The Brains in the Barrel – Dr. Cliff Kapono

The Brains in the Barrel – Dr. Cliff Kapono

Dr. Cliff Kapono is not your average surfer. A Native Hawaiian, professional wave rider, and molecular bioscientist, Cliff fuses science, culture, and a deep love for the ocean in ways no one else does. Director Ben McQueen travels to Hilo to uncover what drives Cliff’s mission, capturing powerful moments and reflections from legends like Gerry Lopez, Rob Machado, Tony Alva, and Arto Saari. The result is an intimate look at a man forging a unique path—both in the lab and out in the lineup.

Through his nonprofit MEGA Lab (Multiscale Environmental Graphical Analysis Lab), Cliff is leading a global push to map one million reefs by 2030, enlisting citizen scientists from all walks of life—surfers, divers, skaters, and anyone who feels the pull of the ocean. As the only pro surfer using his platform and Ph.D. to protect marine ecosystems, Cliff is proof that purpose, culture, and curiosity can fuel real change.

ISA World Surfing Games

ISA World Surfing Games

Team Australia Photo: ISA / Jersson Barboza

Australia was crowned Team World Champion at the 2025 Surf City El Salvador ISA World Surfing Games (WSG). The ninth straight day of pumping waves in Surf City El Salvador saw La Bocana offering up powerful four-to-six-foot peaks to decide the medalists.

Dane Henry (AUS) and Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri (ESP) won the men’s and women’s individual gold medals, respectively. Gonzalez-Etxabarri’s victory marked the first-ever WSG gold for Spain.

Henry’s win, alongside bronze medals for Morgan Cibilic (AUS) and Sally Fitzgibbons(AUS), secured the team victory for Australia. The medalists were complemented by Ellie Harrison (AUS) in fifth, Milla Brown (AUS) in 11th before her withdrawal due to injury, and Callum Robson (AUS) in 19th.

Already the most successful nation in WSG history, Australia broke a 14-year drought to win their sixth team gold medal — their 16th WSG team medal overall. Having claimed four of their six team silver medals in the intervening years, the team was thrilled to once again stand atop the podium. As the reigning Team World Junior Champion, today’s win backs up their 2024 junior victory, also won in Surf City El Salvador.

Dane Henry, Team Australia Photo: Sean Evans

Dane Henry (AUS) became the first man in the modern era to win the WSG as the reigning ISA World Junior Champion. The 19-year-old follows in the footsteps of Tom Curren(USA), who won the 1982 WSG while still holding the junior crown from 1980. Only two other men — Gabriel Medina (BRA) and Jordy Smith (RSA) — have won gold medals at both the World Junior Surfing Championship (WJSC) and the WSG.

"That is a crazy club to be a part of," Henry said. “The whole time I had belief in myself that I could do it. My surfing's been feeling spot on. I really wanted to really shine in the Final and I'm really glad that I got the opportunity to do that. Competing against guys like Kauli Vaast, Morgan [Cibilic] and Douglas [Silva], you've got to pull out the best. I have a really special connection with this place and this competition now. I felt really in my element, which definitely pushed me through and helped me get the win."

Utilizing a similar formula to his 2024 WJSC victory at the same location, Henry attacked the La Bocana rights, opening the men’s Final with a lofty full rotation that earned an 8.67. He soon added exceptional variety on a long right for a 9.50, building a massive 18.17 heat total that left Morgan Cibilic (AUS) and Douglas Silva (BRA) needing a two-wave combination. Four further excellent scores were posted over the 30-minute match, three of them from Kauli Vaast (FRA), the only surfer able to challenge Henry’s lead with a single wave. The Olympic Champion’s vertical backhand attack came closest to Henry’s numbers, but the Australian stayed out of reach, even as Vaast landed a backhand full rotation to close the Final.

Vaast’s silver medal continues his trajectory of improving his placing with every WSG entered, having won the bronze in 2024 and placed 5th in 2023. Cibilic and Silva both take home their first ISA medals, the bronze and copper, respectively.

Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri, Team Spain Photo: Pablo Franco

Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri (ESP) claimed the biggest win of her career and made history for Spain. The 20-year-old, who qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games by finishing 15th in her WSG debut last year, bettered the historic copper medal earned in 2024 by her teammate and fellow Olympian Nadia Erostarbe (ESP). Competing alongside her sister, Annette Gonzalez-Etxabarri (ESP), Janire’s victory also helped Spain equal their best-ever team result, matching the bronze medal secured in 2017.

"It's like I'm sleeping in a dream and all of this is not real," Gonzalez-Etxabarri said. "I just have no words. I'm super happy and I don't know what to say. I was paddling out super happy and just grateful to be in the Final and to be able to maybe get the gold. I made it, but I just wanted to enjoy my heat and show my surfing. I wasn't thinking about the gold, I was thinking about wave-by-wave and just showing my surfing. I'm super happy."

While the men’s Final played out almost entirely on the right, the women’s was flipped, with the majority of the action centered on the left. The only goofyfooter of the six women to compete on Finals Day, Gonzalez-Etxabarri opened with an aggressive two-turn combo on her forehand to collect a 7.50. Finding a similar second ride in quick succession, Gonzalez-Extabarri added a 7.07 to her scoreline for a 14.57 heat total. Those two waves held as the highest numbers of the heat despite multiple impressive attempts from Arena Rodriguez (PER) and Olympians Yolanda Hopkins (POR) and Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS). Hopkins came very close to posting a serious number after a huge opening turn, but fell on the second attack, while Fitzgibbons switched tactics to hunt for a large requirement on the right. It was the solid start from the Spaniard, however, that solidified the win.

Hopkins backed up her silver medal earned at the same location in 2021. The defending champion, Fitzgibbons, added a sixth WSG medal to her collection, a second bronze to join her unprecedented four golds. Rodriguez became the fourth Peruvian woman to win a WSG medal, the copper, adding her name alongside teammate Daniella Rosas (PER) andpast Gold Medalists Sofía Mulánovich (PER) and Analí Gómez (PER).

Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri, Team Spain Photo: Sean Evans

ISA President Fernando Aguerre said:

“Today, as I was standing on the stairs watching the finals, one of the athletes from Vanuatu stopped by and told me, ‘These were the best two weeks of my life.’ It was the first time Vanuatu competed at the World Surfing Games, and that memory will stay with them forever. Moments like this are what make our work so meaningful.

“I want to thank President Nayib Bukele for believing in surfing as part of the future of El Salvador, and for believing in the ISA. These past six years have been incredible for El Salvador, for the ISA, and for Olympic surfing. Thank you also to Morena Valdez, and to the amazing hosting team.

“Many years ago, Duke Kahanamoku dreamed that surfing would one day become an Olympic sport. People said it would never happen, but today his dream is a reality. As we begin the third Olympic cycle for surfing, we honor Duke’s vision. He believed in surfing, and he believed in aloha — and in our own way, we are all ambassadors of aloha. We came here in peace, we spent these two weeks in peace, and now we return home in peace. That is the true spirit of surfing. Long live surfing, long live love and peace in the world.”

El Salvador Minister of Tourism Morena Valdez said:

"We are so excited to have the United Nations of surfing here in El Salvador. To be with all of you at the ISA World Surfing Games makes us so proud. Every year this event leaves us with something special, and for me, the most important takeaway is the friendship that grows among our nations.

"For El Salvador, surfing is more than a sport. Together with the ISA and through the vision of President Bukele, we believe surfing is a path to social, economic, and human development. Hosting the World Surfing Games is not only about competition; it is about building opportunities, friendships, and a stronger future through surfing."

RESULTS

Team
Gold - Australia
Silver - Peru
Bronze - Spain
Copper - France

Men
Gold - Dane Henry (AUS)
Silver - Kauli Vaast (FRA)
Bronze - Morgan Cibilic (AUS)
Copper - Douglas Silva (BRA)

Women
Gold - Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri (ESP)
Silver - Yolanda Hopkins (POR)
Bronze - Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS)
Copper - Arena Rodriguez (PER)

Trop Cher Now Playing

Trop Cher Now Playing

Hossegor is as heavy and consistent as it gets in Europe. The sandbanks here shape waves that are fast, hollow, and unforgiving—more like mini-Pipeline than your average beach break. On a solid swell, the barrels get thick and intimidating, with heavy lips that punish any hesitation. Check out this latest edit by Adam Norris to see just how good Hossegor gets when it turns on.

Shot and edited: Adam Norris of Offshores Photo.

Thomas Campbell talks Yi-Wo

Thomas Campbell talks Yi-Wo

Words Demi Taylor

I’m speaking with Thomas Campbell on the eve of the World Premiere of his highly anticipated film Yi-Wo. “

I'm kind of a little bit of a lone wolf. I'm not super out in the public where I interact with people specifically that know even what I do, and that's on purpose,” he says. But if you’ve had even a passing interest in surfing and surf culture over the last 25 years, then you’ll be more than familiar with the work and influence of Thomas Campbell.

15-18 September, London Surf / Film Festival is bringing a special screening tour of Yi-Wo to the UK, hosting series one-off screenings in Cornwall, Devon, London and Newcastle. Details and tickets HERE

A surfer, skater, artist, photographer, sculptor and filmmaker, when Thomas Campbell’s seminal triptych of surf films first landed (The Seedling, followed by Sprout and The Present) they were hungrily devoured as a manifesto - a counter point for the counter culturalists. It was the reign of Layne. It was Occy’s comeback as he grabbed the crown vacated by Kelly Slater. Surfing was fast, furious and vertical. Thomas’s films slowed it right down, capturing the outliers, the avant-garde, the moments the moments in between. They catalysed a paradigm shift in the culture, that would see logs, fish and all manner of craft celebrated, redefining both the art of waveriding and the way we document it. Ten years in the making his latest audio-visual masterpiece Yi-Wo is set to do the same again.

Given the timing of this call, he’s surprisingly generous with his unhurried conversation. But it feels like this generosity of spirit has been a guiding force; the reference points for this latest opus are a nod to a life well lived. They are as broad and expansive as the resulting feeling you get from immersing yourself in the film. The idea was seeded with a 2014 trip to the firing points of Morocco with Dave Rastovitch, Lauren Hill and Trevor Gordon before spinning across the globe over the best part of a decade, collecting a cast of standout surfers revered for their style along the way – from Alex Knost and Karina Rozunko to Ryan Burch, Craig Anderson and more. “Everyone in the movie is just basically my favorite surfers,” says Thomas. “It’s a nice congregation of a group that has a lot of respect for each other and is excited to be together. I tried to relay that, and relay a sense of play and fun because, I think in a lot of times in surfing movies, you don't see that. It’s just all about performance, which is just such a small part of it.” There are costumes influenced by Cornish folkloric rituals and poetic prose, translated into Hawaiian by Cliff Kapono before being rendered back into English and transmogrified once again into a new form. Captured on 16mm by the world’s leading cinematographers and set to a mind-altering soundtrack, it’s art and surf movie all at once.

“With the first three films, I would say that those were more like educational films, at a point where people didn't have access to knowledge about riding different types of equipment or craft, “ explains Thomas. “And I kind of spelled it out like, ‘Hey, you could do this different stuff, you could surf like them. If you want to do that, ride this,’ That kind of stuff.” And as is often the way with the best stories, his ‘alternative’ perspective was driven by personal experience. “I grew up at Dana Point,” he explains, “My friends and I, we rode shortboards, longboards, 70’s single fins, we rode whatever, and that wasn't very normal, you know? But we had a very good longboard wave right by our house, and good shortboard wave and we’d go skateboarding in Laguna, so I just tried to document what I liked. (My first films) I felt they were set in a pretty traditional surf movie template - somewhat in the vein of like MacGillivray, Freeman, Witzig, Bruce Brown and stuff like that, but I tried to modernize it.”

But Yi-Wo is a departure, perhaps a more creatively expansive endeavour. “My last film, Ye Olde Destruction was a skateboarding film and I started to find a new voice, which I think parlays into this film,” says Campbell. “I would say that the intensity of life over the last eight or so years has inspired some deeper thinking. With this film I feel like that education part for me was done and I just wanted to go into a more creative space, it's more like that idea of it kind of opening up questions more than giving answers.”

“I played with different themes and stretched into places that can honour the depth of our existence…I feel like I'm kind of like a rock tumbler,” he explains with trademark underplay of the intensive creative process required to produce a film of this depth and level. “I just put the rocks in a long time ago, pretty jagged, and then they just tumbled in my brain for a long time, then they come out kind of smoothed out…”

On his hopes for the film, and what people take away from it, he says “I guess I would hope maybe people first off get inspired to go in the ocean and maybe, secondly, that it inspires them to just think about what they're up to, and what this life is, you know, hopefully in a positive, expansive way. But I surely don't know… I just feel like people need to have whatever experience they have, and I'm pretty sure they will.”

Don’t miss the Yi-Wo UK Tour - your only chance to catch the film on the big screen here:

15th SEPTEMBER > THE POLY, FALMOUTH, CORNWALL

17th SEPTEMBER > RIVERSIDE STUDIOS, LONDON

17th SEPTEMBER > TYNESIDE CINEMA, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

18th SEPTEMBER > OUTSIDE, BANTHAM, DEVON

More information and ticket details here >

Glory and Consequence

Glory and Consequence

Rewind to Sunday, October 20, 2024, when the necessary conditions were in place for one of the most incredible surf sessions in recent years in Mundaka. Two hundred people witnessed the event, and once again, everything was captured by the filmers present. Following the events, a dozen surfers were identified, detained, and interrogated to clarify what happened.

Film direction and edit: Jon Aspuru
Filmers: Paula Odriozola, Isio Noya, Edu Bartolome, Gaizko Fanarraga, Juan Lazkano, Joseba Larri, Gorka Ezkurdia.

Surfers: Aritz Aranburu, Diego Elejoste, Txaber Trojaola, Guille Amezaga, Jon Madariaga, Joseba Castresana,Álex Larrocea, Iker Acero, Eukeni Masa, Zumo , Ibon Yarritu, Ander Mendiguren, Natxo Gonzalez, Xan Atchoarena, Mike Dobos, Dani Alonso