In Search of Empty Waves: The Lost Art of Surf Discovery

It's right around this time of the year that I start to get a little stir crazy or, as some may call it, wanderlust. As the end of the winter lies in sight, thoughts travel to the Southern Hemisphere and so many of the destinations we associate with the summer months: Mexico, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Fiji, El Salvador, etc.

Problem is, many of those glorified spots have a bonafide crowd problem. Any well forecasted swell will bring in heads from near and far especially if there's a airport nearby with direct flights from major cities, f'gettaboutit. So what's a would-be explorer to do? Well, you gotta truly get off the beaten path.

That's exactly what photographer John Seaton Callahan has been doing for decades and some of his beautiful images of empty point breaks--and exploratory tales--are on display in his book SurfEXPLORE: Discovering New Surf Locations Worldwide.

We caught up with John for some stories throughout his life of scouring the globe for new waves.

So tell me about the golden days of magazines and the discovery era of the 90s.

After I graduated from the College of Fine Arts at UCLA in 1987, I stayed in California for a year, living in Venice Beach. I had been shooting occasionally at Topanga and Malibu, the two closest spots to the UCLA campus and Larry "Flame" Moore at SURFING Magazine was giving me advice on how to improve my images and more importantly; about what magazines wanted from photographers for both editorial and advertising.

This was the dawn of the magazine "Golden Era", when surf movies were a once a year occasion, surf videos did not exist yet and magazines were starting to rake in the advertising money. Both SURFER and SURFING expanded publication from bi-monthly to monthly, with a corresponding demand for more images to fill editorial pages and sell to advertisers. Hard to imagine now, but surf photography was actually in demand, in that there wasn't enough quality material on hand to meet the requirements for 150 page monthly magazines!

I moved back to Hawaii in late 1987, with a Century 650mm lens borrowed from and an agreement with Flame to shoot exclusively for SURFING in exchange for film and processing. This was a big deal at the time, as equipment, film and processing cost money and represented a significant entry barrier for most people who were trying to establish themselves as surf photographers. I started going to the North Shore regularly for every swell from October to March, for action and lineup images and doing other things like lifestyle and scenic images when the swell was down or there were bad winds. 

Shooting on the North Shore is certainly fun and challenging, I did that for the better part of 12 years, until 2000. You get to see some very good surfing by some of the best surfers in the world and if you set up near certain photographers known for passing along any rumor or snippet of gossip. you know what flavor of yogurt Kelly Slater bought at Foodland yesterday evening and who signed with a new sponsor and who got dropped from their main sponsor, who got a new Brazilian girlfriend, etc.

I have no idea what the scene is like now as I have not set foot on the North Shore for 25 years, but during the late 1990's it was not uncommon to see 60 plus long lenses on the beach on a good day at Rocky Point and then perhaps 200 long lenses on the beach for a good day at the Pipeline Masters. Not uncommon either to have 25 plus photographers swimming at Backdoor or Pipeline for a freesurf session, all trying to get The Shot that could be sold for a magazine cover or to an advertiser on an all-rights buyout arrangement north of USD $3k, or over $6000 dollars in today's money.

For those who were not there, it is hard to overestimate the importance of magazines in the surfing world from their inception in 1960 to their demise circa 2010, as more money began to flow into digital rather than traditional print advertising. As many people have pointed out, exposure in the digital realm is ephemeral - that is, it doesn't last very long. Advertisers can reach millions of people with a single Instagram post, but most of those people don’t remember images they looked at fifteen minutes ago, much less images they saw yesterday.

During the magazine period, impressions were for thirty DAYS, until the next issue of SURFER or SURFING was released. If you got a cover shot, like Christian Fletcher did at Trestles lefts, wearing a pink Lanty wetsuit, your haters had to look at your cover shot for a full MONTH, not thirty seconds or even thirty minutes. Magazine exposure, especially a cover shot, was hugely influential, in a way that digital exposure cannot compare.

In addition to new action material for editorial and advertising, there has always been demand from magazines for new surfing travel destinations. The 1990's was also a "Golden Era" of Surf Discovery, as magical new lineups were surfed for the first time in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. I knew I could produce this kind of material if given the opportunity and I was certainly interested to try, but it seemed remote to be able to get someone to pay for it as I was hardly the top name on any magazine masthead, but as the industry kept expanding, more money became available.

I had several successful projects, like a magazine-funded trip to France for the Lacanau Pro and associated freesurfing and a trip to Costa Rica with a great group of Florida surfers, but the big break came when I put a lot of time and effort into arranging a trip to The Philippines, in typhoon season in September, 1992. As Flame’s advice for shooting on the North Shore was to try to do something new and different to stand out from the pack, I thought the same advice could apply to surf travel. If other people were going to Australia, Mexico or South Africa, I should try to do something different, hence The Philippines. 

I worked with a very kind gentleman from Philippine Airlines, Mr Jun Bouffard, at their Hawaii office for more than six months to try to get complimentary tickets on their daily HNL MNL HNL flight. I explained where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do and although I honestly didn't know if there were high-quality waves on Siargao Island or not, Mr Bouffard eventually got the green light from Manila to provide tickets for three people; two from California and one from Hawaii only. 

Unfortunately, the powers that be at SURFING at the time did not think this Philippines project was a good idea and they did not want to provide any budget at all, even after the air tickets had been confirmed, so there was a switch of allegiance to SURFER Magazine. I roped in Evan Slater to make the project and he said he would ask around and after a few days said that Rusty would be happy to send Taylor Knox as well, as long as it was a free ticket. 

Evan and Taylor came over from California, I met them at the airport in Hawaii and we flew across the Pacific to The Philippines. After what seemed like many days of travelling in planes, taxis and boats, we ended up on the beach at General Luna town on Siargao Island. We had no reservations, indeed we had no idea if there was any place for visitors to stay on the island at all as Siargao wasn't in any travel guidebooks - it was a very obscure island at the time with almost no visitors.

We found a cottage at the only facility for visitors on the island and went surfing the next morning. It was a few days into the trip before we found the wave I named "Cloud 9" but after that, we surfed Cloud 9 every day for the next week. The swell varied from 4 to 8 feet and the wind was offshore, all day, every day with the southwest monsoon Habagat wind.

Some places are unknown because they're simply so far out, but others are more so due to logistical challenges, specifically Africa. What was your approach to navigating conflict zones and places where your safety could be at risk?

Yes, some places can be a major challenge just getting to the beach! Restrictions, private property, barbed-wire fences, no roads, all are obstacles that need to be overcome with clever planning and the ability to change the plan when necessary. That's why it pays big dividends to travel with knowledgeable and experienced surfers, not greenhorns who have never been anywhere and know nothing.

People like Emiliano Cataldi and Erwan Simon know how to get around, over or under any problems we might encounter and their ingenuity and ideas have kept The surfEXPLORE Group moving forward in many difficult situations to find, surf and document new surfing locations worldwide.

We like to quote General Eisenhower with his famous statement “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”. The quote highlights that while specific plans often fail in the face of changing realities, the disciplined process of planning itself - thinking through variables, assessing risks, and preparing contingencies - is crucial for effective action, especially in complex situations like trying to find new surfing locations in a place where no one has surfed before.

One of the things we have learned is not to argue with the men with guns. In Africa, they make the rules, as per this account of our meeting and dealing with The Comandante in Mauritania; who with his soldiers, controlled access to the wave-rich Nouadhibou Peninsula on the north Atlantic Ocean. If the Comandante likes you, you can surf. If he doesn't like you, no surfing!

Mauritania is a sprawling desert country in North Africa, barely populated outside the main cities and with a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. The same major north Atlantic winter swells that affect Morocco to the north filter down to Mauritania, making for long right points and beachbreaks in a predominately offshore wind.

Our main area of interest was the Nouadhibou Peninsula in the far north, a de facto "No Man's Land" as it is not formally part of any country. The peninsula has been occupied by the Mauritanian Army since 1990. In colonial times, the area used to be divided between the Spanish Sahara and French West Africa, with a fence running down the center of the peninsula, which has since been removed.

When Spain decided to abandon the Spanish Sahara in 1975, Morocco moved in with troops and weapons. Mauritania responded with their own troops and weapons and the two sides fought to a stalemate by 1990. Mauritania has been in control of the entire peninsula since, with an informal international border with Morocco about 20 kilometers north of the city of Nouadhibou. 

This situation presented considerable obstacles for us as we would have to engage with and persuade the authorities, meaning the men with guns, to let us access the peninsula so we could get to the coastline and surf. We had no idea how to do this as there was no standard procedure.

After driving north from Nouakchott through the Sahara Desert, we arrived in the Nouadhibou area and found a place to stay in a caravan park popular with long-distance overland European travellers. We hired a vehicle and driver immediately, as the entire Peninsula is littered with landmines after decades of fighting and having someone driving who knows where to drive and where not to drive was essential. Our driver Brahim said there was currently no fighting anywhere on the peninsula and while he didn't know anything about surfing, he said it is possible to access the coastline, with permission from the Comandante.

We went to check the surf the next morning and were immediately confronted by the men with guns, asking where we were from and what we were doing. We were escorted to meet the Comandante, who lived with his garrison of soldiers in a collection of abandoned buildings in the former Spanish city of La Aguera. 

They had a large generator for electricity and several vehicles in various states of disrepair. We introduced ourselves and it quickly became apparent English wasn't welcome - the entire discussion took place in French and Erwan handled it well, explaining clearly who we were and what we wanted to do. The Comandante must have been charmed as he welcomed us, saying as long as we came by every morning to check in and let him know what we were doing that day, we were welcome to surf and photograph on the peninsula.

This was a relief, as if the Comandante had said no - no surfing. You can't argue with the men with guns, in Africa they make the rules. The Comandante did come by a few days later, when we were surfing in the shadows of El Castelo, the old Spanish fortress that now guards a well-shaped right point wave that works on the biggest winter swells. The Comandante and several of his soldiers with their well-used AK-47's came over to where I was shooting from the rocks, to film with his hand-held video camera. 

A set came through with one surfer on each wave, as per normal surfing etiquette. He filmed, but this wasn't what the Comandante wanted. With a series of shouted commands in French he made it clear he wanted everyone to catch the same wave at the same time, so he could film. Our group complied on the next set with four surfers taking off at once for a "Party Wave". You can't argue with the men with guns. The Comandante seemed pleased with the footage, we exchanged pleasantries in French and he and his men were soon off on their regular patrol of their territory.

We spent several weeks in the area, driving across the flat desert from Nouadhibou town in the chilly winter mornings, staying well within the tracks of the previous vehicles. The Comandante was as good as his word and we regularly picked up hitchhiking soldiers from his garrison and gave them a lift in the back of our truck. 

We were able to access the entire peninsula, surfing all the points we had carefully researched months previous and dodging the shipwrecks that littered the lineups and the landmines that littered the land.

Contrary to what you see on Instagram there are still plenty of unsurfed spots all around the world. John could speak more about that but you should probably check out his book. Better yet, hire the SurfEXPLORE team to plan an expedition for you and your crew...