Explore the unlikely capital of American surfing: Florida | NO CONTEST OFF TOUR

I'm Caroline Marks and this is No Contest Florida. While Florida isn't known as an international surf destination, since the 1960s the state has produced hundreds and hundreds of world-class surfers, photographers, filmmakers, shapers, and board builders who are all relentlessly driven to surf regardless of conditions. That hunger has helped shape more world champions and win more world titles than anywhere else in the world. All the world champions from Florida, obviously Kelly Slater's number one, Lisa Anderson, CJ Hopgood, Frida Zamba, Justin Quintal, myself. Maybe there's something in the water, something the food over here just produces good athletes. So why has Florida produced such a ridiculous amount of talent? Surf star Floridians are more than willing to chase waves often hundreds of miles each swell and to grovel in conditions that most surfers in places like Australia and Southern California would scoff at. The passion on the east coast is still so much further appreciated than around the world. We didn't grow up with the best waves but we also grew up with waves that were pretty hard like quick little beach breaks you had to be like really quick on your feet. When the waves are good it's mediocre at best. Every spot's got its day you know. If we get a day with good waves I'm surfing until I cannot move. Most people from here want to surf real waves when they get to go on a trip. You have to be willing to drive, I am willing to drive. I see waves, surf waves. I'm gonna see it, it kind of pushes us more to be able to experience what it's like riding actual real waves. If you can surf good here in crappy waves you can surf really good in good waves. I grew up in Florida, every wave was fun. Yeah. The waves look really fun, first time surfing sunglow ever. What I miss the most about Florida I think just all like the memories and like growing up here and just surfing with my brothers all day was a lot of fun. You riding a fish? I don't own a shoreboard, I live in Florida. How did you get here? Where am I? Why is everyone on my spot? Oh get out of here. How fun does it look? It's really fun. You going out? Yeah we're out. Okay. First time back to Florida since winning the gold medal. It's one of my first times back all year so it's really fun to come back and see friends and family, show everyone the gold medal, surfing my brothers and friends and nothing but a good time. The coastline of Florida is almost twice the length of California. Today Caroline lives on the northern tip of the Space Coast near Ponce Inlet in New Smyrna but she grew up on the southern end at one of the most important surf spots in history, Sebastian Inlet. You know as a kid like we'd come around the corner and you're like heart would start racing. Yeah. You're like oh you get first peak of the wave, you drive over the bridge. You could sit on the jetty and watch all the best surfers in the world. You know it would be like Kelly and Matt Keckley just sit there like just dumbstruck. Yeah. Watching first peak. The freak wedge created at Sebastian Inlet in the 1960s was the most important wave on the east coast for 40 years and shaped some of the world's most influential surfers. Mike Tabling, 1974 pipe master Jeff Crawford, the inventor of the air reverse John Holman, the pioneer of epoxy and EPS surfboard construction Greg Lohr, Bill Hartley and Matt Keckley, two surfers who made maybe the biggest impression on a pre-teen Kelly Slater and no one documented Sebastian Inlet more thoroughly than Tom Dugan, co-founder of Eastern Surf Magazine. Dugan, good to see you. It's been a while. Yeah. How are things? Oh good. Nice. With Sebastian Inlet as their skate park studio, Dugan, Dick Mesereau and their fleet of ESM photographers captured some of progressive surfing's most revolutionary moments. The birthplace of modern high-performance aerial surfing as well as the gromhood rise of Florida's most recent world champ. How old were you guys when you first met? She was very very young and they would just watch her progress and progress. I remember I used to do surf camp here and like just stay here all day like wear my wetsuit all day and like I could not get enough like I was so addicted to it. This wave definitely shaped your back end now that I think about it. For sure. Like you're tight in the pocket surfing it's like full inlet. You're right at the top of the peak drop in full on backside snap off the top right then after that that turn I said she's gonna be a world champ you know it was really really cool to see. To me like getting a shot in the magazine was like so huge. I remember Luke got the cover at Eastern Surf Magazine and I just remember being like oh my brother did that I gotta do it now it's like that was a big goal of mine. A lot of people I grew up watching surf out here were all on the cover at Eastern Surf Mag so it's just like it's the coolest thing ever to me. Lisa was probably like my biggest inspiration. I mean she she still is you know Lisa is like such a legend Frida Zamba. Back in the day there was quite an east and west thing going on and I think that now has disappeared because they finally realized like well there's pretty good surfers over there on the east coast. You know we have more world championships than anywhere in the world. Hello. What's like your most memorable photo you've ever taken out here? Well the one that first comes to mind is obviously the one of Kelly Slater's that they made the statue out of. It was cut back he was doing a Sebastian Inlet. The famous Kelly shot I just feel like that's like the most iconic shot ever. They made a miniature out of your from your photo. That was my payment for for letting them use the photo. This one here of Kelly Slater was a little kid at Lighthouse in Hatteras and then Surfer Magazine when I was working for them they wanted Lisa Anidis to come down and get some photos of her surfing basically in the home state of Florida and I ended up getting a cover for her. I feel like that Kelly Slash that they made the statue into and that shot of Lisa are the most iconic photos of the 90s of the east coast for sure. Well thank you for doing this Dugan man it was so cool to be able to talk to you about that period. It's great seeing Caroline again too it's been a while. Yeah it's been a while. Here in Florida there's like a lot of variety of things to do. First stop get breakfast at Surfinista. It's one of my favorite cafes in town. Dugan photo. Then head over to Catalyst which is like right down the road. Wow I can spend hours in here. Go see Mike Riola get yourself a nice mayhem or whatever board of your choice. Yeah I'd say for Florida you want a little bit more foam. Foam is your friend it's all like wide in the nose and the board is really short so you can just like fit in the pocket get a lot of speed through the flat spots. A little five three round nose fish. I'll be copying my brother. Monkey see monkey do. That's what I did my whole life. Oh that looks so good. Let's do it. Thank you Matt Violas and Mike Riola. Thank you both. Go for a surf and then head over to Ronjon to check out the surf museum. Wow this is sick right here. And then you can go over to like the Florida Kennedy Space Center which is so cool and just learn about NASA and spaceships and all these things. It's so big that's crazy. Tons of riding in Florida and nothing but fun. Falcon 90 resupplying the International Space Station and they launch these like three or four times a week. On the northern edge of the space coast this is today's east coast high performance hub the talent rich surf communities of New Smyrna and Pond Sinlit. For visitors these are the two most consistent waves maybe on the entire east coast and no one knows these waterways better than Daniel Glenn. Daniel and his brother Matt are probably two of the best surfers to ever come from here. That's what's cool about New Smyrna there's a big community of surfers and you go surfing on any given day there's 200 people in the water it's crazy. There's a number of surf spots a bunch of piers and jetties. We have the inlet here New Smyrna Ponds it's just good you know there's a lot of like hungry surfers here everybody loves surfing everybody's into it. Good old American day we're back. I wonder how it's going to be out here today. How did you get your force going out in that shop and paddling into sharks and jellyfish and brothers that didn't really care about you. Yeah it's true it's true. I want to see you ride that fish. I know. Let's go surf. So you have to duck down about 200 waves to get out but it's fun. This is Ponds Inlet world famous pretty the most consistent place you can be. Ponds is like it's more organized there's not as much current in Smyrna it's kind of like peakier you know there's like just established peaks kind of where Smyrna is just kind of sometimes a free-for-all there's a lot of it's pretty shifty a lot of current you know a lot less current easy to get out jetty pulls you out where Smyrna usually tries to suck you into the inlet. It's a really nice mellowed down-to-earth place and we all call it home now and and we all kind of like congregated here because of the attraction. Yeah this. Starving to surf. Sea wave, surf wave. I'm gonna see it I'm gonna go out. Kind of like so random that when you get a phone with it's like really rewarding it's like kind of hard to get a good one you know it's just cool because there's nobody else. Tarpon just rolling through the lineup by the dozens. Yeah. I thought it was a shark. It's got there had to be multiple sharks. Thanks for getting us out here. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. Oh that's fun. That's all. Thanks for surfing with me. What an epic homecoming. It would have been uh me and the tarpon out there if it wasn't for you guys so thank you. Just you and Luke. We're heading down the beach right now one of the unique things about Florida is around New Smyrna and Ponds Inlet you can drive for about 17 miles on white sand beaches and we're about to head to New Smyrna Inlet to meet up with Eric Geiselman the foil lord of New Smyrna. I feel like you are single-handedly converting everyone to foiling. New Smyrna is a classic small Florida town and Eric and Caroline recommend a few favorite locally owned institutions that support the local surf community. If you ever make it this way to New Smyrna if you got to come hit up my dad's shop. Order a surfboard. He doesn't even foil so it's so funny trying to say what I want put it through his hands and then that pops out. Check out the local shops. Red Dog buy you some foo wax. They're the only guys that got the sticky icky. So after a long day surfing one of my favorite things to do here in Florida is getting a nice cocktail and watching the sunset over at Beachside Tavern. Nothing better than surfing all day and then having a cocktail and watching a beautiful sunset. My favorite restaurant is New Smyrna Beach, DeKind Pokey. I'm going to get one of his Two Pats Island Bowls. He's a legendary surf photographer and character from around the country. Two Pats got a special pokey sauce there and it's really yummy. Go to Clancy's Cantina get a margarita. I didn't realize you had your world title card here. I know. Clancy's is where I threw my world title party so a lot of good memories. To our gold medalist and to the Marks family. Across I-4 past Florida's fabled theme parks an hour south of where Shay and Corey grew up in Indian Rocks Beach is my hometown of Nokomis, Florida and the Venice Inlets north and south jetty. The gulf's most consistent year-round waves. So this is home sweet home. My dad moved down here in the 80s and was part of this like cool little surf community that sort of all settled down here and had families. So you have these little barrier islands they're basically just big sand bars. It's so beautiful down here you understand why people are willing to risk you know their house getting washed away. I always tell people that if there was waves here I would have never left. Welcome to North Jetty. We're on the north side of the Venice Inlet. This is my home break. This is where I'm a local. This is an average day on the gulf coast like languid dead pan flat. We would sit and we would mind surf the little shore break. You know growing up in a place where there's not waves the old saying hunger is the best sauce definitely rings true. If you grew up on the gulf coast you were hungry to travel, you were hungry to work, you were hungry to like make ---- happen. During the winter we get cold fronts that come across the gulf and give us north wind swells and that's when we're surfing south jetty. During the summer and the early fall it's hurricane season and storms come up out of the caribbean and into the gulf and this is the probably the premier wave on the gulf coast north jetty. There'll be a perfect little a-frame wedge that pinwheels off the jetty and goes for a couple hundred yards. Waiting for waves that were on their way from a late season tropical system I wanted to meet up with a few of the Sarasota surf scenes most important characters. What up Jakey? How are you doing my friend? Nice to be home. Welcome home brother. If you're a surfer on the gulf coast can you explain like how you have to be multifaceted? Yeah to stay sane you certainly have to like as you know like traveling was a big part of surf culture here you have to travel. Even for myself like growing up like we always skated and we're into music and stuff like that and I grew up fly fishing and stuff so just the community that's built around those disciplines I feel like it's like all sort of creates like this little nucleus of people that are doing stuff together all the time. And you have to have that passion for other stuff I mean I would go sane if I didn't have a hobby that I loved that I could do here. Sick Grom shirts. This is the Smetts family their like original family house. We're getting here about a month after two massive hurricanes came through. Well there's Bobby right there. This is Bobby Smetts shaper surfer and founder of Zapp Skimboards the largest skimboard factory in the world. Was this the the gnarliest storm that you've ever lived through? Absolutely. And what was it like here? Sand about up to here yeah all the way across the street the water went in the house. This is like the water line. What's it like running a family business on the gulf coast when people like how do people live with hurricanes you know? We kind of grew roots here so this is where we are. It's crazy these are all slides from when we were tiny little kids got washed out during the hurricane just sitting out here in the front yard. Over the years Bobby has kept a healthy population of the local surfers employed building boards at the local factory. You know there's like a surf industry here was Juan and me and I think that was it. I was gonna say it's Juan and you. Yeah. So we're heading in to see the guru of the Silver Fox Juan Rodriguez. This is One World Surf Designs. How you doing man? It's been like forever. You've been here before. I've been here before. I know. I remember waking up in the morning so excited for my dad to drive me up here to drop me off to do ding a pair and to sit and watch you shape boards and to hear stories and to see which boards came in for you to restore. So I don't feel like I really appreciated at the time being growing up and seeing all your fins but having traveled the world and seen every surfboard factory you have to have the most authoritative collection of fin templates on the planet. Who would have more? I don't know if there's another fool out there. Now I have way over 400 fin templates. I was making a lot of fins for all the old guys Donald Takeyama, Hobie, Arbor, Weber, Greek, Gordy, Bing, Jacobs. I've made fins for Wayne Lynch, for Phil Edwards, Simon Anderson, Mick Fanning, Jerry Lopez. I've always been kind of into surfboard fins. When I was young you see a car driving down the road with surfboards stacked on the roof and you could look at the fins and kind of tell where these guys lived because Hobie had a certain shape fin. Surfboards Hawaii had a certain shape fin. Jacobs had a certain shape fin. Okay this fin I got it. It's like a car year model that if someone like you didn't capture this people would never understand the difference or the granular details. I'm from the Gulf of Mexico making fins for the best surfers in the world. Hey Ashton listen man it's been good seeing you again. It's been years. I owe this guy everything right here from day one and where's the first person I ever saw surf a wave and he's done that for a lot of people it's like shown them the path to real true surfing. Caroline and I are so lucky to have been shaped by this state and the dedicated diehard surf communities all along the Florida peninsula. Doesn't it look awesome? As tight-knit as ever Florida will continue to produce radical talent and I'm excited to see the next generation ready to pick up the flag and carry it proudly. Thanks for watching No Contest Florida.