SURFER's Full September Issue Preview

ON SALE SEPTEMBER 1 AT YOUR LOCAL SURF SHOP!

Subscribe to SURFER now and receive a free Billabong Frothing DVD!

THE 2007 WETSUIT BUYER'S GUIDE
Know Your Rubber

It's safe to say that no matter where you surf, you're wearing a wetsuit. Find yourself on the New Jersey shore in the dead of winter and you're bound head-to-toe in neoprene. Find yourself in Southern California on a summer day and chances are you're wearing a spring suit. So before you go trying things on, make sure you check out our full guide to help you get the right suit and the right fit.

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST PLAYGROUND
by
Carl Friedmann

Indonesia gets under your skin and stays there. The place is sensory overload: draining backlit barrels, choking gridlock, smoldering trash heaps, distant gamelan jam sessions, steaming plates of sate udang, mosquito-ravaged ankles, and wafts of sweet sandalwood and kembang kamboja. Magical, mystical, and a little bit eerie, Indo is unstable and indeed unpredictable with human and geological violence, yet it also rewards a respectful low profile. Just imagine what you look like there.

G-FORCE
MEET THE GEISELMAN FAMILY, FLORIDA'S NEW POWER SOURCE
by
Jason Borte

Due to prior commitments, the first day of summer for the Geiselman bunch happens to be July 1st this year. Nearly 2,500 miles from their New Smyrna Beach, FL. home, the whole family - dad Greg, mom Gina, and sons Eric (19) and Evan (13) - can finally cut loose. After two weeks of stressing through the NSSA Nationals, they're decompressing along the shores of San Clemente. With balmy temperatures on land and in the water, a swell finally starting to show, and not a cloud from here to Mexico, they couldn't have picked a better day to kick off the season.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
BIGGER-BUILT GUYS AREN'T JUST MAKING A COMEBACK, THEY'RE LOOKING TO TAKE OVER
by
Sam George


Has anyone else noticed that the size of pro surfers is changing? And that, for the first time in 25 years, attemptable waves, pro contracts and grom egos aren't the only things getting bigger?
It hasn't been this way since I was, well, little. I remember the first time I saw Jeff Hakman in person. The shock, I mean. In the late '60s I had grown up pouring over photos of Hakman in the surf mags: the low, powerful bottom-turn, every flexed sinew on the man they called "The Surf Muscle" standing out in relief; the wide shoulders, broad lats, lumpy deltoids. I assumed Jeff Hakman was a giant of a man; he certainly surfed like one. Naturally, then, as the surf stars of my childhood, such as Hakman, morphed into the superstars of my formative years - the Terry Fitzgeralds, Peter Townends, and Rabbit Bartholomews of the world - I assumed that they, too, matched these mythical proportions.

JUST PASSING THROUGH
GLOBETROTTERS FIND RESPITE IN THE SURFER STUDIO
photography by
Jean Paul Van Swae

Life at a surf magazine is not nearly as glamorous as it may at first appear. Periodically, someone of interest does walk through the door and break up the monotony. For a few minutes or an afternoon they recount where they've been, where they're going, what they're up to, and we revel in all the other intriguing details that accompany living a wandering surf life. A few months ago we decided that every time someone of note stopped by the SURFER headquarters, we'd make it a point to get them in the sweatbox of a studio located in the back of our warehouse and shoot a portrait of them. At first, it was simply for posterity's sake, but as time went on we realized we were amassing a collection of images worth sharing with the world.

Subscribe to SURFER now and receive a free Billabong Frothing DVD!