Allan Weisbecker is a writer, photographer, surfer, you name it. He created is label to publish a series of surf books and movies, and his going up against the big boys.

Weisbecker’s “In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer’s Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road“, a sort of gonzo detective story blended with travelogue and peppered with hang-10 jargon, does many things, all of them very well indeed. It offers up a vision of innocent times brought to ruin by war and drugs; it recounts his search for his lost friend, whose life had gone from bad to worse far away from home; and it affords a look inside the strange culture of surfing, whose masters “understood, in a visceral and soulful and inexpressible way, the machinations of the sea, and, by subtle inference, the universe at large.”

In Search of Captain Zero is engrossing, invigorating, hilarious, and sad. It is a swift read, and I was sorry when it was over. All in all, it is more than the sum of its parts, and I highly recommend it.

This is a great book for anyone, not only surfers. It’s a life story that anyone can relate to.