Transworld Surf "Sipping Jetstreams" Interview with Dustin Humphrey

The Transworld Surf interview with Dustin Humphrey about his "Sipping Jetstreams" travels seems to now be unavailable in its original location.

We have therefore saved it for posterity, and reproduce it below:

Though we run dozens of his photos in every issue we print, we seldom see Dustin Humphrey. Most of our contact with him is either over sketchy, third-world phone connections, through hastily typed e-mails, or by notes attached to proof sheets stuffed into FedEx envelopes. Though he owns a home on the Indonesian island of Bali, Dustin spends approximately eight months of every year on the road-sometimes on luxury yachts touring the Indian Ocean, sometimes in dilapidated vacation rentals on islands in the Caribbean, sometimes in flats in posh areas of Rome. His lifestyle embodies the message our magazine has tried to proselytize over the past half decade, which is: Whenever possible, leave your sphere of comfort, break away from your routine, board a plane or a train or a boat or a bus, and go see the world, because there will be a day when you can't.

A couple years ago, while on a surf trip to Morocco, Dustin bonded with cinematographer Taylor Steele, and the two formulated a project that would take them to the outer ring of surf destinations-those infrequently (if ever) traveled to by surfers for reasons of consistency, comfort, and/or safety-which Taylor gave the ethereal title Sipping Jetstreams. It would be a coffee-table book and a DVD filmed completely in sixteen-millimeter chronicling their search. From Havana, Cuba to Rome, Italy, the project took them where we'd never imagined surfing, but when the finished book and film emerge this Fall, certain of those faraway outposts may just become part of the fabric that is surf travel.

We had the unfamiliar pleasure of a Dustin visit in early February, just a couple weeks after the final Sipping Jetstreams sessions went down in the fun, punchy beachbreaks of Alexandria, Egypt. Dustin was more bearded than we pictured him, and between meetings with art directors and editors, we cornered him and got him to talk about the project and travel in general, a topic on which he is unquestionably an expert.-J.P.

TWS: How's the surf in Egypt?

D.Hump: The surf in Egypt was actually really good. It was mostly a right-hander. There was a left, too, that Mike (Losness) was doing his best on, but it was mostly this right-hand peak. I don't really like surfing rights, but Taylor was jealous that he was behind the camera and not out there surfing, that's how fun it was. Guys were actually getting barreled and doing big airs, and there were plenty of turn sections. If Taylor's getting jealous, it must be pretty good.

TWS: Compare Egyptian surf to something Americans would know.

D.Hump: I'd say it was like a good California beachbreak peak on a good day … on a really good day.

TWS: And where exactly were you in Egypt?

D.Hump: We traveled all around, but we surfed in Alexandria.

TWS: How'd you get there?

D.Hump: We were based in Italy because we wanted to try to score different Mediterranean surf spots. So we flew to North Africa, but the swell didn't hit. So we checked the Internet, and we saw that there might be a slight chance for waves in Egypt, so we thought, "Let's just do it." We drove an hour to the airport, bought the tickets, drove back to our hotel, grabbed our gear, and got on a plane. (In Cairo,) we hired a bus to drive us down to the coast. We drove through the night and got there in the early morning, and we just started searching the coast until we found that little peak. It was fun for two days. The first day was a little windy, but the next day was light offshore (winds) for a while. The crew was good, too. The waves really suited Alex Grey and Yadin Nichol. They were just having a blast out there.

TWS: Go through the itinerary for Sipping.

D.Hump: We started in Morocco in February 2004. We did Bali in May, and then we did nothing more that year. We did the Lesser Antilles in February of 2005, then we went to Cuba right after that. In the fall, we did the final legs of the trip-Japan, Hong Kong, Italy, and finally Egypt. Eight destinations.

TWS: What's the idea behind Sipping Jetstreams?

D.Hump: Sipping is going to be a film and a coffee-table book, but more than anything, I think Sipping Jetstreams is an idea. It's a state of mind. It's the idea of going to a place and not just surfing, but really appreciating what's there, meeting the local people, and just breathing everything in. It's about getting the whole travel experience, not just sitting in the hotel watching HBO or playing on your laptop or GameBoy. It's about getting out and walking the streets and drinking tea with local people or smoking a hookah. Going for a camel ride and seeing the pyramids. It's about learning and experiencing and just soaking it all in.

TWS: So you guys are trying to do something different than traditional "surf porn"?

D.Hump: We wanted to make a film and a book that focus on destinations rather than surfers. Taylor got tired of following the standard Mentawais-to-Snapper-Rocks pro-surfer travel trail. When we were in Morocco a couple years ago, we realized we were on the same page-where I wanted to take my photography and where he wanted to take his filmmaking. We wanted to get off the beaten track as much as possible and really document places in an artistic way-still shoot surf, but shoot more than surf, you know? We would like to try to inspire the world to get out of their bubbles and see and feel all kinds of different experiences.

TWS: The places you've gone-Hong Kong, Cuba-they're not exactly on the first page of the "where to go in the surf world" book. Are these novelty surf spots, or are they legit?

D.Hump: They're totally novelty surf spots, but there's legit surf in these places. We got fun waves in Hong Kong, great waves in Italy, and pretty great waves in Egypt, too. By California standards, they were really great waves. Egypt isn't the Mentawais, but there's so much more to experience than just the beach. And that's what Sipping's about. We wanted to show people that you can have a great time doing these different kinds of trips.

TWS: Which locations surprised you the most?

D.Hump: As far as surf goes, Egypt, without a doubt. Our ultimate goal was to score Egypt. We'd heard of one person surfing there, and I had seen the photos. It was one-foot wind slop, and from what we'd heard, it was nearly impossible to get good waves there. The fact that we got such good surf there-when we got back to Italy, we decided the travel part of the project was finished.

TWS: Were there any other surfers in Alexandria?

D.Hump: No. We actually did meet an Egyptian who owned a surfboard. He had just come back from school in Santa Cruz. But no, there's not a surf scene there, so to speak. We just drove up and down that stretch of the coast, found this peak, and surfed it.

TWS: Travel is fraught with pitfalls. What's gone wrong in the process of making Sipping?

D.Hump: I don't know whose quote this is, but I've always lived by it: "Hardships are the essence of a traveler's tale." When you hit a guy with a bus in the middle of the night in Egypt, and you see a dead guy laying on the side of the road, and you think you just killed someone, that's hard. Later we found out that we didn't actually hit him, we had just hit his bike. Somebody else had hit him.

Getting camera gear through customs is really hard. Getting surfboards through customs is really hard. Especially going to places like Egypt, where they've never seen anything like that-white guys with these big board bags. Overnight flights, moving all the time-it's hard, but it's all part of it. And you look back on it, and those end up being the great memories, the great stories, and the profound learning experiences. What doesn't kill you makes you a stronger person, right?

TWS: What's gone right?

D.Hump: As far as waves go, we got lucky almost everywhere we went. We got skunked a couple times-I mentioned North Africa, and we went to China and didn't get much surf there, but we will be going back. We started the whole project in Morocco at this spot no one had ever surfed before. We were with (Shane) Dorian and (Dan) Malloy, and that trip set the tone for the whole project. Then we went to Bali with Andy and Bruce (Irons) and a helicopter, and we found some new waves. These trips weren't just about getting great waves, they were about breaking out of the model of standard surf travel. We wanted to get back to the spirit of (Greg) MacGillivray, Craig Peterson, and Kevin Naughton, but in a more contemporary fashion.

In the Caribbean, we shot Kelly's all-time best sessions ever. That was amazing, and that was something that went both wrong and right. We were in Tortola, and Kelly calls up and says, "You need to get over to where I'm at right now." I had just flown all the way from Indonesia to Tortola-which took 48 hours of travel time-and we were like, "We're in Tortola, why don't you come here?" It was a nightmare to get to where he was, but we went and it paid off. It was a lot of work. A lot of island-hopping and another 24 hours of travel, but now I'm looking back on it, and it's a great memory.

TWS: Were there places you wanted to go but couldn't?

D.Hump: No. There are still several destinations on our list of places to go, and we will get to them all. But after a session with Tim Curran in Southern Italy, Taylor and I were sitting down at a beachside cafe having a couple beers, and we decided we had enough good footage and photos to wrap up the project. The places we have yet to go to will be for the next Sipping Jetstreams project, which will start next year.

TWS: What spot was your personal favorite?

D.Hump: The place I always wanted to go to was Cuba. I've used it for passwords for e-mail accounts or whatever-it's somewhere I've always wanted to go. Cuba has that "you're not supposed to do that" kind of element to it. When we got there, it was like I'd imagined-old cars and music on the street. It was like going back in time. Beautiful women, beautiful music, and these beautiful old Chevys. And then just to have Ozzie Wright there was perfect. The waves weren't great-it was a dumpy beachbreak-but the water was pretty, and Ozzie can do an air in anything. He just kinda fit; he kinda fits everywhere. He skated around the streets of Havana, which made for great photos. I'm inclined towards challenge and risk, and I'm willing to sacrifice some degree of safety for the sake of great stories, great photos, and finding waves. A little danger doesn't bother me.

TWS: You and Taylor travel a lot together. What annoys you about him, and what do you think annoys him about you?

D.Hump: I don't know what Taylor would say. I'm sure there're a few things that annoy him about me. But there's not a lot that annoys me about Taylor. He's such an easygoing guy, and I think he was raised in such a mellow atmosphere-his parents surf, and he's so mellow, it's hard to get annoyed. I think that's why we work well together. Where I'm intense, he's mellow, and we balance each other.

I guess if there was one thing that annoys me, it's that it can be hard to get him to talk unless you get some beers in him. Taylor is my best friend, and he's my mentor in life and business, and when I get a few beers in him, he's my mentor in the creative realm, too.

TWS: When will be Sipping be released?

D.Hump: October 1, 2006-book and movie at the same time. We're making a thousand box sets that will come with the book, the DVD, a signed print, and the soundtrack in this really nice box. And then everything will be sold separately after that.

TWS: The United States isn't the most beloved country on Earth right now. How do people in far-off lands react to you as an American traveling in the Muslim world?

D.Hump: For Sipping, we traveled to four major Muslim countries: Indonesia, Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt. We never had any problems with any Muslim person the whole time. I wouldn't say we never ran into anti-American sentiment, but it wasn't directed at individual Americans. They just wanted to talk about our government, and why they're doing what they are. People shouldn't believe what CNN tells them every day, because it's my opinion that the American media is just selling fear.

TWS: So they can tell the difference between America and Americans.

D.Hump: Exactly. They're more pissed off at the American government. They are also more up to speed on what this whole thing's about. I'm not anti-American-I love America-but almost everywhere we went, people didn't like America. We were in the Caribbean, and those people don't like America either. But we never ran into any problems. Egypt was probably the most vibey place, and there were a couple times when we told people we were Canadian because we didn't want to get into long conversations or arguments about it. But never any hostility, never. The idea that Americans aren't safe in the Muslim world is mostly a big misconception, in my opinion.

TWS: Have you become desensitized to travel? Has it gotten to a point where you need to go to crazy places to enjoy traveling?

D.Hump: I really like to go new places. I live in Indonesia, and I travel that whole archipelago all the time. I was in Timor when the war was going on there. I was up to North Sumatra during the aftermath of the tsunami, too. Some of those places are pretty crazy and have amazing cultural aspects as well as some of the best waves in the world. So, yeah, maybe I have been desensitized a little bit. When I pick a location to travel to and work in outside of Indonesia, I need it to offer more than just perfect surf. But it doesn't have to be scary. Venice (Italy) was a huge thrill for me. Seeing and shooting the canals and gondolas was a personal highlight for me.

TWS: So where do you have left to go?

D.Hump: There are so many places, I couldn't even begin to tell you.

TWS: What's the one place that you still have left to go? It doesn't have to be surf-related.

D.Hump: If I told you, then someone else would go. But as far as non-surf places go, I would say Tibet. I was actually supposed to go there for my honeymoon, and I skipped it to go do that Panaitan Island trip (the article "The Battle Of Panaitan Island" appeared in our September 2005 issue) and try to save that World Heritage Site from the people trying to destroy it. My wife actually met me in Venice, and we spent some time there and just hung out. We rode gondolas, ate pizza, and listened to a guy play guitar next to the pigeon fountain. It was nice-that was the make-up. Yeah, definitely Tibet, Cambodia, and most of Southeast Asia. I'm dying to go to sub-Saharan Africa, too. And shooting other things besides surfing-portraits and landscapes, people and places.

TWS: What's the secret of travel?

D.Hump: Valium. No, just kidding. I'd say you want to understand the difference between "travel" and "vacation." Vacation means escape and travel means learning and adventure. That's the key. And you gotta make a choice: do you want to vacation or travel? You have to search for those things, and you've gotta be willing to put up with the hardships and the overnight travel and the lack of sleep sometimes, and really open your eyes to everything that's out there, and really appreciate it. It's funny, last week we were in Singapore trying to find a printer, and it happened to be Chinese New Year, so me and Taylor and our wives were hanging out in China Town. We had this stamp made with the Chinese translation for "sipping jetstreams." It took like 30 minutes for Taylor to explain the meaning of each word, and it ended up being "sipping" was like sipping tea, which also means "to appreciate," "jet" was like a jet plane, and "streams" translated like a river, but it also means "to flow." When you translated it from English into Chinese and then back into English, it ended up saying "Appreciating the flow of travel." I thought that was kind of ironic.