February 1971 - The Islands

David Nuuhiwa folds his limber frame into a forward trim on a silvery curl. Curiously, this shot was taken at a wave on Oahu’s west side known as ‘Tracks’. In ’71, Hawaiian born Nuuhiwa was at the height of his powers, straddling the old and the new as both a revered connoisseur of nose-riding and a shortboard trailblazer. In the cover feature, future filmmaking guru, Jack McCoy, travels to ‘The Sandwich Islands’ aka Hawaii and writes of a dystopian setting that has descended into a milieu of guns, gang warfare and violence. In Australia in ‘71, many places still have a new frontier feel. John Witzig drives west, as far as Cactus in South Oz, where the landscape is beautiful in a sparse kind of way and bored surfers kill time by shooting at things – even surfboards. Albe Falzon heads to the Gold Coast, where he maligns the plastic jungle of endless signposts selling something, but admits the waves are world-class – “Kirra or Burleigh when they’re right have some of the juiciest mother tubes you’ll find anywhere.” The Fully-Qualified Survivor pages explain how to build a geodesic dome, while Terry Fitzgerald is working on his ‘Board for all Seasons.’ “To profitably juice every wave type i.e. 10-foot and choppy to one-foot and tubing.”