Brine Brothers

Not every surfer lives at the beach, as this bunch of brine brothers from Brisbane attest. Just about every saturday morning, you'll see them somewhere near the Gold Coast Superbank riding anything from old skool Bill Wallace logs to high octane fishes, with all the enthusiasm of a grommet. And then when surfed out, packing up the car and driving an hour or more back to Brisbane where they live and work. Thanks to former Woosley team rider, Tony Stewart for emailing me this pic - a classic no matter where you live. Tony also drew and organised the team tees. That's him front centre - not to be confused with his twin Bill, who owned Atlantis Records at Southport. Slide on.

Live at the Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a long way from Brinetopia and I have never been there. My only experience of the place has been through my ears with the Isle's 1970 Live Concert tunes of old geezers like The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, The Doors, Ten Years After, Joni Mitchell, The Moody Blues, Melanie, Donovan, Free, Chicago, Richie Havens, John Sebastian, Leonard Cohen and Jethro Tull.

There would be some companies on this spinning blob of brine shared by a few billion of us carbon based bi-peds, who are happy to cut down, kill off, desecrate or burn off everything in pursuit of a profit.

Not so for Rapanui, a small eco fashion brand from the Isle of Wight founded by brothers Martin and Rob Drake-Knight in early 2008. These guys must be doing something right as they have won a couple of  Business Awards for their commitment to sustainability and passion for doing business the right way.  

Image courtesy: Rapanui 2010

According to their web site, "Rapanui make clothes out of organic natural fabrics in a wind powered factory audited by the Fairwear Foundation. The brand promotes local economic and social sustainability by using local businesses and running charity events. Rapanui make it easy and convenient for customers to find out where their clothing comes from and how it is made using interactive maps and a Wikipedia style encyclopaedia of their product life cycle on their website; traceability that is years ahead of the industry. " 

And being on the other side of the planet, where nobody stocks these eco-goodies, I was taken by their Free Post Globally policy. Over to you Rip Curl, Quicksilver and Billabong.