The source recounts the journey of the surfEXPLORE Group to Gabon, Central Africa, with the primary objective of surfing the rarely visited point breaks in the far south at Mayumba.

Due to the challenging logistics—including a car crash sidelining their initial contact, the need for a long drive through the vast equatorial forest, and the necessity of navigating the French-speaking region known as “Françafrique”—the group hired a long-distance taxi, or taxi-brousse, driven by Auguste.

After days of travel, enduring encounters like the smell of bushmeat being prepared, they reached Mayumba during the optimal winter swell season and successfully surfed pristine, remote waves, even overcoming bureaucratic hurdles and high fees to access Mayumba National Park. The trip concluded with a memorable return

This excerpt from "surfEXPLORE Discovering New Surfing Locations Worldwide" chronicles the challenging journey of John Seaton Callahan and The surfEXPLORE Group to find waves in the remote volcanic archipelago of Comoros, near Madagascar.

The narrative highlights the extreme difficulty of travel and the near-total lack of general tourism, largely attributed to the islands' history of political instability and pervasive government corruption.

Key themes include the chaos of inter-island ferry travel—where the uncomfortable, often cancelled journeys culminated in passengers violently vomiting into plastic bags—and the extortionate demands of local officials upon arrival.

Despite these logistical nightmares, the explorers successfully surfed uncrowded breaks, such as the ominously named "Dead Fisherman’s Point"

The surfEXPLORE Podcast, Episode 3, CHINA Hainan Island, surfing in the south China Sea with The surfEXPLORE Group - point waves and beachbreaks, swell generated by the northeast monsoon, source materials from the new book surfEXPLORE: Discovering New Surfing Locations Worldwide from Schiffer Publishing.

These excerpts recount various surf exploration projects undertaken by the "surfEXPLORE Group" across numerous developing and politically volatile global regions, highlighting the challenges and discoveries involved in finding unridden waves. The narratives consistently detail the seasonal nature of surfing conditions and the logistical complexities of travel, including dealing with poor infrastructure, high costs, bureaucratic hurdles like visas and permits (e.g., in Angola, Indonesia's Papua provinces, and Western Sahara), and even direct political unrest (e.g., in Liberia, Eastern Samar, and the Comoros). Across destinations like Angola, Taiwan, and the Philippines, the texts also show how political and economic history influences local development and interaction with visitors, often revealing waves previously unknown to the surfing community.

These texts offer an extensive overview of global surfing exploration undertaken by the surfEXPLORE Group, detailing trips to remote, often politically volatile locations across Africa, Asia, and the Indian Ocean.

The excerpts consistently describe the seasonal nature of surfing conditions in each region, emphasising the importance of timing to catch the best swell and wind, from the typhoon season in the Philippines and Taiwan to the groundswell of the Indian Ocean in the Maldives and Madagascar. 

Episode 2 features the southwest African country of Angola with the surfEXPLORE Group in the Cabo Ledo area and further south in search of new waves, source materials from the new book surfEXPLORE: Discovering New Surfing Locations Worldwide from Schiffer Publishing.

The surfEXPLORE Group's mission to Algeria for unridden Mediterranean waves required clever border negotiation and meticulous scouting. They raced a powerful Mistral storm to a remote left point. Their preparation paid off: they surfed overhead waves in a spectacular scene with a winter rainbow, riding a spot never before touched by a surfer.

#surfing

#surf_travel