Michael Ho, a legend in surfing, Sunset in 1977. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
There are a lot of surfers in the world, but there are only a few legends who stand out over the course of history. Many of them made their names in the ’70s and ’80s, surfing waves like Sunset Beach. It was a different time in Hawaii’s surf culture, one a little rougher around the edges. Surfers like Shaun Tomson, Michael Ho, Mark Richards, Mark Warren, Larry Bertlemann, Ian Cairns, Jeff Hakman, and Michael Peterson were all embedded deep in it, and they’re all in this five-minute clip from 1977’s Playgrounds In Paradise.
Directed by Alan Rich, the film focused on waves in Australia and Hawaii. It was a full-length film, more of a documentary, really, and it shows a time in surfing history that gleams brighter with the passage of time.
It’s on YouTube thanks to the Surf Film Archive, a group dedicated finding, scanning, and in many cases, restoring some of history’s lost surf films, along with commentary from the filmmakers and the surfers when they can get it.
“We hope The Surf Film Archive will become a comprehensive resource for generations to come,” they explain on their website, “and once completed we will gift the original scanned files to an Australian Museum or institution for safe keeping.”
