real people. Written buy a couple guys that actually surfed, John Milius being one. He also wrote Apocalypse Now, which explains why the famous beach attack scene so Lance could hit a ‘six foot peak’ and subsequent ‘Charlie don’t surf’ line worked so well. So how does North Shore measure up, now that you’re older and wiser? Let me remind you, the main character comes to (where else?) the North Shore. You see, he’s mastered the wave-pools of Arizona. Arizona…..Ari….zona. Oooooo-kay……moving right along…..

Ok, I’ll admit, sometimes when I’m flippin’ around the channels on a lazy hung-over Sunday, I’ll come across Point Break and watch it a little longer than I care to reveal. It’s got that cheese-factor like the other just-can’t-turn-off Patrick Swayze flick, Roadhouse. And in its defense, the plot ain’t half bad: bank robbers who rob to support their surfing lifestyle, FBI agent infiltrates gang undercover. Ok! Kinda cool! I’m likin it! Let’s get some good surf footage, done by real surfers, and then let that multi-talented dancing hunk Swayze work his magic! Keanu Reeves is the FBI agent? Instant diarrhea pie in the face. Thanks, Tinsel Town.

As with any Keanu Reeves film I dare sit through, I find myself wishing his character would die, preferably near the beginning of the story. How cool would it have been if his chute didn’t open during the skydiving scene? Or Swayze’s character comes up to Johnny Utah (good god), tells him he knows he’s undercover….then stitches him with a full clip from an AK…then he turns to his bandit-bro’s and says, “Ok dudes. Let’s go surfing. Then rob some banks.” Man…I’d have really enjoyed that….

I remember seeing In God’s Hands in the theater. And uh…that’s about all I remember about that turd. You would think that a movie with so many legendary surfers, with Matt George as a co-writer would finally give watermen and women something to cheer about for the first time since Big Wednesday. Hey, worked for John Milius, right? Matt George I gotta think surfs way better than Milius! Right!? Gonna be a great flick! Ya….well….see kids, any similarities between George and Milius end in the lineup. See, Milius went to a little thing called film school. Matt George? Well…he’s…a good surfer I’m guessing.

The tag-line read ‘To surf 40-foot waves is to put yourself…In God’s Hands.’ And to watch Shane Dorian act is to put yourself in the Devil’s….I mean COME. ON. PEOPLE. I paid money to watch this. I think if Dorian is allowed to act in a movie, I should be able to enter the Pipe Masters. And I’ll say this with not even half a bottle in me: I guaran-damn-tee you my surfing is light years ahead of his acting. Put me in the goddamn film! I’ve been surfing for thirty years and I’ve done Shakes-PEARE for chrissakes. Ya. You read it right. And I ain’t talkin’ about some high school production years ago. Any producer who happens to read this and thinks I’m kidding, you can fuggin’ try me.

So what else is there? As of this writing, Soul Surfer is still in theaters (I ain’t even going near this one). And Blue Crush 2 went to video faster than Jaws: The Revenge. And just about every film with a plot around surfing has also gone straight to the shelf. Matthew McConaughey makes movies that rake in millions. Anyone seen Surfer, Dude? If you’re like me, you cringe when you see a movie poster with a surfboard or wave in it. Sure there’s been a few films with nice little surf ‘vignettes’; Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Lords Of Dogtown, and of course Col. Kilgore and the rest of the Air Cav swooping in under ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ to capture that six foot peak.

But I see a billboard with some Hollywood hunk all airbrushed holding a board with some catchy tag-line like “He went from the milk farms of Nebraska to cow-ABUNGA!” and ohhh man…..man oh man……

The Horror. . . the horror. . .

SHOP FAMOUS TRACTION PADS

I was pondering the state of my quiver recently as I was calling up my brother, asking to borrow his longboard. The waves that day required a nine-footer; some fun stuff, not too big, not too fast. Ya know, typical Southern California surf, for this winter anyway. My day-to-day board, as I’ll call it, wouldn’t cut it. A good board when it’s head-high plus, but today was a lazy longboard type of day. And as I was on the phone with my brother (who has quiver issues of his own) I was looking over my stack of boards. Stacked, because I just can’t seem to get around to building a normal garage board rack.

The hand-me-down I usually ride is ok enough. It was used to begin with, but now it’s yellowing, and has a huge shoddily repaired gash on the bottom, thanks to a beginner at overhead Trestles some months back. My big board, or whatever we’re supposed to call the board we ride when it’s pumping and requires some oomph, lies horribly disfigured from a leash accident. I’m still confused as to how it happened. And even though it might be fixable, I shudder to think at the amount of resin it would take to repair it. Probably weigh as much as a an old 10 foot Wardy from the 60’s, not to mention the amount of coin I’d have to fork over to the savvy, motivated personnel at the local ding-repair shop. There’s a board that I paid top dollar for a few years back that was shaped from another hand-me-down. It never rode like the original. And I don’t ride it now, because I’ve discovered another shape that works better.

And then there’s my pride and joy: a 1967 9’4” Bing Pintail Lightweight. I bought it for $30 at a garage sale in Bitchin Viejo in 1985. It hasn’t been ridden since about ‘88, when my a-hole brother took it without asking, and broke the fin off on a sign post, skating around the corner on the trail down to Trestles. It’s worth about as much as Christ’s rosary, and probably would cost as much to restore. The rare fin alone I priced at two bills (seriously…for a fin…). Probably explains why it just lays there, a better shelf than a board….

That’s it. That’s all there is. Hell, I ain’t even got a longboard, fer chrissakes, for those days when Momma Nature throws some nipple-high, decently shaped SanO rollers after an eternity of flat, crappy, blown-out days. Well…a longboard that works anyway…and god forbid Momma decides to get off her period and toss some double-OH stuff our way…under-gunned is an understatement. I might be able to use my daughters’ board (Really? Are things that bad?), but I break that thing and I’ll be in more hot water with her than when she caught me raiding her piggy bank.

Building a decent quiver, to me anyway, has always required a little too much discipline than I’ve been willing to put forth. And cash. Especially since Clark Foam went tits-up. Ahh…good ol’ Clark Foam. Kinda like a dependable drug dealer that finally gets pinched and sent away for 10 to 20. Years of top shelf product, at blue collar prices. Dependable. Loyal. And then suddenly…gone. Leaving the average surfer with that ‘what now?’ feeling. Do I go epoxy? Do I accept $600 boards? But I digress…

What separates me from the majority of my buddies, who seem to all have beautiful, surf shop-style racks in their garages? Ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty boards these pricks have. Their fish’s, their guns, their longboards and hybrids all lined up neatly, patiently awaiting whatever type of surf Momma decides to whip up. There’s my one buddy who drops four or five bills every other month on a new stick. Another with his quiver lined up small to big. I was recently on the phone with one guy and he whispered, “I just ordered a new board. Don’t tell my wife.” I have a buddy that has a room- a room…not the garage- where his boards line the walls. (If that’s not insult enough, this guy has poster-size photos of him all over the walls, surfing giant Sunset, Jaws, ect. What a dick…) And another who just recently told me he used to shape his own boards…whaaaat..? Hook a brother up, huh? Sheesh…or how about the buddy that has a freshie just about every time he paddles out… c’mon, man…seriously…

One of my favorite local shops has the most gorgeous, amazing boards I’ve ever seen in one place (and the most AMAZING prices, I might add). I often fantasize about walking in there with a briefcase full of crisp hundies, and then proceed to snag every board that catches my interest. Instant quiver: just add briefcase. Or maybe walk in there with a pistol, but a guy as pretty as me cannot afford to do any jail time.

So for now, the fantasy of having a presentable quiver is just that: a fantasy. One day I might have a wall lined with ten or twelve boards, and a buddy will come over, and we’ll crack a coldie in the garage…he’ll say, “Wow, this looks like a killer board.” And I’ll say, “Yep. Paddles good, comes around fast on a roundhouse, thing’s got a friggin’ rocket engine on it when it’s over six foot,” or some other assorted exaggerated bullshit one spins when describing his boards…like when I’m at a buddies, in his garage, looking at his quiver, drinking his beer, and he’s telling me all about his magic boards…

Take a good look at your quiver. Look at it like you would the shoes in your closet. You got some kicks for that pick-up hoops game? Running shoes to run off that keg strapped to your stomach before summer gets here? Wingtips when your chick drags you to her ugly cousins wedding? Are you prepared? I know I ain’t.

But I’m workin’ on it…

In the coastal town of Ostional, located on Costa Rica’s Guanacaste Peninsula, a 13-year-old project has helped stabilize the population of the olive ridley sea turtle.

For 10 months of the year, usually around the third quarter of the moon, olive ridleys swim by the hundreds of thousands to a single mile of beach at Ostional in an ancient reproductive rite little understood by scientists. They scuttle onto the sand, dig a hole with their flippers, and drop in an average of 100 leathery, white eggs the size of ping pong balls. Over the course of a five-day “arribada,” literally, an arrival, nesting females will leave as many as 10 million eggs in the black, volcanic sand. Mass nesting is nature’s way of ensuring that after the turkey vultures, feral dogs and raccoons have eaten all the fresh eggs they want, there will be enough left over to produce a sustainable population of olive ridleys.

In the early 1980s, scientists learned that because of limited space on the beach, females arriving later destroy the first laid eggs. The researchers wondered: why not let poachers have the doomed eggs?

Under a law written especially for Ostional, the government allows an egg harvesting cooperative to collect all they can during the first 36 hours of every arribada. Coop members then truck the eggs around the country, selling them to bars and restaurants. In return, the community must protect the olive ridley. Coop members clean debris from the nesting areas and patrol the beach day and night for poachers. Forty days later, when the hatchlings emerge, children from the Ostional Primary school run to the beach.

“We protect the tortugitas when they crawl to the ocean. If we don’t, the vultures will get them and bite their heads off,” says a local 8-year-old boy, breathlessly.

Waves for Water is a non-profit organization founded by Jon Rose and supported by Hurley International.

Waves for Water works on the front-line to provide clean water to communities in need around the world. We work with world leaders and strategic partners who take a no-nonsense attitude toward making global change.

Professional Surfer Jon Rose on GDLA: MyFoxLA.com

To find out more about Waves for Water, and to donate to the organization go to www.wavesforwater.org

What makes this particular wave so darn interesting is that it is not made up of any coast line or inland shore, but a remote river that gets pounded by a tidal push. This happens in other places around the world, but what makes this spot so unbelievable is that the wave is between 8 to ten feet and sets up pretty much perfect.

Chris quotes Tom Curren in his article saying, “This was our biggest score in twenty years of exploring.” Tom Curren, for those of you to young to know was a former three-time world surfing champion who has been roaming the world’s coastlines scouring for the proverbial perfect wave ever since winning his last world title in 1990.

What is so stunning is that this wave breaks top to bottom similar to the way a wave would on a coral reef. The way the wave bounces off of the riverbank sends a rebound wedge secondary wave into a line of spinning peaks with cookie cutter perfection.

Chris points out :

“These mirror-reflection spinners appear choreographed, with all the symmetry of a Rockettes’ leg kick, the likes of which has never be found in the ocean…at least not yet.”

Click Here to check out the original article by Chris Mauro