When I was a kid I remember the day Mark Foo died. This revolutionary big wave surfer never came up after riding his wave in. It was as if this liquid mountain was his chariot to the world beyond. He was riding in his passion and will always live on in the hall of greats. As a kid I grew up surfing on the east end of Long Island. Montauk is the place that I consider my birthplace–where I learned who I was. Spiritual is how I felt the day I heard Mark Foo died doing what he loved. I didn’t think about his beliefs, his status, or his bank account. I thought about a man who was in one moment living out his purpose and then the next literally ceased to exist. He was a hero to me and that is because fear could not follow him where he was going. I like the idea of living without that fear.

Surfing the arctic circle seemed like a good idea? C’mon, this has to be the furthest anyone has gone to find good surf. There’s only so much that can be said for the brains and balls (in deep contrast) that this shows.

Growing up in Southern California, I took it for granted that moderate temperatures and shapely waves were just a part of life. However, there has been a spread of surfing’s lifestyle seduction. Over the past 30 some odd years, everything from the gear (boards and even stick wax) to the uniform (board shorts and flip flops) have taken over youth culture in places like Virginia, Florida, Brazil and Japan. Now, surfing itself seems…

We already hipped you to the massive anthem potential of Alex Metric’s remix of “One More Chance” by Bloc Party – indeed, per our prediction it has proven to be a summer 2008 dancefloor mainstay. How, we wondered, could it get any better?

In 1968, Yvon Chouinard made an epic journey that changed his life and, it turns out, many others. Chouinard and his best friend Doug Tompkins took to explore untouched nature, mountain ranges to be climbed and waves to be surfed, from California to deep Patagonia (Argentina). They were transformed by the experience which they filmed, and eventually led to 2 million acres of wilderness being saved.

While Huntington Beach, CA, holds rights to the name, this year’s Surfer Magazine highlights the best surf towns in America, and HB is no where on that list. It’s probably because there are numerous cities with much better swells, consistent wave height and shape, like… Montauk?