Surfing Magazine's annual Swimsuit Issue is here, and if you haven't held it in your hands yet, maybe this will ease your pain. Our comrades over at -ING have cut a few short films to supplement each of their shoot locations from the issue. Here are two of them: Hawaii and the Salton Sea. Enjoy.

Brazilian Gabriel Medina pushed high-performance surfing to a new level at the prime-rated Nike Lowers Pro, demolishing one of the largest fields of high-end talents ever assembled to capture the $40,000 and a solid gold trophy valued at 30-grand more.

"I feel better than ever," said the 18-year-old ASP World Tour rookie after being carried up the beach by a passionate pack of Brazilian fans that invaded San Clemente, Calif. "I don't even know what to say."

That's okay...his surfing did all the talking.

Medina's relentless assault of aerial antics, blistering snaps, playful tail wafts, and sweeping carves were untouchable all week. His campaign included five of the top 10 highest wave scores, the five highest heat scores, and the yellow MVP jersey(voted on by fans) for three of the five days.

Winning at Lowers, the world's preeminent high performance wave, is a big feather in any surfers cap. For Medina, who broke into the ASP's elite Top 32 last year, it's feels an awful lot like a coronation.

Medina is widely viewed as Brazil's best candidate to bring home the country's first ASP world championship ever, and Saturday's win will give him confidence heading into next week's next world championship stop in Rio.

His performances also earned him overdue respect with American fans, who couldn't help but marvel at his surfing as he handily disposed of the beloved Dane Reynolds (right) twice, and doing so playing the very aerial game Dane helped make famous.

Before besting Ireland's Glen Hall (by way of Australia) in the final, Medina's closest match was with two-time US Open Champion Brett Simpson on Friday. Their duel was the highest scoring affair of the entire event, with both surfers earning 9.5 scores along the way.

Medina was behind the veteran Californian with 30 seconds to go, when he caught a left and launched himself high over the lip, where inverted and rotating, he soared back down to the mid-face and somehow spun-out of an incredible landing. Game over.

In the end his win was hardly surprising. Medina came into Lowers as a known threat. He won two world tour events last year as a 17-year-old rookie. In fact, he earned his first two tour wins faster than any tour surfer in history (yup, including that Kelly Slater guy).

And while 18-year-old Medina has packed on some muscle and added some power, he's got work to do to catch Slater in this year's race for the world title. He had a slow start to the season in Australia. Yet you can bet the Brazilian flags will be waving in Rio next week as Medina takes to the beachbreak surf that he's actually known for dominating.

This is just getting ridiculous. The videos, they just keep coming. All over the place.

I literally just posted my weekly Adult Surf Cinema collection YESTERDAY. Seriously, it's right here.

And today, I awake to find a mountain of surf porn staring at me. So without further adieu.. adult surf cinema part 2..

Nic Von Rupp, most tubed German of all time?



Nico von Rupp from Nico von Rupp on Vimeo.

Nat young rings in the new year in santa cruz



4.5 Top$ from Nat Young on Vimeo.

How many Hos does it take? 3.



Dads Are BarrelKillaz from rory pringle @ conceptblue on Vimeo.

San Fran-Centaur



Matt Wilkinson just signed with Etnies, and I'd say he's got that frontside fin-woft pretty much down, eh?



Sumbawa from Matt Wilkinson on Vimeo.

Team Rusty is Still Single? what a bunch of losers!



Still Single from rustyintl on Vimeo.

Ry Craike's Red-Cam Special



DAY DREAMING from Rick Rifici on Vimeo.

The world has lost one of its great adventurers in Canada's Don Starkell, a canoeing legend who claimed to have paddled 75,000 miles since he first fell in love with the pastime in 1948.

Starkell, who died Saturday at 79 after a struggle with cancer, was as famous for his stubborn demeanor and frankness as he was for his many remarkable exploits.

"I've paddled three times around the world. If someone wants to beat that, I don't give a damn," he told Canoe & Kayak magazine in a 2010 interview.

Starkell is most renowned for having paddled nearly 12,000 miles in a 21-foot canoe with his son, Dana, from the Red River near his home in Winnipeg, Canada, to the Amazon River in South America.

During that two-year odyssey, which began in 1980, they "were arrested, shot at, kidnapped by pirates and nearly starved," Canoe & Kayak reported. The epic journey placed the pair in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest canoe voyage. (Starkell's other son Jeff was along for part of the way.)

Doug Gibson, who published a book on the adventure, "Paddle to the Amazon," described Starkell to the Winnipeg Free Press as "super-human" and explained, "Even the concept -- paddling an open canoe from Winnipeg to the mouth of the Amazon -- is beyond ordinary mortals." (Video posted below is a visual introduction to the book.)


Gibson added, "Yet Don, very strong in body and immensely strong in determination, not only planned it, he pulled it off, despite all the obstacles that high seas, drug-runners, alligators, piranhas and ill health could throw at him and Dana."

Paddling was tantamount to freedom for Starkell, who was orphaned as a child and raised in foster homes. At one of the homes was a canoe, and Starkell recalled that his first paddling excursion was on a creek that flooded in the spring.

"I was just like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer," he told Canoe & Kayak.

In 1992 Starkell attempted to navigate the treacherous Northwest Passage in a kayak, but became mired in ice and was rescued by a helicopter crew 36 miles short of completion. He was suffering from severe frostbite, which resulted in the loss of a few fingers.

"I got stuck in my kayak for 26 hours in sush ice," he recalled. "I couldn't get to shore. I fell through the ice three times up to my armpits trying. Then I sat in and out of consciousness. I was going to die, but I would not let my mind accept it."

In his later years Starkell could be found almost every day paddling a canoe on the Red River, a waterway made lonely by his passing.

The Starkell family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign.

-- Images of Don Starkell, in 2010, are courtesy of Ian McCausland / Canoe & Kayak

Patagonia ambassador and store employee, Crystal Thornburg-Homcy recently documented her trip to Patagonia with with fell passionate environmentalist, a 1% for the Planet member, Sol Raiz Organics, big-wave surfer Jamie Sterling, and filmmaker Jack McCoy. The goal of the trip was to experience and learn about the landscapes and cultures of the regions, as well as, to see how they can share their understandings of the current environmental, social, and economical happenings throughout.

Patagonia is currently enduring a battle between activists and the government when Chilean authorities approved a plan to dam two rivers in Patagonia for hydroelectricity, triggering angry protests and claims that swathes of pristine wilderness will be destroyed.

In June of last year, armed with double boilers, frying pans and casserole pots, 500 employees of Patagonia Inc., an environmentally-minded clothing company, staged a peaceful Chilean-style protest of the Chilean government's recent approval of five huge dams.

Click here for a video that is helpful in learning more about the issue.

This fight to protect the environment can be won in a variety of ways for example documented trips such as Thornburg-Homcy's hopes to shed light on the situation and what will possibly be destroyed if those dams get put in place.

Here's a few highlights from her journey.




Make sure to check out the complete 4 part trip.