SurfWatch spent the year as usual sharing the world of Second Life surfing with our readers with to date 525 posts for 2018. We covered beach fashion, Rez Days, beach yoga, surf events, competitions and training, coffee on the beach and other events involving surf community members. We covered surfing sims, beach photo contests, music to surf by, Second Life Surfing Association elections, and concerts. We entered the world of Flickr, Instagram and Twitter, interviewed a Linden, and covered some vintage SurfWatch from the archives.
We covered surfer interviews from experienced to new including little surfers, and tested the waters with a piece on relationships. We continuously updated the wave report to keep the most comprehensive current list of public surfing beaches in SL. We covered the new SurfWatch offices and the growing number of Outposts in several locations. Bandit made a brief appearance with a short post. We covered live music venues, benefit events, interviewed surf sim owners, surfboard creators and designers and tried to involve as many people as were interested in the world of SL surf and everything that goes with it.
We covered photo classes, SL's 15th annual birthday bash, Burning Man, and Orca awareness. We biked at surfing sims, featured SurfWatch staff interviews, shared rentals and employment opportunities at surf sims, covered parties and weddings, shined a spotlight on Surfers Bay surfers, SurfWatch's History of SL Surfing, a sim addition at Surfers Bay, sim additions at Shagwong Cove Resort, and the newest Vibrations Surf Alliance (VSA) home sim, Kia Kaha. We posted opinion pieces, published our own editorials, shared our real life (RL) surf experiences and even posted our own Halloween sim video. We covered underwater SCUBA adventures, sailing, simboarding, and holiday greetings as well as the passing of two much loved surfers.
SurfWatch had some major changes including design and adding more video. We shared our updated mission statement. One of our most controversial topics was our exploration of #metoo in Virtual Reality, and you can look for more updated information on this topic in the coming year. SurfWatch was proud to roll out our Partnership program to share information with partnering sims and groups in mutual support. We are also so proud to see our partners supporting each other surfing at partner sims, sharing surf board rezzers, attending concerts and events to support partner sims and groups, participating in photo contests, and sharing the vibe.
Our staff has changed throughout the year as it usually does, but I am especially proud of the work done by Kantbe Thursday, Managing Editor, and Austin Novaland, Designer (among many other things) in keeping SurfWatch going during the several weeks I unexpectedly had to be away. Many people, while not on staff, have contributed much appreciated posts, and we look forward to continued support from the surf community by participating with SurfWatch in the coming year.
2019 promises to be another exciting year of SurfWatch improvements, new ideas, new contributors, new surfers, new surf sims, and new surfing innovations. Grab your board - it's going to be a wild ride! Thank you for your continued support of SurfWatch! Here's to 2019!
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