Exploration, culture, and adventure have become elements of Stand-up paddling, with many exotic locations offering up the ideal setting for a SUP trip. Following last year's Indo Chronicles, SUP Magazine gathered a crew of worthy paddlers and headed to the far east to produce an exclusive travel series entitled Made in Taiwan.

Candice Appleby, Dave Boehne, CD Kinley, Anthony Vela and Slater Trout's culture-filled journey to Taiwan is featured in the summer Issue of SUP Magazine. But in the meantime, check out the intro to a five-part web series featuring a perfect left-hand point break that the crew absolutely tears apart.

On May 20, North America witnessed its first solar eclipse in over 18 years. For those who were lucky enough to catch the moments when the moon passed between the Sun and the Earth, the visual effects were stunning.

If you weren't able to see the event firsthand, some impressive views of the eclipse have surfaced on the web in the following days. Here are three of the more interesting views that were captured across the United States.

1) This pulled back perspective of the solar eclipse was shot in Muleshoe Wildlife Refuge, near Muleshoe, Texas, just before sunset. The footage around the 1:50 mark provides an excellent sense of the viewing experience from the ground-level:


2) This real-time footage of the eclipse from Albuquerque, New Mexico provides an excellent look at the "ring of fire" effect that the event is known for producing:


3) Cory Poole's up-close view of the solar eclipse splices together 700 frames shot in Redding, California, through a Coronado Solar Max Double Stack telescope. The time-lapse provides a surreal experience of the eclipse, which is distinct from the experience of viewing it firsthand:

Life moves quickly and if you don't take a moment to slow down, you might miss the beauty of it all. The same goes for watching athletes whose movements are so fast and intricate that they can't always be appreciated in real-time. But now, by the power of almighty editing tools, we get to view the talent and technical work required to perform these complex acts.

This slow motion video compiled by Gregory Villien of France displays some of today's top action sports athletes in their discipline of choice. Villien worked for over 7 years in motion and graphic design, and the effects of his editing skills are stunning.

The Chugach Powder Guides' Kings and Corn package is the ultimate experience for those who like to mix their angling with angulation, and has become a bucket-list item for many avid skiers/fisherman. Picture nights in a luxury backcountry lodge in Alaska, five days of fishing for king salmon, and five days of summer corn skiing, with a little whitewater rafting and gourmet meals thrown in the mix.

Read more about Kings and Corn here

Australian authorities have assured swimmers and surfers at Bondi Beach that lifeguards routinely patrol for sharks after footage surfaced recently, showing a massive great white savagely attacking a smaller blue shark attached to a line alongside a fishing boat.



The incident near Sydney occurred several months ago but the footage wasn't posted until this month, and it has stirred emotions about the possibility of such enormous predators lurking so close to shore off Australia's busiest beach.

"We share the water with the sharks and there's no getting away from that," a spokesman for the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries told the Herald Sun. "We run regular patrols along the beach and out further through the bay to make sure our swimmers are protected from any threat."

Henry Minter, one of the fishermen who was aboard the boat, said the encounter took place only 200 meters, or about the shake of a tail, beyond the shore. He estimated the shark's length to be at least 18 feet.

"We were fishing off the coast of Bondi Beach and were on board a 32-foot powerboat," he said, via email. "Shortly after catching a small blue shark we tied a rope off to it's tail and the large great white appeared obviously attracted by the frenzy of the blue shark.

"We were amazed as the shark bit the whole blue shark in half and proceeded to play tug of war with us with the remaining tail half. Never seen anything this big so close to Sydney and has been a real shock to the Sydney fishing and surfing community."

Experts who viewed the video could not verify it was, in fact, Bondi, but there is little reason to doubt the location, since white sharks are known to frequent that part of the Australian coast.

What's incredible is the power and fierce determination of the predator as it tries to devour the blue shark, which was tied tail-first to a thick rope.

What seems incredibly risky are the actions of the fishermen, who traded turns trying to touch the larger shark's snout.

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