From Desert Wave Pools to Asian Games: Surf's Global Moment
It's been a wild week in the surf world. We've got windsurfers sending it at Cloudbreak, a brand-new wave pool firing in the California desert, and a crew from Bangladesh making history on the Asian Games stage. Whether you're a photographer hunting the next cover shot or a surfer just trying to figure out where to get wet next, there's a little something for everyone. Let's dive in.
Maui's Finest Light Up Cloudbreak
First up, the Fiji Surf Pro just wrapped at Cloudbreak, and the Maui contingency absolutely stole the show. Bernd Roediger, nursing a strained ACL and coming off a month-long layoff, somehow found another gear to claim the top spot with an 18.07 final score. His take? 'It's like a blessing,' he said. 'So many things have to go your way.' Meanwhile, Morgan Noireaux dropped the highest single wave of the event—a 9.5-point bomb—before inconsistent winds left him third overall. France's Antoine Martin slotted into second. On the women's side, Australia's Jane Seman ran the table, winning all three finals to reclaim her 2022 Cloudbreak crown. You can read the full breakdown over at Maui News. For photographers, Cloudbreak at 13 feet is the kind of canvas that makes portfolios—hollow, heavy, and humbling all at once.
Surfing the Desert: DSRT Surf Opens in Coachella Valley
If you'd rather trade the reef for a guaranteed ramp, Wavegarden just flipped the switch on DSRT Surf, the company's second U.S. pool, sitting about 100 miles from the actual ocean in the Coachella Valley. The specs are wild: 1,000 waves per hour, a menu of 60-plus wave types, including a dedicated aerial setting pumping ramps every 30 seconds and a barrel mode called the 'Twister' that even the pros are calling legit. Jacob 'Zeke' Szekely didn't hold back: 'It's the best wave pool in the world.' John Luff, co-founder at Beach Street Holdings, added that the barrel 'completely blew me away... it actually gives you time to take a conscious breath in there.' Sessions are slated to start as low as $60 an hour—half the entry price of Palm Springs Surf Club down the road. No public booking link is live yet, but 'late summer' is the target. Get the tech deep dive from The Inertia. For content creators, this is a controlled studio with perfect light, repeatable sections, and zero crowd factor. Bring your housing and thank us later.
Bangladesh's Surf Girls and Boys Club Chases Asian Games Glory
Half a world away, the story is less about tech and more about heart. In Cox's Bazar—home to one of the planet's longest beaches—a weather-beaten shack serves as HQ for the Bangladesh Surf Girls and Boys Club. Mohammad Mannan, 25, and Fatima Akhter, 16, are setting their sights on the Asian Games in Japan this September, where surfing makes its debut. 'The moment I step onto the board, I forget everything else,' Akhter told AFP. 'When I successfully ride a wave, I feel happy and fulfilled. The feeling is impossible to describe.' Mannan's path started selling seashell jewelry on the same sand, learning technique from YouTube clips of John John Florence. His parents wanted him to quit; he refused. 'Nobody can say it never will be,' he said of surfing's future in a cricket-obsessed nation. Their first trip to the Maldives was a wake-up call—bigger waves, better boards, more travel. 'It's impossible to understand an ocean if you've never surfed there,' Mannan noted. It's a reminder that the stoke is universal, even when the resources aren't. Read the full feature via The Daily Star.
Three stories, three very different corners of our world. One thing ties them together: the pursuit of that feeling, whether it's manufactured in the desert, earned on a Fijian reef, or carved out on a Bangladeshi beach break. Keep chasing it. We'll be watching.
