Watch: Place Of Thorns: The Story Of Puerto Escondido
'Post early and post often' is the credo of the online entrepreneur.
Get people's attention even if you don't have much to say. Push your brand, like and subscribe, build your reach via thousands of trivial posts.
The crew at Now Now Media - Alan Van Gysen and Will Bendix - have turned that philosophy on its head. Rather than creating much artless content, they're slowing the process and creating movies, fewer in number, but well-crafted.
Their first major film was 'Mirage: The Ever-Changing Story Of Skeleton Bay' - now with 1 million views on YouTube - followed up by 'Chasing The Unicorn: A Mozambican Surf Story' - 423K views. This week they released 'Place Of Thorns: The Story Of Puerto Escondido'.
Part historical document, part environmental call to arms, part surf science lesson, the film packs a lot into its forty minutes running time. Prior to Puerto Escondid's discovery, Petacalco was mainland Mexico's prized big wave spot but the rise and demise of Peta lends a backdrop to the pressures now felt by Puerto.
Storylines aside, the surf footage, especially the water footage, is top of class. Most has been seen before, but they've cherry-picked the absolute best.
Credit also for trying to explain why Puerto breaks the way it does.
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Comments
Thanks for publishing Stu, insightful informative visual with the storyline. This place has always inspired me, those huge barreling waves so close to the shore. Just awsome! But the place is wanting for better infrastructure. Interestingly, humans swarm to the place like ants, but unlike ants, they spoil and threaten the essence of sustainability and established local habitats. Enjoyed it, cheers
Wow that was good Stu and interesting not surprised its changed so much from 1987 when I was there wonder if its safer, military used to patrol the beach in those days.
Excellent, 10/10 , great music . Another place put on the map by surfers, money & greed moves in, place is not so much the paradise it used to be, now where have I seen that before? Hopefully the locals can fix it, might not get back to where it once was but maybe slow the development up a notch & not let it get totally out of control. Great post, cheers.
at 24:59, someone is about to pay
So surfers popularise these incredible spots all over the planet. But we know surfers respect the environment, the local cultures, the vibe, wanting to minimise any footprint damage. So who is wrecking these places?
Yeah right
Surfers
Wow, one of the best surf docos I've seen in a long, long time. The footage, the people and interviews, the music, the background sounds (the surf itself) - everything. Well done to all involved and thanks for sharing it.
Amazing doco. Well done AVG and WB.
Every competent (and fit) surfer to give it a crack once in their lifetime, and experience the 2 wave hold down and 10 metre impossible swim to the beach that Puerto will deliver.
Great film. Unfortunately, the story of growth ruining the very thing it was built around is way too common. But happy to see the dedication and optimism of the community to protect it.
Also didn't realize that it used to break further out. I thought it was always a monster shore break
In the 70's Petacalco was THE spot. Better wave with an outside reef that could hold 20-30ft if you were brave enough. Puerto was consider meh, mostly closeouts. Most guys were surfing the left point there. Then they built break water in Lazaro Cardenas north of Peta which messed the sand flow and then a hurricane Madeline in 76 completely F'd it up. Hasn't been the same since.
Really good doco, and you can see how heavy the wave is.
Geez ya need some big balls/ovaries out there.
Sad regarding development, seems to happen everywhere surfers go, Bali is kind of same situation with development, but nothing new there.
From what i see on clips etc, Siargo is going down similar route, was there in 99 and quiet as.
What's amazing to me is how rare waves like this are. There's another beach just to the south that presumably is nothing like Zicatela. There really is no beach break in the world that even gets close for how big, how intense, how close to the beach and how often it breaks.
It makes no sense to me, Spud.
Good on the filmmakers for attempting to explain why it breaks as it does but it feels like there's more questions than answers.
For one, the canyon they mention, it doesn't even lie in the path of arriving south-southwest swells - see image below. It's slightly to the north.
So perhaps the setup is somewhat similar to Nazare - another place where the near-shore canyon doesn't lie in the path of swells - where the sheer difference in depth is enough to change direction of swells and have them interfere with other uneffected swells, vastly increasing the height as the swells have combined?
But then PE doesn't appear to cross up and wedge like Nazare does? Or perhaps it does yet in a more subtle way..?
Also, a closer scan on Navionices shows an underwater peak of sorts straight offshore from where surfers takeoff - see image below, the blue sausage-shaped area. Is this seamount akin to the one off Mavericks, where deepwater swells are focussed toward shallower water?
Would love to have a real oceanographer explain how and why.
Yes explanations please.
This place ,Pasquales and the wedge have way more questions than answers ?????
That was so good.
“where the sheer difference in depth is enough to change direction of swells and have them interfere with other uneffected swells, vastly increasing the height as the swells have combined?“
I reckon this is what is happening. From my one day at Nazare it certainly looked like this, kinda felt like it was as simple as a pinball phenomenon happening underwater, combined with some steering
awesome doco, some heavy wipeouts in that vid,
great doco!!! memories of the 70s. that submarine canyon straight offshore explains a lot, sort of like Blacks Beach in San Diego on steroids.