“As much as I love traveling, home is what made me who I am,” says Nate Tyler. “I could be so happy just surfing shitty little lefts forever.”
The Central California coast is jagged, serene, and full of nooks and crannies that are perfect for creating such “shitty little lefts,” or something more spectacular when the wind and waves align. It’s often sunny, the surf is rarely crowded, and the rugged beauty produced when the mountains meet the sea in the way they do in Central California (see Big Sur) is in a league of its own.
Someone else who’s come to the same realization is South African Brendon Gibbens. After traveling the world over he’s chosen to make California his home. The incredibly well-spoken freesurfer joined Nate for a trip along the jagged coast that Nate knows so well for Nate’s first film as a surfer for Manera, all seen through the creative eye of director Perry Gershkow.
“To me, I would say surfing is the constant pursuit of fleeting moments of correctness and accuracy, which can be achieved regardless of your ability or what type of waves you are surfing,” says Brendon. “It can come in the form of just doing a bottom turn perfectly at the right time. It provides a feeling of correctness, so for me surfing is about the pursuit of that. But it doesn’t last long, and the more you practice and work at it the harder it can be to achieve it.”
