The Search 01

We spend most of the trip finding hidden little features in mangroves. Nice ledges to slide and a 12-foot heavy impact drop for breakfast… it’s perfect.

That is photographer Ted Grambeau explaining how, just a few weeks ago, he found himself standing on a remote African coastline, shivering as the sun rose and the fog lingered, camera in hand.

On the Search with South American slab hunters Bruno Santos and Guillermo Satt.

"Pssst Mick, check this out… I’ve got this wave and I really want you to surf it with us."

They’ve been heading north for four days now in this remote and vast landscape of nothingness, and this is just the beginning. This is, The Search.

Unexpected. Distant. Isolated. Unknown. There are a million different ways to describe this trip, but perhaps the most fitting is to say that it was unlike anything else.

With each era our passion has known, people have pushed the limits of exploration and innovation to new boundaries. Like a snowball thrown over the ledge before a cliff drop, they laid the paths to our Search and sent us in new directions.

Undulating plains of dust, plateaus dominated by single agave species, and mountainous slopes punctuated with the bizarre, Dr Suess type cirio trees, creating a truly alien impression.

As the Rip Curl crew found out in Chile, it’s not just about riding down a mountain. It’s about the journey as a whole.

For the snowboarder that travels, there is no debate – the European Alps are at the top of the destination bucket list.

10 epic locations, 11 unique editors, and the world’s best surfers: Somewhere is the compilation of many hands making The Search.

We’re talking unfathomable quantities and layers, going deeper and deeper, constantly growing, covering bits and pieces of the country. We’re talking about snow – or as the Japanese call it, “Yuki”.