On the shape of what’s to come

FreeSurf: When we first saw Slater take that now-infamous Wizard Sleeve board out at the Quik Pro, we tried to hold back our comments. But now, nearly a year later, it seems that the smaller boards are sticking around. What did you think when you saw Kelly ride that board last year?

Glenn Pang: I think Kelly took it a little too far. On some of his boards he looked like he wasn’t surfing to where he was capable of. But now he’s brought it back to something more workable. You’ve got to know where the limit is. He sort of took it down to the limit and now we’re coming up a little bit. And it seems to be working.

The Galapagos Islands

Island hopping home for Thanksgiving, from New Zealand to Indonesia, through Taiwan to Oahu, I promptly disembarked again for a new archipelago: the Galapagos. From Ecuador I flew to these mysterious islands lying 1,000 km off the coast, a land made famous by Charles Darwin, whose observations of the unique and otherworldly fauna in the Galapagos developed his theory of evolution. And otherworldly the Galapagos are. From the 200-year-old giant tortoises lumbering through the lush highlands to technicolor marine iguanas swimming and fishing alongside sea turtles on countless shorelines; there are species of creatures there seen nowhere else. And apart from the visually bizarre and mysterious, these animals are ridiculously tame, unafraid, if not curious, of we tourists that are but obstacles in the paths of their everyday lives. (Ninety-seven percent of the Galapagos Islands are a protected national park area, thus animals haven’t been hunted here in more than half a century.)

A Call to Pens

The first wave I ever caught came at the hands of a three-time world champion. In another world, where things like omens and signs take precedent over reality, I may have gone on to become a professional. I would have been fearless at Teahupoo, laughed like a maniac while getting whipped into beasts at Shipsterns. I would have drank beers with Fanning on the Goldy and Parko would call me “Mull-O.” Dane and I would talk about music and wax poetically about organic coffee beans. It would have been glorious. Sigh.

Quiver

At 12 years old, Kalani David has become one of the most talked about young surfers to call Hawai‘i home since John John sprouted wings. Well before Kalani reached the ripe old age of 10, he was getting lofty at the Sandbar and garnering his fair share of magazine coverage. So we want to know: how do you get so damn good so quick? We can speculate all we want, but one thing is certain: the quiver that Kalani’s got under his feet can only be helping.