After an especially frustrating session at The Lane in Santa Cruz, sitting in a crowd of 200 people and getting ruthlessly stuffed in my hometown, I asked myself, has surfing lost its aloha spirit? Formerly the concept of aloha was wedded closely to the sport of surfing in Hawaii. meaning much more than the haole translation of “hi” and “bye”, the concept is one of universal respect, affection, peace, compassion, and goodwill. Duke Kahanamoku famously traveled as an Ambassador of Aloha, gracing now famous surf towns from Freshwater Beach to Santa Monica with demonstrations of surfing and goodwill.
This is the model we choose to follow with The Save The Waves Film festival tour. By traveling and connecting good people, showing great films and motivating surfers to take a role in protecting the places they love, we try our best to show the best of our sport.
This year’s films have this underlying aloha theme throughout. Jensen Young Sik’s “Watu” explores the first travelers to North America who respected and honored the local environment and peoples. “Dulce” by Patrick McMahon brings us the beautiful, grateful, pure, and at times quirky lives of surfers reveling in nature at the end of the road in Pavones, and how those lifestyles may now be subject to change in the face of development. Chris Malloy’s “The Fisherman’s Son” documents the life of Ramon Navarro and his commitment and respect to his home break, family, and country, while welcoming those who wish to help in the fight.
With stops in San Diego, Dana Point, Austin TX, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco, the film festival tour kicks off this coming week on Thursday at Bird’s Surf Shed where we hope to share this aloha spirit, which was so important in surfings origins, with our friends and guests.
And to the guy who burned me today, if you come to the film festival you’ll still be welcome.
We humbly invite our San Diego coastal community to join us Thursday November 5th at the Bird’s Surf Shed to kick off the 2015 Save the Waves Film Festival. For more on the 2015 Save the Wave Film Festival and to find when and where it’s making a stop near you, visit SaveTheWaves.org.
