Sean Doherty Release Date: 15 February 2010 Format: Paperback Pages: 240 Publisher: Independent Pubs ISBN: 9780646526263
Watching Joel Parkinson surf is to know that all is still
good with the world. But while the Coolangatta surfer's
syrupy, sublime talent has taken him to the world's
dreamiest waves, it's the guy's laidback groove that's
seen his friends in each of these locations, over the
years, become family. The Hawaiians have a word for it -
hanai - an outside child taken in and looked after as one
of their own. In Hawaii and Tahiti, Jeffreys Bay and
Angourie, Parko's bonds to his adoptive families and the
places they call home have been made strong by all-time
waves, clownish misadventures, stories around the
campfire a thousand miles from home. Told with the help
of the surfing's most colourful raconteurs and it's
finest photographers, Joel's story is as much about the
places and people in his life as it is about Joel
himself. As Joel says, "It's a book about me that's not
all about me."