John John Florence has a love affair with all things ocean. Surfing in it, swimming in it, diving in it, sailing on it. After his injury last year, that love affair let him do something when he couldn’t surf: sail. Vela, his newly released project, documents his expedition to the Palmyra Atoll in the Line Islands.
“I love surfing and competing,” he said, “and that’s where I put the majority of my time, but getting injured this year kinda gave me that silver lining to go sailing and do this dream trip I’ve been wanting to do. I just wanted to do an open ocean trip and go somewhere that none of us had been. I was pretty nervous about a trip this big.”
Of course, being from Hawaii, Florence has a deep-seated respect for sailing. “What Nainoa (Thompson) and the Hokule’a team has done to explore and sail around the world navigating off their knowledge of the ocean, their knowledge of the stars has shown me how knowledge can be freedom,” he said.
Florence, along with a crew consisting of Kona Johnson, Nathan Florence, Jacques Vincent, and Eric Knutson, created something wonderful in Vela. Palmyra Atoll can teach us a lot about what we’re doing wrong in the world. It’s a unique place where nature is left to do what it wants to do. This is the third of four, and we don’t want it to end. It’s a trip anyone can aspire to do—but even if it doesn’t happen, dreaming about it doesn’t hurt.
Watch the first two episodes of Vela here.
