Water Sports
ArchiveIn Teva’s Beyond the Drop, six pro kayakers from around the world meet up in the rainforests of Southern Mexico to run the Rio Tulij谩. Also known as the Agua Azul, the river features impossibly blue water and a series of five large waterfalls.
What made this former legislative aide ditch Capitol Hill for the life of a wandering fly fisherman? The fish, of course.
Every summer, 50 elite athletes endure a torture test of cold and wet at a tiny island off the south coast of Ireland, where they train to swim the English Channel. The only rules: No wetsuits. Or whining. Matt Bondurant goes deep.
When Polly Green set out to work her way back to kayaking's World Championships, she had no idea that she'd end up documenting the rise of the sport's next generation
The champion South Carolina kayaker can鈥檛 train full-time. But that hasn鈥檛 stopped her from holding her own in some of the world鈥檚 biggest water.
Will Grand Rapids, Michigan, soon become the Boulder, Colorado, of the Midwest? Two paddlers are on the path to making it happen.
Emily and Dane Jackson of Rock Island, Tennessee continue a family tradition of kayaking excellence.
We gave a former corporate lawyer $10,000 to fund his back-of-the-napkin plan to sea kayak from Minnesota to Florida. He made it all the way鈥攖hen he turned around and started paddling home. Here's why.
It's a tough day for sailing and the America's Cup, but the news is hardly shocking.
Clark Little jumped back into the waves of Oahu's North Shore hoping to capture the kinds of images not many get to see. Now he gets tumbled by shorebreaks full time, all for the sake of a good photo.
This week, the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards will crown the mightiest rides and nastiest wipeouts of 2013. We called surf journalist Chris Dixon, who will help pick the winners, to check in on the state of big wave surfing.
Taking a close look at Avishek Sengupta鈥檚 death, and why water obstacles鈥攏ot electric shocks鈥攎ay prove to be the most dangerous
Three whitewater guides, one wooden dory, and the Colorado River, swollen by record snowmelt and raging with a fury that boatmen hadn't seen since the days of John Wesley Powell. From Kevin Fedarko's epic new book, The Emerald Mile, the incredible story of the fastest, wildest trip ever attempted through the Grand Canyon.
One of the greatest big-wave surfers alive nearly died on a 50-footer in December. Now many in the surfing world are blaming another heavyweight鈥攁nd the jet-powered board he was riding.
Using source-to-sea boat trips and an ultramarathon, Rivers for Change is trying to cast rivers as arteries, not just playgrounds
Most dogs don't like being left on shore and will follow their handler right in. You just need to be willing to get wet鈥攁nd to take things slow.
John John Florence was 19 when he became the youngest surfer ever to win the Triple Crown. Is he the next great phenomenon?
The surfing legend is not entirely sure where that number came from or how accurate it is鈥"I don't measure waves," he told us鈥攂ut he is sure of one thing: This was one of the most dangerous situations he's ever been in
Pipeline protest. Photo: Dogwood Initiative Amid an increasingly conservative Canadian government focused on exploiting the land’s resources, the country’s indigenous people have risen up through a grassroots protest movement called Idle No More. The Idle No More protest movement was…
This past Sunday, Peter Mel won the Mavericks Invitational. The video embedded above offers a view of the big-wave contest as captured by his GoPro. 鈥擩oe Spring@joespring…
Photo: Flickr/Boklm Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that an expansion plan for Homewood Mountain Resort on the shores of Lake Tahoe would not be allowed to move forward without further considering a scaled-back alternative with less environmental impact. The Sierra…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=l9hOtNxAT08 Roughly 14 years after first competing, California native Peter Mel took home his first Mavericks Invitational victory in intermittent but powerful waves up to 30 feet.
This past Sunday, 43-year-old big-wave surfer Peter Mel nabbed his first victory in the Mavericks Invitational. Mel, a Santa Cruz native, has surfed the competition since the inaugural contest in 1999. The fabled break that creates…
The discovery of a potential new source of the Amazon River sparked a good old-fashioned explorers鈥 race to be the first to run it
Every morning for the past 17 years, Pete and Val have been swimming together at the local pool. Every year on June 12, they race鈥攖wo laps, up and back. That's all. Two Laps was written and directed by Owen Trevor and shot at North Narrabeen Beach in Sydney, Australia, for…
Michael Ho surfing Second Reef Pipe. Photo: Billabong XXL/Rusty Russell In November of 2012, Surfer posted the 28 invitees to the Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie…
聽 The finished product鈥攚ith super slow mo footage of thousands of pounds of falling water, the tap of falling raindrops, and kayakers winding through tight slots鈥攊s polished. But the nine-day filmmaking trip to Mexico was anything but smooth. Everything started when kayaker Erik Boomer and photographer Tim Kemple called filmmaker…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=O9crPOB_9tE On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, Shane Dorian paddled into a monster swell at Jaws and ended up surfing the best wave of his life. He flew down the face, over an air bubble that almost knocked him down, and raised his arms in triumph…
Scientists previously thought that the smooth, hairless surfaces of fingers and toes wrinkled up like raisins after they got wet because water passed into the outermost layer of skin, causing it to swell. But recent studies have shown that the wrinkling is not a result of osmosis, but rather an…
Ocean rowing, once an adventure sideshow, is on the rise thanks to new technology that has made record-setting crossings easier鈥攁nd high-stakes rescues inevitable
Inside OAR Northwest's state-of-the-art, 30-foot Woodvale Ocean 4 rowboat, the James Robert Hanssen
In 2010, visual artist Sue Austin received a grant from Arts Council England鈥檚 Impact Fund that allowed her to transform her wheelchair into a propelled, finned, scuba-tank-outfitted craft suited for underwater exploration. She designed it so that she could move the foot pedals…
Whitewater kayakers Erik Boomer, Tyler Bradt, and Galen Volckhausen joined adventure filmmakers Tim Kemple, Anson Fogel, Blake Hendrix, and Skip Armstrong on a trip to a remote jungle in Mexico to find the ultimate waterfall.
There are a slew of stories coming out now about the rebuilding effort in the Rockaways. Residents who witnessed the storm destroy many homes, damage others, and take the lives of their neighbors are struggling to salvage what's left.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Elizabeth Murray and her pupils. Photo: A Liquid Future By Gregory Thomas Not long ago, villagers on the remote Mentawai island chain off the west coast of Sumatra lived without electricity, cell phone reception, and even a local…
On Friday, December 21, big-wave surfer Greg Long suffered a wipeout on a giant wave at Cortes Bank. In the aftermath, he fought through a three-wave hold down before losing consciousness in the water. A detailed report from ESPN described the…
Here's a short video that might influence how you spend some of your time: 70-year-old Spaniard Juan Giriber recounting his first drop into a tube. The clip is a teaser for The Old, The Young, and The Sea, a documentary…
In 1950, a young Australian mining engineer named Ben Carlin set out to do the impossible: circumnavigate the globe, by land and sea, in a single vehicle. In Half-Safe, the latest story from The Atavist, James Nestor sets out to uncover Carlin's fate and fin
Working on a tiger shark. Photo: Carl Meyer For 19 years, University of Hawaii scientist Carl Meyer has caught sharks up and down the Hawaiian archipelago, a…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8sjl73iyugs This week on 国产吃瓜黑料 Lab, we've featured dispatches on shark attacks, shark science, and shark conservation. Attitudes toward the marine predators have come a long way since 1934, when filmmakers recorded a shark being caught by a Goodyear Tires blimp near Fisher Island, Florida.
Join us for a remarkable 30-day journey down the longest stretch of undammed river in the lower 48 states.
Great white shark. Photo: Yuri Arcurs/Shutterstock Most people know George Burgess as the kahuna of shark attacks. For more than 20 years, Burgess has overseen the…
In December, the surf world once again descends on Oahu鈥檚 North Shore for the sport鈥檚 most prestigious event, the Pipe Masters, where competitors battle it out at the planet鈥檚 most famous鈥攁nd deadliest鈥攂reak. Here鈥檚 a look behind surfing鈥檚 biggest spectacle.
Dane Jackson on the final rapid of the Big Water Enduro race. Photo: Tait Trautman Photography Kayaker Dane Jackson nabbed his second straight Whitewater Grand Prix title on Friday after winning the event's fifth…
Athletes battling it out on the M谩s O Menos Rapid of the R铆o Futaleuf煤. Photo: Eric Parker Photography Kayaker Dane Jackson won the fourth event鈥攁 multi-stage, derby-style boatercross event down the Rio Futaleuf煤 in Chile鈥攖o take the overall men's lead…
Wavejets are surfboards with an electronic propulsion system. Users wear a wrist controller with a button that turns the board on and off. The company markets the high-tech planks to individuals who want to spend more time surfing and…
New rescue technology is emboldening surfers to take bigger risks than ever before. Which means epic rides鈥攁nd wipeouts.
Riding down the granite slide on Rio Nevados Photo: Tait Trautman Photography Three athletes share the lead in the Whitewater Grand Prix with three races in the books. Last year's winner, Dane Jackson,…
Roughly a week after injuring his ribs during a training run for the Whitewater Grand Prix, French kayaker Eric Deguil took first place in the competition's second event, a roughly one-mile sprint through the Class V whitewater of Chile's…
Paul Watson. Photo: Tim Watters/Sea Shepherd Over the last three decades, most of the chases involving Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson have occurred on the high seas. He鈥檚 usually the…
Director Skip Armstrong and Tribe Rider have released two new videos showing the action from the Rio Gol Gol in Chile during…
Emergency medical job. Photo: Whitewater Grand Prix/Facebook/Erik Boomer Medical care before the first official run of the Whitewater Grand Prix in Chile took the form…
Will sending the world鈥檚 best paddlers down insanely dangerous whitewater and broadcasting it online generate interest?
Join us for Josh Thomas and J.J. Kelley's film Go Ganges!, which documents two adventure travelers using any means necessary to explore India's sacred river
Photo: Ian Swanson Beach hazards abound. Your surfboard can knock you out. Corals might scrape your face off. A shark could mistake you for a seal or, more likely, you might bump into a jellyfish. Those are risks most of us willingly accept. But when…
Adam Bradley's view of the Yukon River. Photo: Adam Bradley If you follow notable (read: crazy) solo expeditions, you likely recognize the name Adam Bradley鈥攐r Krudmeister, as his friends call him. In 2009, Bradley set a record for the fastest unsupported through-hike of…
While competing in ASP junior events, Brazilian Gabriel Medina made a name for himself as an aerialist. As a 17-year-old, he won the most prestigious event in the ASP's Cash for Tricks series. Now 18, Medina is competing on the…
Four years ago, blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer began paddling a kayak. Weihenmayer, the first blind person to summit Everest, plans to become the first blind person to kayak the Grand Canyon. He's training now for a 2013 expedition.
The good news: Some surfboard foams are recyclable. The bad news: Most of it's not.
Surfers along the East Coast, from Florida to New England, used the conditions generated by Sandy to catch bigger waves than they'd normally see. Florida did not suffer the damage from Sandy that states further north…
*UPDATE: I heard from kiteboarder Damien LeRoy via Facebook on Tuesday at 11 Eastern. He included more details about the video, which features kiteboarder Rob Douglas, and the safety precautions taken by his team. I have included those details below. You can also click to watch this…
Most flip-flops aren鈥檛 very high-tech. That's just the nature of this kind of footwear. Unless they鈥檙e being made by Olukai. That company's Kia'i II flip was researched and developed with the Hawaiian Lifeguard Association. A hand-picked group of elite guards鈥攆rom Oahu, Maui,…
Even at 75, Ray Ives still has the pluck to don a dive suit made in 1900 to plumb the depths around England for treasure. The Brit, who began work as a commercial diver in 1965, is retired now, but still a dab hand at fishing up old weapons, ship…
Jacob Beck-Jaffurs. Photo: Professional Pathways On Friday, March 11, 2011, 24-year-old freediver Jacob Beck-Jaffurs was found unconscious on the ocean floor by a dive partner off the coast of Kawera Island, New Zealand. He had been spearfishing when he…
The Revenue Cutter Thomas Corwin, in which John Muir sailed as part of an Arctic research trip. Photo: Frank H. Nowell In July 1879, 33 Navy men set sail for the North Pole aboard the U.S.S. Jeannette Arctic expedition. That…
Freya's blog. Screenshot: FreyaHoffmeister.com The patchwork of multi-colored, multi-sized sponsor logos; the bold orange, yellow, and incredibly small, white text littered against a black background; and the tiny photo thumbnails on Freya Hoffmeister's blog offer all of the…
Aside from using an alias when hitting up Starbucks, big wave surfer Shane Dorian leaves the Maui airport just like anyone else. He hauls his own luggage鈥攁lbeit 100 pounds of customized surfboards鈥攁nd waits curbside for a pickup.
Julian Wilson. Photo: ASP/Kirstin Surfer Julian Wilson won his first ASP event after scoring big during the final seconds of the Rip Curl Pro Portugal, leaving his competitor Gabriel Medina stunned and…
DANIEL ALVAREZ: Florida resident Alvarez is currently midway through an epic paddling trip from Minnesota to Florida (“The Overachievers“), enabled both by our money鈥擜lvarez won 国产吃瓜黑料's inaugural $10,000 国产吃瓜黑料 Grant鈥攁nd by the kindness of a few strangers. We reached out to one, Janet Hansen,…
Katie Heaney learns that rivers really don't care how many times you've kayaked on a lake
For those that just can't get enough video of whitewater kayakers dropping off waterfalls, here's another dose. Cinematographer Tim Loubier, of Reel Water Productions, recently released Water, a huck-heavy short documenting Todd Wells, Brendan Wells,…
Lees Ferry is the only place within Glen Canyon where visitors can drive to the Colorado River in over 700 miles of Canyon Country, right up to the first "rapid" in the Grand Canyon. Here at the very start of the Grand Canyon, adventurous river runners launch…
After surfer Greg Long caught the biggest wave of his life, an undocumented 70-to 80-foot monster that formed at Cortes Bank in 2008, he shook, vomited, and cried.
The first big swell of the season hit Jaws this week, and surfers lined up to catch giants breaking off the north coast of Maui, Hawaii. Shane Dorian had perhaps the best showing Tuesday, when he paddled into two big barrels. While…
Quiksilver Pro France, Hossegor, La Graviere 2012 - Semi Final 1 (漏 ASP/Cestari)Slater on the way to his tour victory number 51. Photo: 漏ASP/Cestari Surfer Kelly Slater nabbed his second straight ASP World Cup Tour victory of the…
Cornthwaite playing for the camera. Photo: DaveCornthwaite.com On August 10, British adventurer Dave Cornthwaite hopped into the Missouri River near Chamberlain, South Dakota, with a 40-pound, gear-filled raft and started swimming south. Since then, he has stroked for roughly 12…
Surf filmmaker Nathan Oldfield's quiver of videos features everything from a short about a family of surf shapers to a personal chronicle about grieving for his stillborn daughter. His feature…