Writing
that is lived.

I awoke to soft shards of fire drifting through the slash of my open tent flap on the north Cornwall coast. The warmth feels delicious after a cool summer's night, seeping into my tired bones, threatening to pull my sleepy mind back to dreams of the Cornish coastline.

Speckled sunlight hung sleepily in the haze of morning dew that clung to the grassy meadow of my campground. I'd never felt so at peace, so alive with energy, as if the buttery sunlight had set my heart ablaze.

Cornwall is home to a truly spectacular stretch of coast, dotted with Mediterranean-style beaches, each more "look at the colour of that water" than the last. Polzeath Beach — one of the best surf beaches in Cornwall — is a special place for me. Seventeen-year-old me, A-levels freshly finished, nervous and full of outlandish dreams of pizzas at sunset and surfing like a pro, decided to take the leap and camp there for the summer. I've never looked back.

I worked as a surf instructor at Surfs Up Surf School. I adored every second — from battling the strong winds that threatened to rip surfboards out of grasping hands, to dunking over a thousand wetsuits in soapy buckets after each lesson. After five years, I feel as though I've melted into the Kelly's ice creams and beach car park sand.

My favourite place to grab dinner was Galleon Café. Saturday mornings there were particularly special — I'd meet my granny at 9am before my first lesson. I'd get a bacon, sausage, and egg sandwich; she, a croissant and cappuccino. We'd sit and chat about everything and nothing. That time is so unbelievably precious, and I feel almost in debt to the magic of Polzeath for granting me it.

"The sun and sea dance in a tango of wild love. The light flirts across the waves, turning the sea spray to star drops, as if the night sky had been ripped open and all the stars were tumbling out."

Polzeath Beach sunsets are outrageous. All around me, sunset gazers are transfixed — phones forgotten, worries whisked away. I've always believed people are far more beautiful watching the world than worrying about themselves. And here, watching the sun and sea sing, the Polzeath beachgoers have never looked more beautiful.

The sun slowly drips into the longing ocean and the sky bleeds colours only seen in dreams. I cannot help but have my breath snatched away. But I would gladly lose my breath to watch another Polzeath sunset one last time.

— Joe Kerven

So why does David Attenborough believe our last and only hope to save the planet is the ocean? Because it is dying. And we are killing it, one ChatGPT question at a time.

Coral reefs globally are warzones — swathes of desolation littered with the corpses of fallen coral. A coral is made of two interconnected parts: the coral polyp and their endosymbiotic zooxanthellae. Don't freak out — endosymbiont just means an organism living inside their partner in a mutually beneficial relationship. Zooxanthellae are algae that partner with coral, each with their own heat-resistant powers.

The reason these brave warriors are collapsing? Heat. "But Joe, I love a hot bath!" Okay, but imagine being stuck in that bath. Forever. Just a full sweat session from hell. You're like a dried-out prune, dizzy, and your rubber duck has melted. That's what it's like for coral right now.

At high temperatures, zooxanthellae freak out and start hoarding carbon dioxide — kind of like us panic-buying toilet paper during COVID-19. That hoarding blocks their coral partners from photosynthesising. In desperation the coral casts them out, causing the dreaded bone-white skeletons we see during bleaching. Without photosynthesis, the coral starves to death.

"Type D zooxanthellae are big hitters in the heat-resistant scene. Corals partnered with type Ds can withstand temperatures 1.5 degrees higher than current ocean temperatures. Now imagine a Jackapoodle..."

That's the plan, says Dr James Guest of Newcastle University. Selectively breed corals — just like we bred Jackapoodles — for heat resistance. Already, selectively bred corals withstand a week longer at extreme temperatures. Pair them with type D zooxanthellae and who knows what they could endure.

We're also pulling out 79.3 million tonnes of fish per year. A 2kg female salmon produces ~2,990 eggs. A 3.7kg female produces 4,777. That's called hyperallometry — and it means if we keep fishing out the big ones, we'll end up with nothing but tiddlers.

The sea — gentle, raging, continuously shaping our planet. She softly whisks your breath away, slipping between your ribs and carving her name upon the wall of your heart. She's burning, writhing in the grips of the destruction we have wrought upon her.

It's now or never. Let's do something about it.

— Joe Kerven, marine scientist and conservation writer

I feel as if I am adrift and can't work out how to put up my sail. I wouldn't say a dark place as such — more like the shadows in between the stars at night.

You finish university and are plagued with adult advice. "Get a career." "Stay away from a full-time job for as long as possible." "Save your money." "Go be free, you'll never be this young again." "Start a business." "Don't start a business."

I'm drowning in life's pressures. And I haven't been following my own advice. I am no longer enjoying the little things. All closed up like a clam.

My honest belief is that I need to live life a bit. Work in different places. See new things. Try different experiences. I am young and I will not be foolish and waste this life.

"I've got to start taking the reins of life — otherwise I'm going to be taken for a ride rather than be the rider."

I look around at people and see that no one can do anything active. Everyone's got bad backs and are moving through the world as if it owes them stillness. I refuse to believe that destroying my young body to live happily at 50 is right.

So this is it. I need to wake up. And so I did.

— Joe Kerven, written on the Scillonian ferry, somewhere in the Atlantic

The ocean doesn't need your sympathy. It needs your attention.

Most people have never been underwater. They've seen the documentaries, the drone shots, the bleached coral on the news. They feel bad for a moment and then scroll on.

We don't want your guilt. We want your eyes.

Because the moment you actually look — really look — at what lives beneath the surface, something changes. You can't unsee a shark nursery. You can't unfeel the cold Atlantic water. You can't unlearn what a healthy reef sounds like versus a dying one.

"Look closer. Stay longer. Come back changed."

We're not asking you to save the ocean. We're asking you to meet it. The rest tends to follow.

Join [Organisation]. Because the ocean is worth more than a moment of your feed.

Nobody teaches you to love the ocean. It just happens one morning, salt in your hair and sand in your wetsuit, and suddenly you understand what all the fuss was about.

It's not the waves. Well — it is the waves. But it's also the 5am alarm you don't need because you're already awake. It's the cold car park and the wet changing mat and the flask of bad coffee that somehow tastes incredible. It's the person next to you in the line-up who you've never met but already understand.

Surfing doesn't make you better than anyone. It just makes you better than you were yesterday — more patient, more present, more willing to sit in the cold and wait for something worth riding.

"The ocean has a way of putting things in order. Problems that felt enormous on land have a habit of shrinking to the right size out there."

We started [Brand] because we believed the world needed more of that feeling. Not just on the water. In the way you move, the way you think, the way you show up.

That's what we make gear for. Not performance. Not aesthetics. The feeling of being exactly where you're supposed to be.

Burn.

Set your heart ablaze and show the world you're here to thrive — not just survive.

Too many people drift along in the shadows. Moving through their days, ticking boxes, training just enough to feel like they're doing something. That's not living. That's waiting.

We build gear for people who've decided to stop waiting. People who train not to look good in the mirror but to be ready — for the mountain, the wave, the race, the moment that asks everything of them.

"Try so hard the earth shakes with your stride and the trees bow at your passing."

Your body is a tool. Craft it. Use it. Don't let it rust. Be the blazing torch in the darkness.

[Brand]. Built for people who mean it.

You are a half-carved statue.

An unfinished work of art. And that's exactly as it should be.

It's not failure that defeats you. It's the fear of picking up the chisel. The worry that if you try — really try — and still fall short, then what does that say about you?

Here's what it says: you're human. And humans who try hard enough to fail spectacularly are the only ones who ever become something worth remembering.

You hold the hammer. You always have.

"Don't aim to not fail. Dare the earth to rise up and strike you down with the sheer excellence of the life you're living."

This isn't a programme. It's a decision. The decision to stop drifting and start carving.

Start becoming. →