Brian Lam

Style evolution has collected classic wipeouts from 1963 til 2005, from other forms of media, to preserve exactly what it looked like when our fathers and grandfathers (and mothers and grandmothers) ate shit on surfboards. [YouTube via Stokereport]

Ted Erikson made the only known swim from the shark infested Farralon islands, across 31 miles, to the Golden Gate Bridge in 1967. They wiped him down in “shark repellant grease” but I wonder how he dealt with the cold. Oh nice: his swim ended at the Dolphin rowing club in SF where he took a sauna. [YouTube via Mollusk]

The VW Westfalia Syncro Van is an AWD camper van that can come with a pop top bed, two burner propane stove, sink, and sometimes shower. The Syncro version was sold up til 1991 and only 1500 of them in the US. Today the fifth generation VW camper van, the California, is ironically not sold in the states. Can’t say I haven’t dreamt of living in one of these, camping on a different beach all night and waking up to surf, ala surfwise. Maybe I’ll pick up a beater from some old hippie in the standard eurovan trim. Or a fully warranted and reconditioned model from Go Westy. I wish more car publications would write about things like this. Here’s an article about the vans at [The Adventure Life]

Sometimes, the ocean, it might as well be space [FCDSurfboards on Flickr]