Ladies Room
Aubrey Falk
Luyendyk
Loren Luyendyk
“ A Wave of Change” Surfers Without Borders
Clockwise from Left: Land of the long left, Raglan, Whaingaro. South Island riches. Beach in Oz reminds us of a simple truth.
By Nicole de Leon
Longtime surfers Loren Luyendyk and Aubrey Falk have taken the term“ power couple” and squared it. These two colorful personalities, who were married on a northern Santa Barbara mountaintop two years ago, have created quite a life for themselves, one that expands far past their immediate desires and extends into the realm of educating others.
Avoiding the consumer-driven temptations of living in Southern California, they decided to create a grassroots organization in 2008 that mimicked their personal values rather than sitting back and waiting for someone else to do so.
They started Surfers Without Borders( SWoBs) while living in a mobile home above El Capitan point. In the years following, they traveled down dusty roads in their SWoBs van to Central America, flew to New Zealand and Australia, and educated local people about their environment and provided them with strategies to preserve it.
In the next few months, they plan to travel back to New Zealand to work with the Maori community to educate them on local environmental issues. After managing to pin them down in the midst of their busy work and another January swell, here’ s what the fun-loving couple had to say.
DEEP: SWoBs just got back from Australia and New Zealand a few months ago. What were your objectives for this trip and what were some accomplishments you felt you made? SWoBs: Our main goal when we travel is always about connecting with the local people. Building good relationships is the first step and is what creates a solid foundation for any project. We encountered so many inspiring people doing amazing work in almost every place we visited and are now going to return to work with some of them.
DEEP: How would you compare New Zealand and Australia’ s environmental awareness to that of the U. S.? SWoBs: It is hard to sum up all of them because, like in the U. S., California is radically different than Missouri; the mindsets are so radically different. However there seems to be a pattern in which people who live on the coast are generally more open-minded and have a more integrated view of the world.
We will venture to say that Kiwis and Ozzies that live near the coast spend a great deal of time outdoors and integrate nature deeply into their culture. We were very impressed by the facilities offered on many of the beaches we visited there— lots of bathrooms and trash cans with recycling.
18 DEEP SURF MAGAZINE March / April 2012