All Points South

All photos this post by William Henry.

"All Points South" is a feature-length surf film documentary about Chile's fishermen and surfers and their struggle against pulp mill water pollution. You can read and download a detailed synopsis of the film at www.savethewaves.org.


Last Sunday I returned to Santiago after 3 weeks on the road with our crack team interviewing, filming, surfing and feeling the coastline like a solid Antarctic groundswell. The surf never got over 5 feet - one of the smallest spells Chile has seen for quite some time - but we found waves... so I will let YOU be the judge when the film comes out. Below are some stills from the action.

Imagine a giant plastic PVC pipe with a 5-foot diameter flushing toxic liquid waste into the ocean 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Now look at the photo of that pipe under construction: this is exactly why we are here opposing this project:

Our film & protest team consisted of 11 gringos and various local Chileans: ocean activists, filmmakers, fishermen and surfers included Chilean Ramon Navarro, Californians Keith Malloy, Timmy Turner and James Pribram, Canadians Raph Bruhwiler & Jeremy Koreski, as well as Brett Schwartz (backside wave-killer who stole the show almost every session), Will Henry, Cameron Henry, filmmaker Vince Deur and myself (and El Diplomatico showed up one evening to heckle Timmy T.). Writer Gabe Sullivan dropped in later as the official media hound. Our mission: surfing, ocean activism, interviews and unbridled creativity.

Ramon:

Ramon Navarro, Chilean waterman phenom, surfed giant beachbreak and schooled us on how to dive and eat well for free every day. His raw urchin snacks are straight off of King Neptune's lunch menu, and the small sea crabs that live inside the urchins are the most delicious live thing i've ever eaten. I could actually feel its tiny pincers making a spicy taste in my mouth as I ate it alive.

Keith Malloy, waterman, surfed more than ever; but he surprised me with his awesome guitar-picking style. He ought to tour with Jack Johnson. I think he's investing in the future after this surf thing stops paying the bills! His commitment to the earth is stronger than ever, yet he makes no fuss about it;and his stories of diving and fishing offshore California are radical.


Timmy Turner, Indonesian tube-riding maniac, is a legend. He's got complete hero status in my book - even though he didn't find the gaping barrels he was looking for on this trip. He can surf normal waves, too, and I think he surfed every single day of the trip in spite of conditions. Look for his new documentary film, The Tsunami Diaries, about his relief work in the Indonesian tsunami zone.

James Pribram, The Eco Warrior, was ripping the waves so hard that he destroyed his back on a particularly impressive maneuver. This was the wave that did the destruction, and he didn't surf again after this photo was taken. He managed to turn bad into good, get focused and get to work on his writing after this one:



Brett surfing: Schwartzy ripped, always with a smile and no ego involved. He's a freakin' tube-riding machine and always stoked to be in the water. Inspiring.


Will Henry, Director of Save the Waves Coalition, is a freak in the best sense of the word. I hope he never stops, and I hope I get to be there the whole time. Thanks to Will, this trip happened. Thanks to Will, this project will be finished with style. Enough said.
Vince Deur, Michigan Great Lakes surfer, is a filmmaking machine. Now he just has to figure out what to do with our 100+ hours of footage.

Photo: Berry/Henry. Personally, the most intense moment of the trip was visiting the last section of the huge waste pipeline that is going overland from the pulp mill to the ocean. Vince and I watched the bulldozers as they dug the last 100 feet of trench on the beach where the pipeline enters the ocean. It was very emotional for me, and Vince with his ever-present lens got it all on tape. It was the culmination of two years of passionate opposition to a project that is now reaching its wrong conclusion. It's just more fuel for my fire as a critic of another giant industrial waste pipeline emptying into the ocean. It clarified exactly where we need to go from here: to work, with a bounce in our step.

With All Points South I am just thankful and stoked to be along for the ride as a "Chileanized" gringo, and I'm happy to make things happen for this team of creative geniuses (don't fool yourself, of course I had to crack the whip and motivate the pro-ho's once or twice).

Above: What a bunch of posers. Nice wool sweater, Raph!

In the water, on land, behind camera, at the pulp mill gates, in executives' hair, with guitar in hand, next to a beach bonfire far from you: stay tuned.
Timmy T. and "El Diplomatico". We had to eject E.D. soon after this photo was taken for security purposes.

Cold and Barreling... Rights?!

On Friday I met Timmy Turner and friends at the airport. We drove for two days and found lots of flat surf spots, camping and cooking potatoes and vegetables over the camp fire. Paddling out and surfing tiny waves and coming in to stoke up the fire and dry out.



On the third day I took the above photo. It is barreling and it is a right, and it looks like this when the rest of Chile is completely flat. It's really remote from anywhere, and the local fishermen told us surfers have never been there before. I can't remember where it is, it's either north or south of here. But I do remember that it's sort of cold and the water is as crystal clear-blue-green as it gets.

Timmy is here to help us with All Points South, our feature documentary about surfing and environmental activism in Chile. He's doing really well after his infection and brain surgery, and he's ripping same as ever, but the doctors told him to avoid the tropics and only go surfing in cold water for a while to protect his sinuses and his health. So here he is, seeking out that elusive Chilean coldwater barrel.

Trailer: Pulp, Poo & Perfection

This is the trailer to our short documentary about Chilean surfer activists... coming soon in April.



Pulp, Poo & Perfection
Director: Angel Marin
Original Music: Rodrigo Sanchez
Writer & Producer: Josh Berry
Executive Producer: Save the Waves Coalition

Pulp, Poo & Perfection: Surfer Activists in Chile

Angel and I have just returned from 7 days in the heartland of Chile: we sought out and found the real human stories documenting pulp, poo and perfection with an HDV camera in hand and many hard questions at heart. Angel is a Chilean camera man/film director/ultra hyper Chilean-who-surfs and we are the ultimate documentary film team: he all noisy friendly extroversion seeking the perfect angle while he cracks up the interviewee; me all profoundly serious introversion seeking righteous rural redemption via the cleanest line, finding the bloody beating heart of the subject matter. On the road and in southern cornfields we met and broke bread - pan amasado - with coastal Mapuche indians, proud right winger cowboys, straight corporate talking heads and anti-system rednecks in the purest of the backwood Chilean rural style: huaso. This is the salt of the earth.

In the deepest south we stayed with Ruperto and his family in front of a tubing 3 foot wave - they hosted us with freshly boiled cow tongue, net-caught congrio, potatoes from the backyard, powdered tea and neighbors falling-down blind-drunk on one Cristal beer. Every day we surfed the dawn patrol - out of bed with moonset and a hot yerba mate, in the cold dark ocean by 7am - and after a hearty post-surf breakfast we set out on the dusty road to film interviews, follow rumours, chase changing landscapes and foggy light swallowing road dust.



In Pichilemu we had surf sessions and great interviews with Chile's homegrown surf star Ramon Navarro, his neighbor Puño (named for his fast fists) and Ramon's 14-year-old cousin Nacho, who's already a big-wave hell man. They spoke about their leading role in the local opposition to a sewage pipeline proposed for downtown Pichilemu's main surfing beach. Heroes! We also filmed the Laguna Petrel, a freshwater body near downtown Pichilemu that's fluorescent green from sewage and chemicals. And its smell is even worse than the photo:



In Constitucion we met fishermen living in front of the town's busy pulp mill located on the beach. The beach stank of chemicals. The fishermen spoke of ocean pollution and we watched as the forestry company's heavy equipment "armored" the beach to protect its pipeline that dumps liquid cellulose waste into the ocean. This is the real state of South America's industrial forestry complex. This is what supplies your office copy machine with cheap, bright white paper. Your favorite magazine exists so cheaply and so massively because of this industry.



Going south we drove through hundreds of thousands of acres of planted Oregon pine and eucalyptus forest on our way to the Nueva Aldea pulp mill. There we met eager public relations executives. They are eager to show us the modern industrial plant they have, and the efforts they're making to work with the local community. But we also met angry local people who are breathing rotten-egg-smelling air everyday thanks to the new mill. Not to mention the hundreds of neighbors who have to put up with 24-hour truck traffic bringing wood, chemicals and construction materials to the mill. We also met Nato, the last man standing between the pulp mill and the ocean. He won't sell his 5 acres of land to the company for its underground waste pipeline. The wood company will eventually wear down this last humane holdout with their corporate "gifts", or they will reroute their pipeline through other purchased acreage.



Stay tuned for our documentary movie "Pulp, Poo and Perfection" starring reality of Chile and produced by Save the Waves Coalition ...coming soon.

True Colors of the Surf Industry: Part II

In early January I published an article here about my head-butting with a multinational surf brand that is holding a surf contest here in Chile this year. The (mis)adventures continue:

As I recounted in the previous blog, I was threatened by legal action and harrassed with expulsion from Chile for my anti-surf-contest comments and letters that "paint the company in a poor light and could be considered defamatory." I felt personally threatened and harassed by their aggressive tone and it felt clear to me that they wanted me to shut up, and fast.

Last week one of the Chilean individuals representing the surf brand's interests in Chile met a friend of mine by chance on the sidewalk in Santiago. This individual, who I will call "Frank" (name changed to protect the guilty), once again reiterated to my friend the threats to have me investigated by the Chancellor's office and to perform a full background check of my activities in Chile; he again mentioned the possibility of me being ejected from the country and of my grossly defamatory comments against the company.

For the record, I have done nothing regarding this contest since I assisted locals to succeed in blocking it from being held at a beach in the South - it's now being held at a different location in the extreme North of Chile. I do continue with my efforts for the contest to have a "green" hue to it. Unfortunately, the situation is a textbook example of "Real Life in Chile" complete with threats, rumors, lies and back-stabbing misinformation.

"Frank" happens to be rather unliked in the small fishbowl world of Chilean surfing. I've heard that his enemies are known to call up his business associates and threaten to beat him up due to his manner of conducting business. Recently I was hanging out with him while he cleaned out his car and a loaded 9mm handgun fell out onto the ground. I refrained from asking "Frank" if the gun was registered, but I think at least the safety was on. He claims it is for self-defense. I hope he is not short-tempered, although from my experience he is.

Why does a publicly-owned surf multinational choose to have such a loose cannon conduct business for them in Chile? Why do such jerks often end up in these positions of power? I really don't want to speak poorly of the company. I honestly want to work with them to improve the environmental track-record of the international surf industry and I believe that they want to do the same. But their local henchman continues with his threatening. So I continue to report it. Keep it up, "surf brand in question", and your name might make it into the international surf press in a not-so-happy-surfy manner.

I continue my efforts with the surf brand to make sure that their contest respects the beach environment and benefits the nascent local environmental movement in a substantial way.


Above: We're up to no good in Punta de Lobos. Would you trust this man with your international surf company?