Swell Season Surf Radio

Bonnie Tsui was born in Queens, New York, and raised on Long Island. She has been a competitive swimmer, rower, climber, snowboarder, surfer, an author of multiple books and has won numerous awards and accolades. One of her more recent books, “Why We Swim” celebrates the role water has played throughout history and across the globe. It covers everything from Olympic champions, a Baghdad swim club...

In the annals of surfing history, Sandy Ordille is an extremely important figure. For not only did she participate in making it, but she has made it her life's work to document, preserve & highlight women surfers whose narratives have been long overlooked. Sandy has lived an incredibly impressive life as a pioneer and founding member of professional surfing. She was there at the inception of the I...

Patrick Conlon is your quintessential New Yorker. He’s a smart talking, street walking surfer, artist, marketer, and former owner of the legendary Epstein’s Bar in the lower east side. He’s as OG Rockaway as they get. He grew up in the 80’s on a steady diet of surfing the Rocks and sneaking into punk shows. Pat’s lived many lives. He chased his surf passion and went to university at USC, started a...

Greg Wachsteter isn’t known for his fancy surfing or contributions to the surf industry. But… Greg is one of the most disciplined surfers I know. I have frequently woken up early for many dawn patrol sessions out in Montauk, only to see Greg paddling back as the sun is just rising over the horizon, already with an hour under his belt. His quote on his Instagram is “choose to be optimistic, it feel...

In the fall of 2018, Maria Riley moved to the Rockaways and knew immediately that she had come home. Growing up, close to the Atlantic Ocean in South Carolina, Riley always felt that her soul had been fed by water. A self taught photographer, over the past three years, Riley has spent almost every day documenting beach life, water birds, city scenes and her main focus, surf photography in Rockaway...

Dylan Hronec is a 29 year old surfer from North Bellmore, New York. Born with Cerebral Palsy, Dylan has tackled many obstacles to get to where he is today. He has been surfing for almost 11 years. He developed a love for the water from a young age, but was always involved in other sports as surfing was not considered a possibility for him. That is, until Dylan went online one day and came across v...

Man in the Field: The Life and Art of Jim Denevan profiles Outstanding in the Field founder Jim Denevan, his trials of growing up in a turbulent family dynamic, and the artwork that came of it — both in his geometric land drawings and table-to-farm dinners through Outstanding in the field. Instead of bringing the food to the restaurant, Outstanding in the Field has brought the restaurant to the fo...

On this episode of Swell Season, Host, Karen sits down with the epitome of the “Aussie Battler” and 1993 ASP Women’s World Surfing Champion, Pauline Menczer. She’s one of the subjects, heroines and stars of the feature film “Girls Can’t Surf” that premiered and headlined at this year's “Women’s Surf Film Festival” in Rockaway Beach. The film features Pauline and a generation of surfers from the 80...

9/11 was twenty years ago. It’s hard for many of us to believe that, that much time has passed since that fateful day. On this episode we ask “Where were you?” It’s a question that gets asked a lot on the anniversary and we thought we would collect various recollections from that day. We first talk to firefighters, Christopher “Dorado” Gaby and Brian Walsh about that day and then we went to the 9/...

A native from Melbourne, Australia, Davina Grincevicius relocated to New York City over 12 years ago and currently resides in Rockaway Beach. Her passion for surfing, shooting film and building community inspired her to launch Women’s Surf Film Festival over 8 years ago. In that time, the festival has grown and is now a week long celebration of films, panel discussions, art shows, and much much mo...

Many of us know that surfing is an addictive sport. It’s something that pulls on us, gives immense dopamine highs and surges us with serotonin, we go through withdrawals when we go without it and become irritable to our loved one’s, It makes us avoid our daily responsibilities in order to escape the pressures of life. Our guest, Thad Ziolkowski's latest book deals with this topic.: "The Drop: How...

On this episode of Swell Season we are pleased to have in the studio Diane Cardwell, a founder of Vibe magazine and a reporter and editor for over two decades at The New York Times. She is an inaugural writer of “Portraits of Grief,” the signature profiles of those killed in the 9/11 attack and has also covered beats such as alternative energy, politics, urban development and surfing. We discuss h...

Our guests for this episode are the founders of Emocean, a surf-centric magazine that champions diverse perspectives, radical creativity, relatability and empowerment, and especially the narratives of women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ surfers. Founder and Creative Director, Thembi Hanify & Editor Mariah Ernst join hosts Tyler Breuer and Karen Song to discuss their new magazine, representation in surfing, an...

On this episode of Swell Season, our guest is a writer, journalist, author, editor, publisher, business owner and host of the 'Looking Sideways' Podcast, Matthew Barr. Matthew has been working in action sports media and communications since the mid-1990s where he was the editor of Whitelines Snowboarding Magazine until 2005, when he started his own marketing agency, All Conditions Media. He recent...

Yawn Patrol is a collection of 35 millimeter photographs mostly taken at the beach in New York City between 2018-2020. The book is a collection of images of early mornings, friendships, party waves, aging skaters, and an ocean that sometimes feels more like a lake. It's boardshorts to booties and back again. It’s creator is Hoshi Ludwig, a designer and educator currently living in Brooklyn. He’s w...

On this episode of Swell Season Surf Radio, we still down with leading aesthetic and reconstructive plastic surgeon, Dr. Joe Wolf MD. For those who are not familiar with Dr. Joe, he has become the go to surgeon of choice amongst Rockaway locals and has probably stitched up more surfers in NYC than any other surgeon in recent years. We discuss stitch stories, how he came to surfing and what to do i...

Our guest was the 2009 XXL Big Wave Paddle In Award winner, a former big wave charger and now turned photographer, Derek Dunfee. Derek is a lifelong surfer raised on the reefs of La Jolla, California, who went on to travel the world and chase swells, becoming one of the most respected big wave surfers on the planet. At present day he's reached a comfort level in heavy conditions that allows him to...

Girls Can’t Surf shares the untold story of a ragtag bunch of inspired, renegade Australian, American, and South African women surfers who battled against inequality, homophobia, and chauvinism of their fellow sportsmen, sponsors, and institutions. As the sea ebbed and flowed, so did their struggle, fortunes, and notoriety of these pioneering surfers, but nothing kept these radical women from catc...

Our guest this week is someone who has become a staple in the lineup at Rockway and has recently gained notoriety for YouTube videos of testing surfboards under Skipper Surf Reviews. His name is Yury Tsedenov and those in the Rockaway community know him well. His videos are from a more entry level surfer perspective posting instructional clips to board reviews. Sure, any board under an expert leve...

Born and raised in Old Howard Beach (located on Jamaica bay). When Jimmy Dowd was a grom, his mom took him daily down to the beach in Rockaway, where he developed his love of surfing. As soon as he was old enough to live on his own, he moved to Rockaway Beach and has been Rockaway "Surf Royalty" ever since. During the 90's he worked in multiple skate shops in Manhattan. Eventually, Jimmy started h...

Swell Season Presents: Dear Shredder Episode 2 of Dear Shredder features shaper and former substance use counselor, Jimmy O Brien. Dear Shredder is hosted by Matt L. Rohrer, a licensed psychotherapist practicing in NYC who just happens to be a skateboarder, surfer, writer & musician. Dear Shredder looks at mental health issues through a shredder’s lens and shredding issues through a mental health...

At age 16, Mike Becker started shaping boards in his parents' backyard on Long Island. In 1993 he started Nature Shapes. By 1996 he had a website and was distributing boards up and down the East Coast. Host Tyler Breuer has known Becker since the early 1990’s, when they used to compete together in the ESA competitions and surf the beaches of central Long Island together. Over the years, Becker has...

On this episode of Swell Season Surf Radio, Host Tyler Breuer is joined by contributor Toddy Stewart as they interview a personal hero for both surfers. Our guest is Mick Sowry, filmmaker, photographer, writer, and creative director for the Great Ocean Quarterly. He made the revolutionary performance project which culminated in a multi award winning documentary, Musica Surfica which was followed u...

eremy Grosvenor defines himself as a Father, Son, Partner, Sailboat Captain, water sports instructor, 'armchair' artist, and "Deliquent." But he is more akin to some mythological sea creature, an apparition on our shores. Have you seen him floating by? A shape-shifter. Perhaps in the form of an orange outrigger canoe, or some neon-colored U.F.O. (unidentified floating object). Check out "Surfing i...

Our guest on this episode of Swell Season needs no introduction. He’s done so much to elevate the NY surf community and represents us on the Big Wave World stage. Our guest tonight is Will Skudin. Will comes on the show to discuss the new public sessions opening at the American Dream Mall wave pool run by Skudin Surf. On top of all that, Will and host Tyler Breuer dive into the this past winter se...