Enter a world of magic and mystery, in my own head, where surfing and snowboarding are considered real jobs! Amazing feats of daring and skill are performed every day - and that's just getting the footage onto film!
Media anarchist, film guru, surf addict and web video blogger!
This week in a remote fishing village off the coast of Portugal, Garrett McNamara, of Hawaii, towed into what many are calling the biggest wave ever surfed. Experts are averaging the wave at 90ft, just 10ft shy of the momentous 100ft goal that many thought would never be achieved. Check the video, make your own call. I call it bloody massive!
There were some good sessions! (Photo: Rebel Sessions)
Rebel TV came to the party in 2011 for the Cape Town big wave scene, after the departure of the Red Bull left a large gap in the calendar. Though it was not the best big wave winter Cape Town has ever seen, there was one huge tow day and a couple of pretty hefty paddle days. More importantly some of the Cape's big wave chargers have got some well deserved travel budget for the Northern Hemisphere season. Well done to all involved, we look forward to next year's edition.
The inaugural Rebel Sessions 2011 awards winners were announced at a packed invite only ceremony held at La Cabane restaurant in Hout Bay on Friday night. The four award wining big wave surfers each pocketed a share of R110 000 in prize money for waves ridden at the Capes premier big wave venues this winter.
The Rebel Sessions is a unique big wave surfing awards event that ran for the first time this year from 15th July to the 22nd October. Over 100 days of winter the Rebel Session cameras filmed six sessions surfed with waves over 15 foot, the photographs and footage taken were used to judge the waves surfed and award prizes in four different categories.
The main award for the best-surfed paddle wave went to popular Kommetjie local Michael Schlebach who pocketed R50 000 for a long walling wailer he skillfully surfed at Dungeons. Michael has been charging big waves off the Cape peninsular for many years and was a standout surfer in every session he surfed through the winter. Accepting the check, trophy and framed photograph from the head of Rebel Media, Christian Herles, the broadly grinning surfer said that he was planning on spending the money on new surfboards.
Kommetjie surfer Andy Marr received R30 000 for the biggest tow wave of the season while Jeremy Johnson from Hout Bay got R20 000 for the biggest wave paddled into, and James Taylor received R10000 for the worst wipe out. The winning waves were all surfed at world-renowned Dungeons reef off Hout bay when the biggest swell of the winter hit the Cape of storms on the 21st and 22nd August.
Christian Herles also awarded a surprise "Surfer of the Sessions" award with R5000 going to young Durbanite Josh Redman for the commitment and skill he displayed in the water. Josh based himself in Cape Town for much of the winter and his fearless assault on the Capes big waves showed that he's a big wave talent to look out for in the future.
Awarding the prizes Christian said that Rebel Media would be back with the event next year because Cape Town is "one of the few places in the world that has a real big wave community and thats why (Cape Town) deserves the event and thats why Rebel Media bought the event here.".
The footage filmed will be edited into a documentary that will be distributed and aired worldwide by Rebel Media through their Rebel TV sports channel.
Rebel Sessions 2011 Big Wave awards winners (L-R) Best surfed paddle in wave Mike Schlebach (R50000), Sessions Surfers award, Josh Redman (R5000), Biggest Tow Surfed wave (R30000), Andy Marr (R30000) and Biggest paddle in wave, Jeremy Johnson (R20000) receive their awards at the prize giving in Hout Bay, South Africa 04 November 2011.
Mark Mathews surfing "Ours" at night! Pretty scary really...
To say the Bra Boys are not my favorite is simply true. The movie of the same name did not make me feel for these guys at all. In fact I thought some of them deserved exactly what they got. This movie however has a somewhat different feel. Instead of playing the sympathy card, it simply shows the life and bond of 2 truly good mates through their trials and tribulations and missions surfing giant nasty waves. I am amped to see it.
Mark is a Big Wave Surfer. He dreams of being the best.
Richie, Mark's best mate shares his love of Big Wave Surfing but has his own ambitions. A carpet layer by day, Richie dreams of becoming a MMA Cage-Fighting Champion. Both are fearless, living life on the edge, daring each other to surf bigger waves, party harder, take greater risks. But when their adrenalin-seeking antics & hardened partying turns sour, it sets in motion a dramatic and life-changing series of events that threatens to derail everything they have worked so hard for.
In an instant, Mark's Big Wave surfing career is in tatters & Richie is facing a jail term. But for these two friends, giving up is not an option. It's not the mistakes you make but how you overcome them. Their unwavering friendship gives them the courage to battle their demons, rise up from their troubled past & conquer their fears. One good friend can Change your life.
This feature-length docu-drama, told through the eyes of the two friends, Pro-surfer Mark Mathews and MMA fighter Richie Vaculik & filmed over three years, provides a unique & candid insight into the tumultuous life of two world-class athletes facing against-all-odds personal challenges.
This is the second feature film by exciting new Australian talent, Macario De Souza, co-director of BRA BOYS, the highest grossing Australian documentary (non-imax) of all time. Aged just 28, Macario not only wrote, directed, edited, shot & produced FIGHTING FEAR but as Kid Mac wrote & performed 5 songs on the soundtrack.
With a rip-roaring soundtrack and featuring entertaining & insightful interviews from some of the world's most influential action sports athletes, including ten-time World Surfing Champion Kelly Slater, two- time World Surfing Champion Mick Fanning, Big Wave Surfer Bruce Irons, three-time Women's World Surfing Champion Steph Gilmore & two-time UFC World Champion BJ Penn, FIGHTING FEAR is a jaw-dropping action-packed documentary that is surprisingly emotional, powerfully uplifting & utterly compelling.
FIGHTING FEAR is inspirational, heart-stopping entertainment.
Roosta charging Dungeons on the Paddle day. (Photo: KoleskyNikon)
The Cape big wave community are abuzz with excitement after the first real swell of the year pulled into Cape Town last week. It was not pretty, but there were definitely some decent and pretty large waves ridden by the Tow Crews. I am really looking forward to seeing some of the paddle sessions when they get posted. The Rebel Tv Big Wave challenge is on here and it's pushing the crews here to go for broke. Check out Dungeons looking angry below:
The second of the Rebel Sessions days was called at the Dungeons, Hout Bay on Sunday in the biggest swell to hit Cape Town this winter.
On a cold, wet and blustery Sunday the big wave surfers of Cape Town congregated at the Hout Bay harbor to launch their wave runners and head out for what turned out to be an epic day of big wave surfing with a couple of rides eligible for a share of the R110 000 rebel Sessions prize money.
Having been disappointed by a swell that never reached its predicted size last weekend the eight tow in crews who took to the water this weekend weren't going to let the wind, rain or freezing water keep them from the huge swells that were unloading at the Dungeons, and as the crews started buzzing around the backline it became clear that this was going to be a special day of surfing.
