First signs of new swell: Way of the Ocean is an Australian surfing documentary looking at “wave riding in the current state of our oceans,” featuring riders Kelly Slater, Asher Pacey, C.J. Hobgood, Ry Craike, Dane Reynolds, Josh Kerr, and others.

“Sometimes when there is a fresh new swell you can almost feel it first thing in the morning. There seems to be more salt in the air and more energy in the crisp off shore breeze. The feeling of walking up to get your first glimpse of the newly stacked corduroy lines is like having a 2nd cup of coffee,” Way of the Ocean blog.

Produced by Circulate Motion Pictures

A man’s struggle to find his birthright: Californian Michael Mitchell–a spinal cord survivor from a teenage surfing accident–displays a daily ritual of independence and his desire to be “free,” “fluid,” “natural,” and more like his “God-given self”…

Produced by Sean Mullens

Sheriffs of surfing’s wild west: For generations, the lifeguards of Oahu’s North Shore have pioneered a selfless spirit of helping others in need. This short film “traces the rich history of lifeguarding, going back to the legendary Duke Kahanamoku and Eddie Aikau,” in addition to profiling the modern day Pipeline, where highly skilled lifeguards protect surfers from the ocean’s unpredictable and bruising swell.

Produced by Team Explore

Jersey Bros: A Surfing Life and the South Jersey Stoke: is documentary detailing the unheralded surfers and passed over locales of the Garden State. Filmmaker David McCarty writes, “It’s not about sick rides, gnarly tubes, and 40 foot walls of water. It’s about passion. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about the stoke. But mostly, it’s about surfers, in all their flawed humanity.”

Production by Hopping Frog Studios

Rum Cay, Bahamas: Is there a good reason to hook bull sharks from a standup paddleboard? Ron Jon team rider Mikey DeTemple and friends try to answer this question with cut bait and beers.

Produced by RonJonsSurf

In 2006 two professional kayakers–Montana’s Seth Warren and Tyler Bradt–decided to travel (and paddle) more than 21,000 miles (Alaska to Argentina) in a red Toyota firetruck (“Baby”) which was retrofitted to run on vegetable oil. The highly regarded film Oil + Water documented their environmental activism and adventure.

Recently, Seth Warren has been touring the country promoting his second film, Nature Propelled, which he describes to Planet Green as film that “shows how different sports are connected through the life cycle of water…”

Produced by Nicholas Franczyk

Five professional surfers–Yassine Ouhilal, Pat Millin, Christian Wach, Matt Whitehead, and James Nestor–travel to northwestern Norway’s Lofoten Islands to brave the 30-to-40 degree surf in search of solitude and “undiscovered breaks.”

“A week later, Lofoten’s moody and wind-torn waters are transformed into ceramic smoothness as a new southern swell lights up the coast with dozens of waves, some pushing nine to ten feet on the face. Lofoten has finally granted us a peek at Norway’s true surf potential. It’s fickle, all right, but when it’s on, it’s like surfing nowhere else on earth,” reports surfer and writer James Nestor of Outside.

Produced by Yassine Ouhilal

photo credit: Todd Binger

Winter surfing is not for everyone, in fact, it’s probably to be avoided by 99% of humans on the planet…

Here are a few options for the remaining 1% who enjoy dry suits, hypothermic waters, damp air and miserable wind, wind burn, and maybe some decent swell.

Lake Michigan:

“‘Obviously, most people think we’re crazy to be out here,’ said Ryan Gerard, who owns the popular Third Coast Surf Shop in New Buffalo, Mich. ‘Your average Great Lakes surfer is a little tougher than your average coastal surfer,’” writes Joel Hood of the Chicago Tribune.

Lake Superior:

“Surfing in a snowstorm may sound like a direct route toward hypothermia or certain death. But on Lake Superior, where surfers ride all months of the year, thick wet suits, gloves, hoods, booties and petroleum jelly smudged on exposed skin all form a protective shell against the crushing cold encountered by wave catchers in what is one of the world’s most unlikely surfing scenes,” writes Stephen Regenold of The New York Times.

Bundoran, Ireland:

“‘You’re not going to get some Irish kid walking around talking about ‘dude’ and ‘man,’’ said Richie Fitzgerald, 33, one of Ireland’s best-known surfers and the owner of a local surf shop. ‘We don’t have that surf-bum, hang-around culture. If you come here in February, you’re going to get pelted by hailstorms, and the only chick you’re going to see is a seagull,’” writes Sarah Lyall of The New York Times.

The Baltic Sea:

The beachbreak at Torö, Sweden (12 miles south of Stockholm on the Baltic Sea) has been a popular surf spot for more than 20 years. Jan Ekstedt was the first to surf Sweden in 1982, and later founded the Swedish Surfing Association.

Winter Project is a short film by Adam Falk documenting an unnamed surfer and this unassuming archipelago: