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Bruce Brown, longtime surf filmmaker and director of the seminal “Endless Summer” just passed at 80 years old. Drew Kampion wrote the following for our Surfing A-Z entry on Brown: Prior to 1964, the media saw surfers as rebellious thugs, and Hollywood made them out to be a bunch of idiots. Filmmaker Bruce Brown single-handedly changed that with The Endless Summer. It portrayed the wave as a kind of Holy Grail and surfers as knights on a quest. In one stroke, he replaced Hollywood's buffoonery with the popular mythology that endures today.

For decades, a group of territorial surfers in Palos Verdes — the so-called Bay Boys of Lunada Bay — has been operating very much like a street gang, authorities and locals say. They are accused of staking out turf on a public beach and in the waves, and intimidating and assaulting people who dare to try to access that turf. Tires have been reported slashed, rocks hurled at visitors, death threats leveled. Pretty nasty stuff. The Bay Boys even have a sort-of clubhouse, an unpermitted structure built on the beach where gang members can hang out and survey the domain...

Jose Lopez, a 38-year-old fisherman from Bell, stepped gingerly to the bluff's edge. He scanned the trail where, for years, beachgoers who don't live in Palos Verdes Estates have complained that they get bombarded with rocks thrown by a local surf tribe that calls themselves the Bay Boys. He noted that from the beach, 100 feet below, he would not be able to see the parking area, where outsiders' cars have been vandalized. A burly man, Lopez knitted his forehead and decided to drive away rather than head to the beach and start casting for perch. "Everyone knows how it...

Long-time Huntington Beach surfer Gary Sahagen had a prediction about how the world record attempt to get the most people riding one wave would go down. "It's either going to be spectacular, or a spectacle," Sahagen said, before joining 66 other surfers crammed onto a 42-foot board on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier. Turns out, it was a lot of both.

Three Israeli surfers went to the aid of eight children struggling in the waters off Hawaii on Saturday, Channel 2 television reported, after huge waves began surging toward the coast. The three - Tzvika Elias, Yair Naftali and Gabi Liptz - were hailed as heroes by the children’s parents. “We had gone to a remote beach half an hour from Honolulu,” 30-year-old Elias, who lives in New York, told Channel 2. “The waves there were high, huge breakers about four meters high, and as the minutes past, the waves got stronger and even higher.” Elias and his friends then saw...

A group of surfers just got gnarly on a group of paps -- all over photos of beach king Matthew McConaughey! Around 12 photographers were on the beach in Malibu this afternoon trying to get shots of Matty hitting the surf, when an all-out smackdown was laid on the pappers by turf-protecting surfers. One pap was hit in the face and we're told suffered a broken nose, while another was thrown into some rocks and had his camera smashed. McConaughey was not involved in the ruckus. Police tell us a battery report was filed by one photographer and no arrests...

Surfer's Baja tale is warning to others Camping trip ended in robbery, assault By Terry Rodgers UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER November 19, 2007 Pat Weber didn't plan on being part of a crime trend that has generated worldwide buzz this past week, but he didn't have much choice. The Encinitas resident and surfing instructor got lost on a dirt road in Baja California last month while looking for a surfing spot called Cuatro Casas. He and his girlfriend decided to park for the night on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Just after sundown, two men wearing ski masks approached Weber's motor...

MARGARET RIVER, Australia (Reuters) - The waves have been nicknamed Cyclops, Jaws and Dungeons and are the new life-and-death playground for a unique breed of surfers who ride gargantuan ocean waves as big as a seven storey building. Australian surfer Alex Cater, 25, has been chasing giant waves for the past five years and knows only too well the agony and ecstasy of what they call tow-in surfing, where a surfer is whipped by jet ski into giant waves bigger than most tsunamis. "If you don't have a bit of fear then you shouldn't be out there," said Cater. "When...

Beerwah, Australia: Hundreds of surfers formed a circle in the waves off Australia‘s eastern coast and cast sprigs of wildflowers into the Pacific Ocean on Sunday to honour ‘Crocodile Hunter‘ Steve Irwin. Australian media reported that a family service for Irwin, who was killed a week ago when a stingray barb pierced his chest as he filmed a TV show, was held on Saturday on his wildlife park at Beerwah on Queensland state’s Sunshine Coast. Irwin’s manager John Stainton said the reports were conjecture, and the family would make a statement on Monday about the funeral. Brisbane’s The Sunday Mail...

Hundreds of surfers have paid a special tribute to Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin at a memorial service on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. The 44-year-old, died last Monday after he was pierced in the heart by a stingray's barb while filming a documentary off the far north Queensland coast. The self-proclaimed wildlife warrior was an enthusiastic surfer and a tribute was held on Sunday at Alexandra Headlands beach. About 250 surfers formed a huge circle off the beach to remember Irwin. Floral tributes were placed in the water. Staff from the Irwin family's Australia Zoo took part in the commemoration held during...

Alfie Carter : photo Jamiescottimages.com Big Wave News Oakley/ASL Big Wave Awards Are Off to a Cracking Start Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 2 August, 2006 : - - Gold Coast, Queensland, -- The Oakley/ASL Big Wave Awards provide Australia with a premier heavy-water surf event of epic proportions. Dozens of ultra-qualified surfers on the open ocean coasts of Australia and New Zealand spend seven months in pursuit of the best and biggest waves they can find. The goals? Ultimate respect from their peers, the thrill of the chase, and $30,000 in total prizemoney. This year’s event kicked off on June...

Something horrifying is happening in the waters off Brazil. Sharks are attacking surfers near the city of Recife at an unprecedented rate, scaring the locals and forcing the government to ban the sport at one of it’s most popular beaches. Over the past decade, 45 people have been attacked by bull sharks in the region, 16 were deadly. And while these attacks are not unheard of, the fact the port city had recorded only one in the 75 years prior, is perplexing. Are the sharks rebelling? Have they had enough of people overcrowding their home? Or is there something less...

Don’t Ask Department London : Police are searching for a man who – wearing just a diaper – approaches women late at night , and asks them if there are any baby changing facilities nearby. ( Don’t ask ! We don’t want to know why !! ) Canberra: If you were to watch this Australian gentleman perform, you might conclude he was fishing : surf-casting to be exact. Well…..not exactly . It seems he has taught three mice : Harry, Chopsticks, and Bunsen - how to surf , using tiny, mouse-sized surfboards. He employs a rigorous training program ,involving months...

By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago Donna Frye is accustomed to not being taken seriously. As a surf-shop owner inspired to act by the ocean pollution sickening her surfer husband and friends, Frye was written off when she ran for a City Council seat four years ago — but she won. Frye, who says she has been derided as a "surfer chick," was dismissed again last year when she waged a write-in campaign for mayor. Incumbent Dick Murphy barely defeated her, and then only after a court battle. Now that Murphy is resigning amid a pension fund...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - More than 40 surfers cruised into the record books Saturday when they successfully rode a giant surfboard off an Australian beach, breaking the previous world record set by an English team of 14 people in 2003.

China's Net surfers second only to US December 06 2003 at 11:12AM Beijing - China will probably have 78 million Internet users by the end of the year, keeping its position as second only to the United States for the number of people online, state media reported Saturday. The figure was announced by Hu Qiheng, chairwoman of the Internet Society of China, a government-backed industry regulator, the Xinhua news agency said on its website. It marks an increase of 32 percent from 59.1 million users at the end of 2002. China's government has conflicting attitudes towards the Internet, as it...