Courtesy Moriarity Collection
By Scott Hulet
June 20, 2011 - 10:30am
Besides our ocean environment, Surfrider Foundation CEO Jim Moriarty's also a big fan of surfboards, listing shapes from Joel Tudor and Tyler Warren among his favorites.
The Surfrider Foundation has a quarter century of ocean advocacy under its belt. Their experience and
effectiveness has never been more evident. Under the leadership of 48-year-old CEO Jim Moriarty, the non-profit has achieved 150 access and conservation victories in five years. While Jim would be the first to point out that the organization's success is built on the work of the members, chapters, and staff, his tech-savvy skill set and communications acumen play undeniable roles. Now in his sixth year with Surfrider, the Solana Beach wave rider made himself available to ESPN for a quick rap.
Where did your surfing life begin -- and what snared you so irrevocably?
I met my first surfboard in Westerly, Rhode Island when I was a kid, but it wasn't until years later when I bought a Herbie Fletcher (complete with skull and crossbones Astrodek) and paddled out at Cardiff Reef that my life changed. There was a minus tide that day and the underwater beach grass swayed beneath the board. When I rode my first wave, it felt like I was walking on water. The swell was nothing special, but it changed my life.
Coming up, was there a local surfer who inspired you?
Since my initial surf sessions were at Cardiff about 20 years ago, Joel Tudor, who was a kid at the time, was the one to watch. I would sit on the shoulder and watch him in amazement. It was like watching Mikhail Baryshnikov ... on water. Joel not only rode waves fluidly, he also introduced many surfers to boards that work. It was Joel that drew people back to longboards and singlefin eggs. He and Tom Curren deserve much of the credit for the fun many of us have on fishes and sub-six-foot quads. Thanks Joel. Thanks Tom.
Are you able to find much time to ride waves, or do you convert your surf stoke to surf/activism stoke?
Nothing substitutes for time spent in the ocean -- nothing. My surf life is oriented around experiencing the ocean in as many ways as possible, as frequently as I can, and on as many different craft as possible. My local breaks are in North County, San Diego with Swamis at the epicenter. Time in the ocean feeds the activist side of me. When you're in the ocean and a candy wrapper floats by, it's impossible not to pick it up. I'd also like to think it's impossible not to engage and wonder how that wrapper got there in the first place.
Courtesy Moriarity CollectionMoriarty, hidden in plane view.
I know you're a board hound; how's your quiver looking these days?
The sweet spot of my quiver is a 5'3" Tyler Warren Bar of Soap. I have 10 or so boards made up of various flavors of fishes, singlefins, hulls, handplanes and logs. I lean toward boards that are short, wide and flat. I know I'm not Kelly, so I like boards that generate their own speed. The shape I've had the longest may be Joel Tudor's Good Karma. That shape is the Eames of surfboards as it's minimal and 100 percent functional. Of course, I have a couple heavy, singlefin longboards, but I prefer Bing pintails and squaretails. The board every single beachgoer should buy is a Danny Hess handplane. You don't have to be a surfer to enjoy waves, and Danny's handplanes will get you barreled better than pretty much any other shape on the market.
OK -- the wife gives you a hall pass, tells you to grab a friend and go anywhere in the world for two weeks -- don't come back until those rings under your eyes are gone and you're pleasant to be around.
Other than Venice, Italy, the Southern Maldives is my favorite place on earth. It feels like a bad '70s Star Trek episode that today looks campy due to the special effects& except in the case of the Maldives what you are looking at is real. Where else on the globe can you look out and see thousands of tiny islands lining the horizon ... and have the view stay the same for days? If that's not enough, the Southern Maldives has super fun waves. The place is visually arresting and will be the first nation lost to sea level rise ... so go now.
Compared to just 10 years ago, environmentally conscious decision-making has become incredibly broad-based. What are some changes you've seen that really stick to our ribs?
Hummers are now considered stupid and selfish. The shift in our automotive preferences is tectonic. Ten years ago massive vehicles were cool, and now they're a symbol of being completely out of touch. The Prius market share is an extension of this shift in American car culture. Single-use plastic water bottles have become a symbol of small-minded, insular thinking. A metaphor for how lost we are can been seen in a single-use plastic bottle. An ephemeral thirst should not be satisfied by a perennial, persistent plastic bottle that will most probably still be around in a few hundred years. Anyone that has done a beach cleanup knows that much of the single-use plastic we use ends up either in a landfill or the ocean. I love that people are starting to understand this and are moving back to the simple options of glasses and reusable bottles.
If you want to lose weight, you cut calories and increase exercise -- hit it from both sides. Should we also combat consumption by addressing population growth more aggressively?
We consume too much. This isn't an "us and them" issue, we ALL consume too much. What we all, the entire population of the planet, have to figure out is how to consume less, recycle more, and not soil the only place we have to live.
Surfrider's 80-plus chapters are the picture of grass-roots power on the hoof. If you could rally all of the chapters and all of Surfrider's substantial resources for one year, and commit to one single effort, what would it be?
The single largest issue that our chapters are facing in local areas is plastics. We have a large focus on wave preservation, beach access, water quality, etc., and in any given place each of those have differing values of local importance. For example if you live in Maine the number one issue is beach access because more than 80 percent of the coast is private ... you can't get to the beach or waves. The issue facing ALL communities is the plastic we're letting go down our storm drains and into our lineups, oceans and beaches.
Leave us with a simple way for surfers to improve their spot.
It's been suggested that the new localism is to "own" your local beach. That is, stand up when it's under threat, clean it up when it's dirty, and show up when you're asked to. This isn't complex. Next time you paddle out, pick up a few pieces of trash. That one or two pieces are literally one or two pieces that won't be floating around the ocean and probably killing fish and birds. Start there. Be a real local, "own" your local beach.
REPOSTED FROM - http://espn.go.com/action/blog?post=6680301&sport=surfing&type=blogEntry
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