How is a secret spot revealed? First slowly, then at the speed of light.

In a nod to the conundrum that is discovery and exploitation, Michael Kew puts a journalistic lens to the realization, rise, and subsequent unabashed revelry at the world’s latest dream wave. Early reports out of gem-rich Micronesia marked it as the next great frontier. A fateful magazine trip told the story. And now the land grab is on. Pohnpei may never be the same, but we figured you should at least know why every surf photographer’s putting the spot squarely in their viewfinder.

As told to Greg Escalante and Nathan Spoor

From impressionable youth at a New York amusement park, to budding ad artist, to ordering a copy of The Endless Summer out of the back of a magazine, as of late the dynamic Mike Shine’s crafted himself quite an interesting niche in both the surf and art worlds. In “At Home In The Shine Shack,” Greg Escalante and Nathan Spoor caught up with the Shine himself in hopes of garnering a little more insight into his eclectic eye.

With the subtlest hint of regret Kelly Slater reflects, “I was convinced that a lower-volume board was what I wanted to be riding.” Nine world titles and a head of hair later, today Kelly’s picked up the planer himself and is intently engrossed in evolving the craft he rides. Convinced that “surfboards have been stale, boring, and safe” for years, he’s hoping that what he does in the water and in the shaping bay might help put the fun back in board design.

Pinned for his roll in The Endless Summer, that fateful trip to Cape Saint Francis—and the consequential trip back with the 16mm film taped to his ribs—Mike Hynson’s real adventure began well after the film premiered. Cherry picking excerpts from his new autobiography, Transcendental Memories of a Surf Rebel, Hynson offers up a few obscure stories from a life steeped in lore.

Ask Jon Steele where he’s from and in no uncertain terms he’ll tell you, “Texas, man.” The Lone Star State is not an easy place to be a surfer, and an even tougher place to carve out a niche as a surf photographer, but from chasing tanker waves to riding hurricanes, Steele’s pridefully—and dutifully—applied himself to documenting the unique South Padre scene, and between the desperados and degenerates, it’s quite a scene to behold.

When Susan Chaplin arrived in the village of Nembrala on the Indonesian island of Rote, the 12th stop on her two-year surf sojourn, she hadn’t anticipated sharing waves with a former World Surfing Champion. But as coincidence would have it, Peruvian legend Felipe Pomar was enjoying a getaway of his own. The two struck up a friendship—as often happens when you’re on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere—and to this day the kinship holds firm.

Before we fell in love with LOLA, before Sean Collins enlightened us by peering into his crystal ball, and even before weather radios rocked us to sleep, surf reportage had to start somewhere. The case could be made it began with Walter Munk. From a $50-a-month job at Scripps to prognosticating the surf for the landing of Normandy, this month’s interview with Munk takes us back to the beginning of forecasting as we now know it.

What do you get when you put Wayne Lynch, Dave Parmenter and Andrew Kidman on a 50-foot cat together? Well, besides interesting conversation and a quiver of unorthodox craft, you get a downright “hall of fame” voyage through turbulent South Australian waters. To give you a sense of where the story’s headed, Kidman writes about Lynch’s history as a seafarer, “He got himself into trouble in the ocean and got himself out of it…and with this trouble comes the challenge.”

Intently focused on perspective with feeling, the photography of Santa Barbara’s Seth de Roulet is unquestionably unique, and up until now his work’s never been published in another surf periodical. So, to round out this issue we’re happy to offer you 14 super-saturated pages of something you probably haven’t seen before.