Waves are not the only great part of a surf trip. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
Not all explorers are surfers, but all surfers are explorers. Surfing goes hand-in-hand with searching, and although we’re technically searching for waves, the act of that search is what drives a lot of us. It’s the moments in between scoring — or not — that make a surf trip truly great, and Dylan Graves knows this well. Which is why he went to Alaska, one of surfing’s final frontiers.
In the aptly titled Surfing the Outer Edge of Alaska, Graves and FCS made a film that’s a lot more than just a surf film. It follows the weird wave connoisseur as he explores the Shumagin Islands aboard a vessel called the Milo. It’s an old fishing boat — useful for withstanding the rigors of Alaskan weather — that’s been rebuilt into something pretty amazing. As mentioned, this is a lot more than a surf film. It’s a documentary of sorts that includes wildlife of all kinds. Orcas, bears, and puffins all make the cut, and it’s a fine example of how waves don’t necessarily make a surf trip.
“Guided by Alaskan surf pioneer Captain Mike McCune,” the FCS team wrote, “Dylan and the crew weave their way through the Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometer horseshoe-shaped belt of intense seismic and volcanic activity encircling the Pacific Ocean, exploring hundreds of miles of isolated coastline where wildlife, weather, and wilderness are as unpredictable as the waves themselves. The result is less a high-performance surf edit and more a celebration of exploration, proving that some of surfing’s greatest adventures begin long before anyone paddles into a wave.”
