The mindset of our surf-travel-adventures in the 70’s and 80’s was to ‘go out as far as we could for as long as we could’. This meant one-way travel to a particular destination, and then see where the road takes us from there. Any talk of when we might be back home was highly speculative, and usually entailed running out of money-film-wax, or when it was time to get in some schoolin’. Everything in-between was left up to chance and opportunity, to let our free will run wild.
Our travel budget was, shall we say, exceedingly thin (like how we became after a few months on the road). You couldn’t really call it a budget. More like a notch above shared cannibalism. The less money spent, the longer we could ‘stay out’. We actually purposely shrank our stomachs a few weeks before hitting the road, so less food would be required. Yes, this was our brilliant thinking at the time. Kinda worked, too.
As our travel plans for more and farther out destinations hatched, Craig’s Staff Photographer relationship with SURFER Magazine came in handy. We would go in to the Editor’s office with our maps, enthusiasm and rumors of surf in faraway places, trying to weave a spell over the Editor to release funds and film so we could be on our way. The Editor would hear us out, look over the maps, rub his chin then grin. “Yeah, I can see maybe 2-3 articles here.” He’d front us an advance for the articles — sometimes enough to get out there—but not enough to get us back.
We spent over ten years looking for the perfect wave from the early 70’s to early 80’s. A photographer and a writer, two surfers from the same town, who set out to find the mythical ‘perfect wave’ and became lifelong best friends in the process. After ten-plus years of hardcore surf-travel-adventure there’s a lot to show and tell.
We’ve chosen to cover the trips in three Volumes:
Over the years we’ve heard from the surfing tribe that “…those stories changed my life!” and “…totally got me started on my first trip!” We hope that turned out to be a good thing.
As it turns out, SURFER Magazine ran over a dozen travel stories from our trips. For this series of books we’ve written new stories to go with the photos—many never-before seen—as well as including a few excerpts from the original articles.
We always wrote about the trips in a way that would make us laugh. If we were laughing, well, then it must be good enough to send to SURFER. We think (and we hope you do too) that this series covers it all quite well. Enjoy! — KN & CP
P.S. Did we find it—the perfect wave? Well, let’s just say we want to take you on this journey with us, through this collection of stories and photos, and let you be the judge.
