The Scuttlefish

All images courtesy of of Thunderball Obsessional

Sure, he made “Never Say Never Again,” (1983), for which we can never forgive him, but without screenwriter and producer Kevin McClory (who could be credited with bringing 007 and the undersea world to the [big] screen) we might also never have seen James Bond le plongeur.

Most of us have seen the 35mm technicolor classic, but not to the degree of behind-the-scenes detail that the website Thunderball Obsessional has cultivated it. A very secretive and semi-anonymous man himself, Mr. Alan Gilbert — who does not accept requests for interviews — operates a website dedicated entirely to his favorite James Bond film where he’s compiled what is surely the most comprehensive collection of artwork, outtakes and trivia from the 1965 film.

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John John Florence, is one of the best surfers in the known universe. This is how one of the best surfers in the known universe prepares for his upcoming heats at the Quiksilver Pro in France’s heaving beachbreak.

The Quiksilver Pro should resume on Thursday, October 2, and is likely to finish on October 3 in giant Basque barrels. How can John John lose with preparation like this?

Molecules in your drinking water may be over 4.5 billion years old, a recent study published in Science Magazine reports. That means that it could only have been formed by a swirling mass of dust and and gas, which ultimately gave birth to the planets, moons, comets and asteroids.

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Russia’s STS Sedov is a 94-year-old steel-hulled barque and one of the largest Merchant Mariner training vessels in the world. A cadet at Murmansk State Technical University in Russia strapped on a GoPro and climbed one of her 58-meter (about 190 feet) masts.

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Photo: Robert Pittman, NOAA

In these modern times, people are generally considered the greatest threat to sharks, but in this remarkable video captured off Costa Rica by photograher Caroline Power and British biologist Nicholas Bach, a good sized Tiger shark becomes the hapless victim of a small pod of Orcas, aka Killer Whales. Orcas are, of course, fearsome hunters, and they have few qualms about toying with and attacking fellow cetaceans, or even Great Whites. This appears to be first video though, with a Tiger Shark victim.

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This pleasant little beach below the Grande Plage in Biarritz is near a spot that Chris Dixon, your editor in chief at The Scuttlefish, said he almost drowned at in big surf, with conditions he’d never seen change so fast. It seemed hard to believe on this day, but I believed him nonetheless. Afterwards, I wandered south to Guéthary, an old whaling and fishing village that has some great waves. In the fall, the coastal cities are less crowded, the surf can come up a bit, and everything is perfect.

I was there to see my friends Ai and Cedric. Cedric, from the mountains a few hours away, grew up learning to surf here during summers and Ai is my oldest friend in the world, who I went to montessori school with. The first night there we went to the house of Cedric’s childhood friend Marciel and grabbed some boards, ate some good food in their backyard, and I made friends despite speaking very little french. We later went to a party in the center of the village, which happened to be hawaii themed. So Cedric and I grabbed two aloha shirts from my suitcase at their apartment two doors down and fit right in.

The next day we discovered the wave Parliament, was breaking and as the tides drop drastically in the region, every wave that went by seemed to grow until they were overhead and crumbly. My brother Jonny showed up, as did Emily, Ai’s fashion design Protege, and the next few days we grabbed fresh fish, sometimes with the fish hook still in mouth, ham, cheese, wine and surfed more crispy beach break. I’ll need to go back next year for a few weeks and work on my French.

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These beautiful images represent finalists in the 2014 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, presented by London’s Natural History Museum and BBC. Fifty finalists were chosen from over 41,000 entries. Enjoy!

‘Kings into the Dark’ by Stanley Leroux

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This morning, Garrett McNamara posted up an epic photo on his WhoSay page by Portuguese journalist Pedro Agostinho Cruz with the words, “holy moly.” The photo shows the colossal shorebreak at Nazaré, Portugal in all its wicked glory.

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