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Wired Magazine has a good post on Delta’s new excessive boardbag fees for surfboards. They are $175 each way for domestic flights and $300 each way for international flights. What’s interesting is that they don’t charge for golf clubs (heavier than surfboards). Here’s a list of sporting goods you can check for free on Delta: golf bags weighing under 50 pounds, scuba gear, snowboards, pistols, rifles, shotguns, fishing equipment, javelins, parachutes, ski gear and vaulting poles. In general airlines have jacked up fees for surfboards in recent months (list of boardbag fees on major airlines). Some of this is understandable considering what’s happened with gas prices in recent months and how airlines have started charging to check in any bag. But Delta’s fees are just plain excessive. Either they don’t care if surfers fly on their airline, they want to actively discourage them, or they just think they can get away with it. Sign a petition here to protest these fees on Delta.

The finals for the Boost Mobile Pro were held today at Lowers, Trestles – San Clemente, CA. The week has been perfect for the contest with a un size 4-6 ft. South running all week. The conditions were a little more inconsistent today, but still plenty of overhead waves. Slater was down early in the 40 minute heat (lengthened because of inconsistent conditions) with Taj Burrow scoring early with a 9.6 and a 9.1. In fact, it looked like Kelly wasn’t going to be able to pull anything off with his early waves not scoring above an 8. Then the Slater magic happened. He scored a 9.7 with about 20 minutes remaining in the heat and then finished with a 9.2 in the last seconds. Taj sat dejected in the line-up as Kelly finished the wave right in front of the judges tower and walked onto the rocks to screams of the crowd.

Kelly hasn’t wavered from first place from when he took it with the first contest of the year at Snapper. He’s been unstoppable, winning 5 of the first 7 events! Brazil is up next, I don’t think anyone can catch him. Check the ASP World Tour rankings here.

The photos are all from today final heat between Kelly and Taj. With about 10 minutes remaining Kelly looking a bit desperate pulled into a smaller wave and tried to boost a big air immediately and flailed. Rare to see the champ flub it so badly. Check out the full frame slideshow here.

Two surfers have been attacked by sharks in the past week. The photo above is of a surfer’s board in Lompoc, CA north of Santa Barbara. Kyle was surfing Surfer’s Beach and saw a Great White Shark circling him! He got off his board and used it as a shield, fins out, between him and the shark. The shark chomped the board and left a reminder of what Great Whites can do. Researchers are estimating it to be a Great White between 14-16 ft in length. The pictures are unbelievable.

There was also an attack in Kaaawa, Hawaii on the east side of Oahu at Crouching Lion’s.

“The shark attack happened at about 5 p.m. Tuesday about 300 yards offshore at a surf spot known as Crouching Lion. 40-year-old Todd Murashige told emergency officials he was sitting on his surfboard when he was attacked. Murashige paddled himself to shore accompanied by another surfer. He was taken to Queen’s Medical Center in serious condition.”

The injury to Murashige is reported to be serious. It is the second attack at Crouching Lion’s in just over a year.

Here’s a photo from a couple days ago of a surfer blasting the top of a wave at glassy, beautiful Ocean Beach, San Francisco… oh wait, there’s a fin in the background?!

Ocean Beach, San Francisco is in the Red Triangle, or in case you haven’t heard is one of the sharkiest places in the world. There have been a slew of recent great white sightings at Ocean Beach and Stinson Beach, further north in Marin. Stinson Beach was closed over Labor Day Weekend because of shark sightings.

Check out all the latest shark news on Surftherenow.com here.

See Other Top Posts:

Most Amazing Photos You’ll Ever See of Waves

Diver Fights and Kills 12 ft. Tiger Shark (Photos)

Your Chances of Dying of a Shark Attack – Pretty Slim

Incredible HD Footage of Surfer in the Barrel

I bought a magnificent quad fin fish last year. Surfs beautifully, sadly it won’t last. It’s a fiberglass board glassed with light fiberglass probably for high performance. Within a couple session, the deck had visible dents on it and I had to apply another layer of glass and resin to it. Fiberglass boards are the one-hit wonders of surfboards. They’re great for a few months, but die out after that, losing pop and gaining weight from dings. Within a year of consistent surf, if they’re not already broken most traditional fiberglass surfboards are done at a high environmental costs. Nothing can be recycled with fiberglass boards, they’re made with toxic chemicals, and production of the blanks, resin, and fiberglass requires petrochemicals and outputs a significant amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Simply, the system is broken. It was born broken.

Fortunately, there are more sustainable options becoming available. Ecowarrior, Joe Santley, started the company ReSurf along with support from Lost surfboards to begin recycling surfboards (ask your local surfshop that they begin participating). The ReSurf website explains more about the project and list nearby locations. Greenlight Surfboard Supply makes Bamboo fins and other sustainable surfboard materials.

Country Feeling Surfboards is a company building surfboards out of these sustainable materials. “Country Feeling Surfboards celebrates the nature that surrounds us with surfboards made with environmentally friendly materials:  soy-based  and   sugar-based  foams; deck inlays made from hemp, organic cotton, bamboo and silk; and resin that is catalyzed by the sun.”

What seems like the best option is the resurgence of wooden surfboards. The entire process is sustainable. They’re locally buily, often using local materials, the strong and long lasting. After years and years of use, when it comes time to retire them they’re completely recyclable. The wood can be reused or composted. They’re expensive but if you consider a fiberglass is likely to have a 1/4 the lifetime of a good wooden board and that many wooden boards may last a lifetime then they’re simply good investments.

Grain Surfboards are based in York, Maine and build beautifully crafted, hand shaped wooden boards. Hess Surfboards is based in Ocean Beach, San Francisco and also build hand shaped wooden boards. For the deck and bottom of the board, Hess uses sustainably farmed poplar and red cedar (salvaged from local Victorian homes). For the rails he uses cork and for the fins, bamboo. A small amount of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam. Boards start around $1300. A look through their gallery will be enough to convince you. The Surfer’s Journal has written features on both of them. Timberline Surfboards offers wooden surfboards shaped out of Santa Barbara, CA.

Cannibals and surf exploration don’t mix well. In 1975, traveling Australian surfers, Kevin Lovett, John Giesel, and Peter Troy were traveling Indonesia on motorcycles in search of new perfect waves. They were drawn to the island of Nias off the coast of Northern Sumatra by a horseshoe shaped bay a the Southern end of the island that looked promising for surf. They were right. They discovered Lagundri Bay and surfed it alone for three months. The discovery set would set the surf world on fire and open the door for further exploration of Indonesia. (An account of surfing the remote islands of Northern Sumatra).

Kevin Lovett later learned that the three of them had been targets of cannibal practicing tribes on the island during their stay. The blog, Strange Maps of the World, presents a early 20th century map of the world highlighting areas that practice cannibalism both historical and present. A good guide when heading off to Papua New Guinea, Vanatu, or other unchartered areas. [Link to larger image of Map] “Indonesia, Micronesia and the rest of Oceania are marked by many contemporary instances of cannibalism, in Australia, New Guinea, Borneo (Dayaks) and Sumatra (Bataks).” Don’t think we were not immune to it, while Europe seemed free of Antropophagie (Greek for “eating of humans”) – something that may more than anything indicate a bias in the map, North America certainly was not.

Check out this insane short film of Adam Kimmel and friend bombing down Claremont Canyon trading a video camera back and forth. Watch the HD version if you can. The film is by Ari Marcopoulos.

Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

The image above is a aerial photo of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The dark shapes in the water are Blacktip and Spinner Sharks. New Smyrna is now officially the shark attack capital of the world. It has registered 19 attacks in 2008 alone!!! There were 74 unprovoked attacks globally in 2007 (image and statistics courtesy of the International Shark Attack File). The 19th attack at New Smyrna Beach was the 4th attack in 2 weeks at the beach. Concerned? I think I might be. Although I’m a bit more puzzled as to why people keep swimming and surfing there. To give you an idea, the attacks so afar at New Smyra Beach in 2008 alone is 1/3 of the global attacks of 2007! I posted earlier on statistics of the risk of death from a shark attack (pretty much nill), but I wouldn’t discount a risk of an attack in New Smyrna.

5ones and the Fear Beneath both report on the attacks. Check the Fear Beneath for more detailed reports on the attacks. Too bad for surfers in the area because the Altantic is sending a slew of hurricanes there way right now. Meanwhile popular surf spots in California’s Red Triangle have had a string of shark sightings including sightings at Ocean Beach, San Francisco and Stinson Beach, Marin County. Not hugely surprising considering it is the Red Triangle.

Here’s a photo a photographer, Kem McNair, caught earlier this year of a spinner shark jumping out of a wave with a surfer on it at New Smyrna Beach.

Check out all the latest shark news on Surftherenow.com here.

See Other Top Posts:

Most Amazing Photos You’ll Ever See of Waves

Diver Fights and Kills 12 ft. Tiger Shark (Photos)

Your Chances of Dying of a Shark Attack – Pretty Slim

Incredible HD Footage of Surfer in the Barrel

You know the surf forecast is bad, when a surf forecasting blog writes a post on ding repair instead of a surf forecast. SoCal Surf Forecast blog has a great post on ding repair, taking you through all the steps to do solid repairs and make your stick good as new. They’re a great source for surf forecasts for SoCal, Northern California, and Baja.

Check out Driftnik.com for the guide to the places where you can learn to surf for $20/day (hint Central America and Asia). Beats trying to learn in the crowded line-ups and cold water.