Watch: Children Of Teahupoo
"In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on the island of Tahiti, lies a village that's home to one of the world's most beautiful waves - Teahupo'o. Facing mystical mountains covered in a wild and luxuriant jungle, the perfect wave of Teahupo'o wraps around the reef to create a powerful tube that attracts the best surfers on the planet.
"Photographer Tim Mckenna has been documenting this paradise for over 25 years. From Laird Hamilton's Millennium Wave to WSL competitions, the locals pushing the limits, and the upcoming Olympic Games, he has been a privileged witness to Teahupo'o.
"Alongside all the big names in surfing, he has seen the emergence of a generation of local kids who have come to tame this mythical wave. Among them are Tahurai Henry and Gilbert Teave.
"Aware of how lucky they are to have grown up in this paradise, they dedicate all their energy and heart to preserving the place and passing on their culture to future generations. They are the guardians of the temple, the heirs of the village. They are the children of Teahupo'o."
Comments
eats garbage for breakfast
I wish them luck. It's a noble cause and quite relatable in that so many of our coastal communities in Australia are having the same battles with development and growth and change...accepting that it's inevitable, but still trying so hard to protect those things about our coastline that we love dearly and cherish from the bottom of our hearts. Good luck to all our coastal warriors!
and so the same bloke who moved there to take millions of photos of the place and his willing subjects are now whingeing because it's been exposed and all that follows that...riiiiight
content content content though with a side dish of raw prawn
Take your point for sure, but it didn't strike me as whingeing all that much to be honest? And Tim does acknowledge his complicity in the scheme of things. He fell in love with the place. What was he going to do? Stay away out of some sort of altruism two decades before it got busier?
I recon we should all step back and look that we are all complicit in this and everything else, humans always looking to blame someone except us
Beautiful film, the beginning drone footage was beautiful too. No wonder Fletcher Christian and Co didn't want to leave! (Tahiti). I wonder how they will stop development, they'll be another whole lot of the community that will welcome it for many reasons. All they can really expect/hope for is that its done sustainably.
The powers that be in France have a long history of shitting over far flung regions. Look at Muroroa atoll (nuclear tests); the situation in New Caledonia.
There is an uncompromising and unapologetic nature to French colonialism that continues to this day.
Don't like Greenpeace, well let's blow up their ship in NZ then treat the bombers like heroes.
Good luck to the Teahupoō locals.
The powers that be in France have a long history of shitting on far flung regions. Look at Muroroa atoll (nuclear tests); the situation in New Caledonia.
There is an uncompromising and unapologetic nature to French colonialism that continues to this day.
Don't like Greenpeace, well let's blow up their ship in NZ then treat the bombers like heroes.
Good luck to the Teahupoō locals.
the more you wave your hands the more you wish you didnt
Whoa! Lots of politics at play here. As soon as a spot is discovered, people benefit from it, until it devours itself, as in the case of places like Bali then throughout all Indonesia and my home town waves- South Straddie and Burleigh, that I no longer visit due to the masses.
The Olympics will blow Teahupo'o onto the map more than what it already is.
As surfers, we are most guilty as we want to see the worlds best in the best waves, but hate when our little slice of heaven gets overrun.
We can only hope it is too big to surf as a contest and a demonstration of tow in from the elite is considered for the Olympic spectacle with the A/C cooled judging tower washed peacefully into the lagoon.