New Short Film - what it means to be a Surfer & an Enviro

From Save The Waves Coalition's February e-newsletter, which I received today.

Featuring the very awesome Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd, Dave Rastovich, and Mike of San Francisco-based band Kapakahi.

side note: Kapakahi is very supportive of the Surfrider Foundation's San Francisco Chapter, and Save The Waves. They rock!

I got to hear Paul Watson speak at the recent Save The Waves Film Festival in San Francisco, where I also got to see "The Cove" for the first time. If you haven't seen it yet, then check out the trailer below - the film was just nominated for an Academy Award.


photo: from the Save The Waves Film Festival - the Mission Neighborhood, San Francisco

From the Save The Waves e-newsletter - Watch our new eco-surf short with Captain Paul Watson & Dave Rastovich on protecting the ocean environment, defending the whales, and what it means to be a surfer & environmentalist. The vision of "Soundings" began with a series of film interviews done by Save The Waves in Chile and at the Save The Waves Film Festival.



The film's "liner notes", from YouTube:

Captain Paul Watson & Dave Rastovich sound off on protecting the ocean environment, defending the whales, and what it means to be a surfer & environmentalist. Featuring high seas action with Paul Watson & surfing with Dave Rastovich, Timmy Turner, Ramón Navarro, Brett Schwartz & Keith Malloy.

"Soundings" is a film by Josh Berry
Music by Kapakahi
Presented by Save The Waves
www.savethewaves.org
www.kapakahimusic.com


"The Cove" trailer -



PS - if you don't see "The Cove", then take note of this fact - when dolphins are rounded up for slaughter in Japan, the "prettiest" dolphins are spared from slaughter - instead they are sold to aquariums and "swim with the dolphin" programs, world-wide. So if you "swim with a dolphin" or go to an aquarium that has a dolphin show, then you are financially supporting the slaughter of innocent wild dolphins in Japan.

Rasta is at it again!

According to this Byron Shire News, in a matter of days professional free-surfer and co-founder of Surfers for Cetaceans, Dave 'Rasta' Rastovich should be wading ashore on Bondi Beach. He and 4 friends left Byron Bay's Main Beach earlier this month to begin a 700km ocean paddle in single-seat krimaran sea kayaks, in order to raise awareness about the plight of whales and the world's oceans.


photo: Five surfer-sailors, high on endorphins and completely exhausted after 10+hours at sea. Credit: Kane Skennar (taken from the blog - see below.)

Each afternoon the friends pull ashore to rest, and are joining local residents in beach cleanups.


photo: Just some of the rubbish, most of it plastic and discarded fishing net and lines, found in a 200m stretch along the frontal dune of a beach in Northern NSW (Sandon River, south of Yamba). (Taken from the blog - see below.)

The trip is called 'Transparentsea.'

The friends joining Rasta for Transparentsea are Byron Bay singer-songwriter, Will Conner, water photographer, Hilton Dawe, free-surfer and activist Chris Del Moro from San Diego, and Surfrider Foundation general manager, Kristy Theissling. Other friends will also join the group for short periods of time. They'll use Kristy's kayak while they are with the group.

The trip was planned to coincide with the return of humpback whales to the Antarctic from their northern breeding grounds.

“Our intentions are that after 36 days and 700km, we'll have helped educate a lot of people on the beauty and majesty of the whales,” Rasta said. “Plus the impact we all have on what is an amazing stretch of coastline and in what ways we might all implement positive change.”

Before leaving from Byron Bay, Rasta spoke to the big crowd that had gathered to wish the friends a safe journey, and asked everyone to unite and support the cause however they could. He explained that their goal is to get information and the message out to the public and everyone who had an interest.

“We need to get out the message to Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett so they can step up and do the job they said they were going to do and that is go down and fight sanctuary wars in Antarctica,” he said.

“Right now, the only ship going to Antarctica is Sea Shepherd. This whole trip is about escorting the whales down the coast.”

You can follow their trip by reading their amazing blog here or by following Rasta on Twitter, here.

For more info about Rasta's work check out Minds In The Water here and my November 22, 2008 blog post here.

Images from Rasta's visual petition:

In My Name

Youtube held an event in San Francisco tonight. will.i.am made an appearance, and debuted his new video "In My Name". Check it out.

Personal use of handheld technology, combined with creativity and passion.

Then the combonation of many voices, again using technology and creativity, and passion, to create one unifying, universal message. Beautiful.



Similarly, Australian free surfer Dave Rastovich launched a visual (virtual) petition, to convince the International Whaling Commission to put a stop to whaling - hunting and killing whales, and dolphins. It started with celebrity surfers, who permitted Rasta to take photos of them holding up photos of whales. The petition has grown enormously - and it's open to anyone who wants to "sign" the petition - just download and print a photo of a whale from Rasta's website, take a digital self portrait of yourself with the photo, and upload it to the petition website. More on Rasta in an upcoming post.






Photos of Kelly Slater, and Rasta, taken from the Visual Petition. (And a photo of me, and my dog.)