surftherenow.com

With how much surfing has blown up in the last 20 years,  it can be hard to score empty waves even traveling to areas like Mexico and Central America. But if you time your trip well and go to the right areas, you can score empty waves at even well known spots. Recently due to issues with crime and the cartels some areas in Mexico have travel advisories (Michoacan and Sinaloa in particular). It doesn’t mean that the areas are off limits, but if you go you should understand the rules for traveling to areas like these. 1) Plan your trip. Know exactly where you’re going, where you’re staying, how to get there, etc. 2) Take the beaten path. Don’t go off and try to find waves down dirt roads or in remote areas. 3) Don’t pull over for anyone except for military check/police check points. If you get pulled over by the police, drive to the nearest gas station to pull over. 4) Tell people where you’re going and check in with them when you get there. Travel with at least two fully charged cell phones and check to make sure your cell plan works in the country you’re going to get. Get emergency phones numbers for the areas. 5) Don’t drive at night. Surf and stay put. Don’t explore. Don’t go out.

If you follow these rules, you’ll be surprised that even at well known spots, how empty they can be.

Evan Asano (surfing) and Michael Featherman (paddling) scoring an uncrowded wave in Mexico

Surf There Now was founded way back in 2007 as a way to share travel news, tips and reviews for surfers for surf destinations all over the world. We cover Central America, Brazil and Indonesia as well as the occasional shark attack. We even had a few posts went viral (mainly the posts on shark attacks like this one on your risk of dying from a shark attack). Here we interview, Evan Asano, the founder of Surf There Now. Evan Asano founded Surf There Now while living in Venice and surfing Southern California, but he had spent the previous 10 years surfing NorCal with a home base in San Francisco and surfing Ocean Beach but hitting every break between Santa Cruz and Bolinas.

Evan’s inspiration for Surf There Now came after a 3 month trip through Central America where he surfed El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The trip was incredible, but finding info on travel, lodging, breaks online was sparse. Hence the inspiration for Surf There Now.

Evan worked in digital media from 2008 – 2011 when he founded, Mediakix, the first influencer marketing agency. Evan was a leader and pioneer in the space. Instagram had just launched and “influencer marketing” hadn’t even been coined as a word. Over the next few years, influencer marketing grew and soon it became an entire industry. Mediakix has been one of the leaders all along the way. Their blog has grown to a readership of over 200K page views/month and publish on content a full range of content on from YouTube Influencer Marketing and influencer marketing case studies.

What inspired you to start Surftherenow.com? When I traveling through Central America in 2007, the only reliable resource for surf was Wannasurf which gave the absolute minimum amount of information about the break, let alone travel to/from, accommodations, what the area was like, etc. There was lots of word of mouth and combining it with travel guides. I wanted to create a blog and forum for traveling surfers both to highlight cool areas, give tips about travel in these areas and create a community.

Surftherenow was just the first of a few companies you founded. Yes, I went on to found Mediakix, the first influencer marketing agency, founded in 2011. We worked with top brands from Blue Apron, Dollar Shave Club, Proctor & Gamble, Sony, ExxonMobile, Uber and many more. We led the industry and were rated as one of the top agencies by Business Insider in 2020. I’ve since gone on to found another creator economy company, the influencer marketing and talent agency, CreatorX. We work with top influencer talent and brands and also are developing some tech to bring to the market including a simple online media kit to help creators market themselves to brands, RallyDex.com.

What have been your favorite surf trips? I’ve done two trips to Indonesia which is hard to beat. In 2005, I did a boat trip to Northern Sumatra when it was totally off the map. We had epic breaks all to ourselves and didn’t see another boat for days. The Central America trip was incredible also, Libertad, Colorado’s and Pavones were the highlights. Local trips around California and Baja are amazing also. There’s a ton of great camping spot.

What your thoughts on the rise of “Surf Influencers”? I think it’s amazing to see channels like Jamie O’brien (Stay Psyched) and Koa Rothman (This is Livin‘). They’re super entertaining and it’s great to see the behind the scenes behind stuff like the Jaws Contest. The two videos on the Jaws contest are amazing to see how surfers prep, the paddle out and what happens after.

Do you think they’ll be more “Surf Influencers”? For sure, on Instagram there are tons of accounts. I think YouTube is really the next growth area and the vlog style is the growth area for it. Surf is such a natural fit (although filming it well is difficult) because of the different ways to film, travel, culture, and then just great waves.

Do you think resources for surfers have come along since you launched Surf There Now? Yeah there’s a ton more available online. I still don’t think it’s perfect but in a way that keeps it an adventure. For sure resources like YouTube, Instagram, etc. are amazing for scoping our locations. When I launched Surf There Now, the only videos of some spots were grainy, shaky videos. Now you get virtual surf spot reads for nearly everywhere.

Evan Asano has been a thought leader in the influencer marketing space since 2010 with the last launch of one of first agencies. He also was often featured in press and news articles for insights and predictions about influencer marketing including: making the top 100 list of most influential people in influencer marketing, discussing Revolve’s influencer strategy in Forbes, discussing the growth of influencer marketing in the New York Times, collaborating with the Wall Street Journal on a study of influencer sponsorship rates, discussing Instagram’s strategy in competing with TikTok in CNN, and highlighting and industry-revealing case study with fake influencers and brand sponsorships in Adweek.

Evan Asano has been a speaker on influencer marketing at events like Vidcon and Social Media Week. Evan is an also real estate investor with Airbnb and video production spaces & properties in Venice and other Southern California areas.

On April 21, Tyler Bradt kayaked over 186-foot-high Palouse Falls, breaking the waterfall world record of 127 feet. Tyler is a complete psycho.

Link to Video on SportsIllustrated.com

Read this to your non-surfing friends and ask them if they have a clue what’s he’s talking about. From Cloud Broken by Derek Dunfee, Transworld Surf, February 2009. He writing an account of surfing Cloud Break on Tavarua, Fiji and breaking his leg.

“I had been out for about an hour before the bigger sets started rolling in. After catching a mushier outside wave that pushed me into the channel, I spotted a perfect inside west bowl. The inside waves that have more of a west-swell direction thend to barrel over a heavy ledge through the Shishkabobs section, and this one looked to be a drainer, so I paddled hard to make it to the takeoff zone. It stacked up to around eight to ten feet, and paddling into it I could tell I was going to be a little deep on the A-frame, but I went anyway. Off the drop it had a foamy chandelier-type section that I had to break through to make it into the heaving Shishkabob section up ahead where it would open up. I grabbed my rail with all my weight and tried to huck myself through the foamy part and into the clean section of the barrel. When I tried to punch through the foam, the lip of the wave struck me in the back of the head and top of my back. I was so determined that I was going to make it into the barrel that I didn’t even anticipate getting lipped in the head.”

Destination: Florianopolis, Brazil
Time of Year: March – September
Breaks: Campeche, Praia Joaquina, Praia Mole, Barra da Logoa, Praia Riozinho
Level: All levels
Cost: Inexpensive – Moderate

Intro: Ah Brazil, a country with seemingly more similarities to the U.S than differences and home to surf culture second only to the United States. The beach is a way of life in Brazil, and they’re blessed with thousands of beautiful miles of it. They’re also blessed with thousands of other things.

Florianopolis is a peninsula in the Southern Brazil with excellent exposure to Southern Swell and dozens of beaconing beach breaks (42 beaches in all). The beaches of Florianopolis are some of most beautiful in Brazil. Brazilians have a reputation for being aggressive in the water but with miles and miles of beach breaks, you’ll see their welcoming and friendly side. And with dozens of clubs, you see the other side of Brazilian beach culture.

Through the summer months, you won’t need anything more than a shortie and trunks will be fine for most of the time. After March though the water and air cools off and you’ll want a 3/2 fullsuit. Surf is small for the summer months, but picks up after March. Though it rarely gets big, standard short board will suffice for most days.

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Shark Shield, the once touted solution to our shark fears, leaves us further in doubt about our shark-resistant future. I posted a while back about a test of theirs that went as wrong as it could go when a female white shark swallowed the device whole! (post) In principle the Shark Shield is simple. Sharks use a very sensitive organ in their snout to detect minute electrical fields generated by their prey’s muscle movements conducted through the water (or in our case, the surfer’s muscle movements). Shark Shield emits an electrical field (conducted through the salt water) that would in theory startle and repel sharks. Reasonable thinking. [more after jump and a video on the device]

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Bruce Grimes, a Florida surfer, who was recently injured in a shark attack in Zihuatanejo Mexico plans on paddling back on it the line-up after he recovers. Bruce had recently moved to Zihuatanejo and opened up a surf shop down there. He suffered injuries on his arm and received 100 stitches but did not lose his thumb as had been reported. Authorities in the area have responded by spotting at beaches by helicopter to watch for sharks.

“I’ll go right back. Yeah, I’m that stupid,” Grimes said, examining his bandaged arm outside the hospital where he just had his daily cleaning. “I’ll go right back out as soon as I’m able to.”

In spite of over 70 attacks in 2007, there was only one fatality worldwide. Already in 2008, there have three fatalities from shark attacks.

Two Australian’s got bored with a year round good surf of Australia, flew up to the U.S., bought an old ice cream truck, and decided to drive around to “surf” in each of the 50 states. Surfing consisted of getting up on a surfboard on some form of water. They’ve got a movie releasing sometime in September/October (don’t hold your breath for it releasing at the AMC megaplex near you). Admittedly, it’s not an idea I would ever conceive, but you’ve got to give them credit for originality and for braving places like Vermont in the winter in a wetsuit! Good on ya! [Surfing 50 States]

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I’m posting this from a tiny surf village in Michoacan, Mexico. Ah, the power of technology. I’m a week into my 10 surf trip to Guerrero and Michoacan, Mexico. We flew into Zihuatenajo and scored a solid South swell the first four days north of Zihuatenajo near Troncones. Troncones is a chill beach village with a couple of fun waves and a pounding beachbreak. We stayed at Manzanillo Bay in Troncones. From Troncones, there are a handful of breaks within driving distance, Saladita and The Ranch being the best ones. Saladita is a full, super-long left hand wave better on a fish or longboard. The Ranch is another left hander with better shape.

After the swell subsided, we packed up and headed north to Michoacan and the surf there. Look for a full review to come in the next few days. Great to be surfing in trunks again.