REM Surf

What do sea paddlers dream about? A seemingly never-ending sea kayak portage dream leads a paddler on a unique approach to Cumberland Island.

We spent about one and a half days filming the portaging shots and creating a plan that we ended up scraping in favor of something simple to match our really short timeline. I’m not sure how many miles I carried my kayak, not just for filming but to get to the location for filming. Turns out the interesting points along the trails are not nearest the road! Thankfully we were able to double carry the kayak with all the camera equipment in the cockpit. The other day we spent filming the surfing footage and then parked the vehicle to enjoy the island by foot. I included footage of b-roll of things we filmed while scouting for nice looking waves and spots.

Portaging through all the different ecosystems and textures was something that we both thought would be visually interesting as well as a bit cheeky. As a sea paddler, I’m not the most keen on actually having to portage my ‘sea canoe’, so this was sort of a nod to that. It’s a bit ironic that not long after producing this, I moved to the midwest where I’ve done very little real portaging!

This was a unique trip mostly in that we had vehicle beach access and were able to scout the 20 mile stretch for cleanest breaks. There are no river mouths or really anything to define where the surf will produce best along the flat sandy beach. Early in the morning we started driving from the almost complete southern tip of the beach and drove north for about 10 or so miles until we decided on the spot that was filmed. For as far I was concerned, these waves were about as good as the Georgia coast will produce with out a storm. At the time of the surfing being filmed, there was a light off shore breeze and the tide was ebbing.

Huge thanks to Joey for filming, schlepping, and helping it to reality!

Principal Videography: Joey Gaston | Produced by TopTurn Media