Vitor Oliveira

Every summer, millions of people head to beaches expecting a simple promise. If something goes wrong in the water, someone will come. That someone is usually an open water lifeguard. At SurferToday.com, we have been promoting the sharing of knowledge about water safety, surf lifesaving, and surf rescue, and highlighting the importance of lifeguards in saving hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide every year. It seems that we, collectively, only realize that when someone close to us goes through a life-threatening event or worse, and eventually, during summer. So, here's what reality tells us every day, especially during the warmer months. Whether they patrol the surf at Huntington Beach, the shorebreak at Jersey beaches, or the powerful currents of the North Shore of Hawaii, open water lifeguards are often the first professionals to reach people in distress. There's basically no one else. They dive into dangerous surf, swim through rip currents, perform rescues, provi...

Fear is one of the most interesting and mysterious emotional states a human can feel, and one we all would like to tame, control, or reduce in our lives. As a surfer, the first time you paddle toward a wave that looks far bigger than anything you have surfed before, something strange happens. Your breathing changes, your heart beats faster, your hands grip the rails of your board a little tighter, and every instinct tells you to turn around. That's more or less like that, right? That feeling is fear - pure and simple. It is one of the oldest survival systems in the human body, and it exists for a simple reason. It has kept our ancestors alive for millions of years. Surfers often talk about conquering fear, but science paints a different picture. Fear is not an obstacle to eliminate. Actually, although it might sound like a paradox, we should be thankful for having it in our lives. Fear is information, and the challenge is learning how to understand it instead of letting it...

Few figures in surfing have lived a life as astonishing as Jack Roland Murphy. Better known as "Murph the Surf," Jack was an accomplished surfer, a gifted athlete, a pioneer of Florida's early surf scene, the mastermind behind one of the most famous jewel thefts in American history, and later a convicted murderer who claimed to have found redemption behind bars. His story has inspired books, documentaries, magazine features, and countless newspaper articles. It remains one of the strangest biographies ever connected to surfing, blending genuine athletic talent with crime, celebrity, violence, and religion. Resemblances with Miki Dora 's bumpy ride in life are obvious. California roots and a passion for the ocean Jack Roland Murphy was born on October 26, 1937, in Los Angeles, California. During his childhood, Murphy's family lived in Carlsbad, where he discovered surfing at a time when the sport was still a small California subculture. The equipment was no...

If you asked 100 non-surfers which season they associate with surfing, it's fair to say nearly 100 would probably say summer. There is a universe of clichés gravitating around the idea of surfing: sun, beach, warm weather and warm water, boardshorts and bikinis, tanned bodies, transparent blue water, tropical islands and settings, and perfect-peeling waves, etc. Those are valid for Hollywood movie producers and for the mainstream audience as well. But there are way more. The language, the slang, the bleach-blond hair, Hawaii, California, the surfboard with three fins, surf vans, and a long queue of semiotic icons that make this sport a rich and multidisciplinary outdoor activity. Most of the symbols of the so-called surf culture are anchored in the idea and warmth of summer. Rain and English-like weather are not the first things that come to our minds when we mention places like California and Hawaii. The same applies to surfing. Summer surfing has an obvious appeal. There...

Spray stung my face as I clung to the back of the jet ski without a sled. What do I do if I fall off now? I had no idea who was driving, but as we bounced over the big waves in Nazaré, I had a feeling I was in good hands. How did I end up here? Is this real? Adrenaline rushed through me - I couldn't believe what was happening. Back in the harbor, buzzing with the kind of happiness only a day out in the ocean can bring, I was holding a couple of wave buoys when João de Macedo grinned at me. "Do you know who that was?" he asked. "No clue," I admitted. "That was Sebastian Steudtner, the world record holder for the largest wave ever ridden , so I knew you were in good hands". A wave of... well, not quite shame, but definitely embarrassment washed over me. I had been so skeptical about him switching places with João on the ski. What did I know? I am just a wave-obsessed surfer from Sandnes, Norway, usually more concerned with deploying wave buoys t...

My name is Ali Kassem. I was a Syrian refugee in Lebanon. I left Syria in 2012 after losing my older brother in the war. He was my whole world, and after he was gone, everything changed. I left my country as a child, not knowing where I was going or what would happen to me. When I arrived in Lebanon, I was just a kid. I had no school to return to and no normal childhood like other children. I was far from my home, my friends, and everything I had ever known. The only place where I felt at peace was the sea. It was the first time I had ever seen the ocean. I would spend hours sitting on the shore, watching the waves. It felt like the only place that could ease what I was carrying inside. In 2015, I was sitting on a hill overlooking the beach on a cold day when I saw people riding the waves. I became curious about what they were doing, so I started researching it and discovered a sport called surfing. Cutting foam into the shape of a surfboard One day, I spotted a piece of flo...

For decades, water has been one of the biggest unsolved puzzles in video games. You've probably noticed that in the handful of surfing titles that were released so far. Developers learned to create convincing mountains, forests, cities, and even human faces long before they mastered oceans. The thing is, water refuses to stay still. It reflects the sky, bends light, changes color with depth, carries floating objects, crashes into rocks, forms foam, breaks into spray, and reacts instantly when something enters it.  Every one of those behaviors follows the laws of physics. A beautiful ocean is relatively easy to draw, but building one that behaves like the real sea is something else entirely. Surfing games have always exposed that challenge better than any other genre. There's hardly any gamer who won't say waves are the worst part of these attempts to get surfers into console video games. Surfers instinctively know when a wave looks wrong. They can spot an unnatural ...

I have always resisted a very common temptation in everyday surfing: paddling out to where everyone already is. Point breaks and single-peak beach breaks have several upsides and downsides. On the one hand, they generally provide perfect peeling waves that allow surfers to adjust to the take-off zone and ride for an exceptionally long time. On the other hand, because their take-off area is so visible and clear, they tend to attract everyone with a surfboard, and even those who are about to catch their first wave. I am allergic to crowds in surfing, way more than to crowd surfing. Pun intended. Whenever I spot a perfect wave with too many human beings, I immediately lose interest in it and start scanning for alternative peaks where I can find peace and tranquility. I never understood how someone can have fun in an environment where they have to literally impose themselves and fight for a few seconds of pleasure. It's an antithesis. You're building anxiety, stress, and fr...

There have never been so many surfers on the planet. More and more young and old people are giving surfing a try. And yet, the empire that helped make it popular is falling. The concept of "surf industry" has changed profoundly in the 2010s. What once was a multi-billion dollar market anchored on surfwear has now broadened its borders to embrace a much larger segment: wave pools . However, there's still way more investment in surf parks than the revenue that they generate. In the future, it will surely change. So, what happened to surfing's cash cow? What happened to the boardshorts, bikinis, tees, sandals, and branded towels? Why aren't they driving the industry anymore? The last time SurferToday.com reported relevant growth in the surf industry was in 2011, as the world recovered from the ashes of a global economic depression. At the time, the Surf Industry Members Association (SIMA) released a statement with improvements across several segments of the ma...