the coastline sentinel June 21, 2026 Fiction, Travel and Adventure from Lombok to Vladivostok

year 1, issue 1 CathaySeas.com

Surfers become SAR professionnals ilent celebrities deserve big noise. After the tsunami of December 2004, and the earthquake of March 2005, several surf organizations, companies and individuals decided to take action to help the local populations of Indonesia. They met local teams and coordinated efforts to secure vital cargo and transportation for relief. The NGO Howu-Howu was active on Nias island years before this catastrophe for community development and coordination, as well as Telukdalem city, april 2005. Photo : Howu-Howu. the charter company Sumatran Surfariis, who disrupted its surf business to deploy ships loaded with supplies and medical teams for several weeks. From their basecamp of the Mentawaii, Surf Aid International sent ships northward for medical evacuations and assessment. Cathay Seas collected information about who was doing what and published real-time maps and reports for coordination. Others joined later, like the island-aid mission “delivering aid with a disco beat”, Surfzone Relief, the Simeulue Foundation or the Windjammer Relief Effort. The common work brought aid to about 25.000 Indonesians and most of the teams decided to stay there for the long term.

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Real-time operations, october 2005. Map : Cathay Seas.

By June 2006, the predictions of seismologists were that an Indonesian kid was likely to live another major catastrophe before his old age. After the last natural event (simply called Hitam by Indonesians : Black), this ad-hoc federation of NGO’s, individuals and businesses went in emergency mode again, but with one slight change : they decided to build something stronger. The Padang Meeting, as they call it, gave birth to the well known Fellowship of the Aid, which receives 6% of the selling price of any surfboard and 2% on any surf club membership paid in the world (Moon station swimming club included). years after the tsunami, the Fellowship is now part of the United Nations Global Rescue Branch, with a specialty in coastal reconnaissance and Search and Rescue missions (SAR). ‘Back in 2004 it was pretty much about improvisation and do-it-yourself, says a representative, and even that didn’t prevent us from leading the field missions ahead of the UN and the US Marine Corps. But the Padang Meeting brought a skeleton to our body : clear procedures, a pooling of resources and a common bank account. Now within the UN structure we can think about professional training, equipment and worldwide pre-deployment to reduce intervention time.’

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Surfers (and non-surfers) have an opportunity to serve in the ranks of this organization during the mandatory 12 months of Public World Service. Positions are available in field operations, solar energy engineering, boat maintenance, sports training and multi-lingual teaching.

> Contact your local United Nations office for more information. Quote the code ‘FTA’

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Why me ? The doubts and fears of a surfer in Hainan For some years now, the bad mood among surfers in the Chinese island has been largely reported. Several incidents recently involved expatriates surfers and classes of Chinese kids and their surf instructors. The province authority decided to react after the agression of an instructor at Shimei by five expatriates who call themselves ‘locals’. During that incident, the man was insulted, then physically attacked. ‘I was the target but i was also responsible for the ten kids who were with me for a lesson. That’s why i decided to fight back and put an end to the escalation’, he said to a local news channel. Using his martial arts skills he knocked down three agressors, broke the arm of one and immobilized the fifth until police arrival. The Hainan Tourism Board then hired the twelve local surf businesses and three consultants from the Maldives to define tourism rules and long-term local development plans. ‘Our islands are now underwater six months a year, said a native Maldivian consultant, so i’m glad our experience can be applied elsewhere.’ The situation has been calm in the waves recently but the climate remain tensed as everyone claims to have a legitimate right of priority access. The local surfers are now acknoweldged as real locals : Chinese, while the historical ‘locals’, foreign expatriates, keep wondering what the new rules will be. One thing is sure : the days of free-for-all are over. Will there be a birth-right as in Hawaii ? Or a financial donation peak order as in Indonesia ? Police action after a beach incident, Photo : AFP. Making the beaches private has been rejected from the start by the federal communist government in Beijing which make at least one less threat to worry about. Indeed, no one knows what the surf experience will be six months from now. Until then, all surf tours, surf shops and hotels make huge discounts to fill the cashier’s desk before what they fear could be a drastic change in the money-first attitude of past years.

Broken ferry link along Kuril islands The MagLev (Magnetic Levitation) ferry service between Nomuro (Hokkaido, Japan) to Petropavlosk (Kamchatka, Russia) has been interrupted after a ship capsized off the tiny island of Ostrov Matua.

Ferry n°3 flying over a classic surface freight ship. Since 2022, this link has been a major development factor, both for the northern province of Japan and for the Russian far east. Apparently, the captain of the ship misread the swell maps and put the ‘above

surface’ control at two meters instead of twenty. Yet, controls must be made to check the altitude-warning software and until then, all crossings are stopped. The MagLev ship uses a technology developped for rail transportation but uses underwater cables as distant railways, literally flying over the surface and adjusting altitude according to the highest obstacle on its route. This time the ferry number 3 did not levitate above the Pacific swell but went straight into it. Five crew members were wounded in the impact, but all 150 passengers and 20 other crew were held safely by their seatbelts into the insubmersible cabin. One Russian woman was aboard and testifies that ‘It was really weird. We were at full speed and then we stalled instantly. The five crew members just flew across

the cabin and landed on the opposite wall. There was a doctor aboard and he suddenly had a lot of work.’ The United Nations aircraftscarrier Koffi Annan rapidly sent a rescue Unmanned Air Vehicle. A group of six Swiss surfers was aboard for a two-weeks trek along Kamchatka beachbreaks. None of them was hurt and they

The rescue UAV, capacity of 200 persons aboard. had a good surprise when they heard they were headed to the nearest Russian hospital, not Japan. ‘For us, landing safely in Russia was cool : our boards are safe and we still

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want to surf. We had booked all our stay in Russia anyway, one horse per person and a guide to scout bears and other dangers ahead of us. Now the question is how long will they take to resume the MagLev service. How do we go home without it ? Ride our horses back to Switzerland ?’

emergency. Oh, and we have Glock guns, too. In case we meet pirates.’

The Coastline Coastline Sentinel is published every three month. The fictionnal news depicted here are an imaginative work of www.CathaySeas.com

Paddling the line between the Yellow Sea and East China Sea

Flying through the Indian Ocean The second attempt to cross the Indian Ocean on a Moth st will begin 1 of August. From Phuket in Thailand, the sailors will head to Madagascar for a crossing expected to last thirty days. They will ride non-stop on ‘Atrocious Table Manners’ a 19-meters Moth sailship.

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hydrofoils-mounted Moth. Photo : hydroptere.com

‘If the swell is fine, we will reduce the sail and just surf the same swell line as far as we can, says the captain.’ When the ship gets enough momentum, the hull up-lifts and only the foils make contact with the water, reducing friction and allowing speeds of 42 knots. The previous attempt failed two years ago when the French crew landed in Somalia instead of La Réunion island because of a GPS failure. ‘This time we’ll do it old style : stars and compass. The only electronic stuff we carry is an individual ARGOS transmitter in case of

Paddling along Ryukyu islands.

The five Japanese surfers left the village of Naze, on O-Shima island, to join Okinawa, about 200 kilometers away. ‘We had 10 kilos of personnal gear and two sufboards per person on each kayak. Additionaly, we had a supplemental raft to carry the common equipment : cooking stoves, tents, freshwater distillator and so on.’ With an average of 40 killometers per day, the trip could have lasted about five days, but our fellows were not there for a race : ‘We wanted to spot the good waves in the area. Exploration and discovery were our keywords.’ The fact is that their discoveries matched their expectations in the first days : ‘We found two world-class breaks, one 2 kilometerslong reefbreak a bit like Raglan in New Zealand, and one like Flat Bank in Greenland. We have recorded rides on video.’ What they didn’t expect, though, was the surprise they had on the fourth day : ‘Between Okinoerabu and Yokon we saw the horizon up-lifting and suddenly we were in the middle of twelve meters waves. The raft sunk, i lost my kayak and found my surfboard floating around, ready for an escape paddle. It’s a miracle i survived. My two friends were further outside so they made it safe behind the breakers and they towed me to Okinawa. We called this place No Warning, and in two weeks, we get there again with a real boat and big wave guns. Thanks to our GPS, we can get in position perfectly in the middle of the ocean.’

> The category for this spot is believed to be 8b at 12 meters and the GPS coordinates will be released in public after at least twelve successful rides in 24 successive hours, according to the international Future Teams Awareness code.

Issue number 2 of the Coastline Sentinel will be released on Autumn day, 2026. Page 3 on 3