Rapanui started as an underground T-shirt maker on the Isle of Wight, set up by the Drake-Knight brothers, 21 and 23. From their pocketchange funding they grew their company into the award-winning brand it is today in a short 12 months.

Their ambitious sustainable business model is key to their success; the motivation to develop Rapanui’s eco-friendly approach came from their experiences in the water, repeatedly getting ill from sewage released onto their local beach in storm surf.

Environmentally, the brand takes a holistic approach to implementing sustainable alternatives in the supply chain for their green clothing. They started by evaluating the entire product life cycle and chose sustainable solutions that deliver the best net effect on the environment, balancing the environmental benefit against the cost to the consumer.

The real power behind Rapanui though is their transparency initiative. It’s a new word in eco-fashion, and aims to cut out greenwash and promote honesty in the clothing industry.

Rapanui has quickly established itself amongst the most ethically progressive green clothing companies around recently working with Ben & Jerrys, Centrica Plc and The Marine Conservation Society. The young Brand was recently a finalist in the Surf Industry Green Wave Awards and the Southern England Sustainable Business Awards.

If you’re interested in knowing the company and their products go to their website, at www.rapanuiclothing.com. Use the promo code ‘arctic’ that gives you a 15% discount.

A new type of Yam, something similar to a sweet potato, was found in a farm in Yantai - China. It has the peculiarity of having the appearance of a hand. The tuber remember the gesture that the natives of Hawaii did with the the hand and is linked to present-day surfing. The symbol made with the hand is called the ‘hang loose‘. Sweetttt!

Photo: Daily Telegraph

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.

Surf stories are always the best things surfers write about. Maybe because they are such interesting people who usually sail along in the tradewinds of life but still find themselves in the most extraordinary circumstances. This book is a group of stories nailed the genre just right, the way Steve Pezman explained the mystery of the trestles situation in the Nixon years, Matt George’s very strange experience in Northern California, and on and on.

This book is a journey into real-life situations that would make most of us turn white with fear, or drop to our knees in hysterical laughter. The stories are concise, exceptionally well written, and captivating in a riveting sort of way.

Surfings Greatest Misadventures: Dropping in on the Unexpected is a book you would never want out of your possession, but keep it in the car, take it to the beach and pass it around but be sure to get it back. What a treasure.

This surf book, and the words written within are unlike any stories you would find in the average surf magazine. Its nice to see an alternative for those who would rather read a great book and not a magazine full of ads.

The author uses a unique and descriptive style to take you into his adventures, as if he was telling you the story over a few beers at a bar. You feel drawn in and itching to read the next chapter to see what hilarity, mishaps and strange characters the author will meet in the next journey.

Kimball Taylor writes with succinct clarity, beguiling empathy and a crazed, matter of fact humor that will delight most anyone who loves a story. He travels the world, knows it’s oceans and understands that getting to the water and meeting the people along the way is essential to the joy of surfing.

A series of surf stories that tell us more about why we live as surfers than how we do it. See Return by Water: Surf Stories and Adventures at amazon.com

The British Surfing Association has launched an online petition to reverse the British Airways decision to ban the carriage of surfboards in their flights.
This decision will force many surfers around the world to use other airlines in their journey for the perfect wave.

Surfers are urged to take the following steps to help us lobby British Airways to reverse their decision:
1) Sign the online petition to stop BA surfboards ban;
2) If you have a Facebook account, join the Facebook British Airways Surfboard Ban group;
3) Register a complaint with BA directly;
4) Encourage all other surfers to follow these steps.

This online petition means that people all over the world can add their support to this campaign and can add their personal comments about the issue. Please take action now!

As you can tell the site has under gone a major re-design. Changes to the blog include a navigation bar on the top, a popular articles section in the sidebar, new colors and it comes wider and with more white space.

We’ve tested the theme extensively to make sure everything worked. However, there is always the possibility that something got passed me. Please check out the new home and tell me what you think. If you spot any errors, please let me know as well.

I’m a big boy, you can tell me…