“The name Seea comes from my love for the sea,” explains Amanda. “As an Italian, I pronounce the name ‘see-ah’. It’s a feminine word, with a musicality and beauty to it. We are women… We are the graceful sliders of the Seea.”

The designer and founder of Seea is Amanda Chinchelli born and raised with the sea around her. She combined her passion for fashion with her passion for surf and created Seea, a collection with suits that all reflects a female surfers need. Can you imagine to surf the warm waves without being worried about drop your bikini pants in the next wipeout? I am looking forward to try the Malibu suit, I think it looks so cool. Seea also has a collaboration with Mollusk surf shop and here you can find the rashguard with polka dots.  All Seea suits are made in sunny California!

photo credit to Aaron Checkwood & the one up in left corner is from Foam Magazine

A company that produces surfboards for which people all over the whole world crave, dating back to the 50s with one hell of a story.

This is Bing surfboards.

Let us take it to the beginning. A young 13-year old boy named Herbert Bingham Copeland hanging out on the pier at Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles watching the older guys surf big heavy Redwood boards. He used to do this every day, but one day, in 1949 Dale Velzy offered to let him try his 8 foot 80lbs board. Bing was hooked the same day. Shortly after he started helping out in Velzy’s shop, he started shaping while he attended high school. In 1959 he created the brand Bing Surfboards and started to make his own unique surfboards.

Today it’s a brand that has survived the ”shape-it-yourself” backyard-period, the shortboard revolution, the introduction of thrusters, the mass production companies and every other thing that could happen to a company in 50+ years. For a while no one even surfed longboards, no one, it’s hard to think for us youngsters that now experience the new longboard era but that’s the truth. Bing Copeland put shaping on hold, sold his shaping tools and as the drug scene in LA worsened, he moved to Idaho to find work and security for his family. As the enterprising man he is, Bing managed to start a new business that had nothing to do with the surf industry and build a new home.

The tools and the brands were in the hands of different people for some time.

Until 2000 when a young talented shaper, Matt Calvani, was on a surf trip down in Baja, Mexico and ran into Bing on the beach and started talking about boards. Matt recognized Bing as the shaping legend and asked if he’d allow him to take over his legacy brand, luckily for the surf scene today he said yes.

The main persons behind the brand is Matt & Margaret Calvani and Bing Copeland himself. Yes, Bing is still very much apart of it but mostly from a MacBook or iPad in Idaho where he surfs the Facebook page of Bing Surfboards almost every day, leave a comment I’m sure he’ll answer.

Matt and Margaret moved the factory from Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles to Encinitas, San Diego just over a year ago. It’s now situated on a hill overlooking the ocean, the perfect board-making-place. A normal day at the factory starts after a surf at one of Encinitas local surf breaks, that’s the vibe in southern California; surf comes before work and many people make surfing apart of their work somehow. For the Bing employees it’s the deluxe version. While in the factory Matt is in his blue shaping room designing new models and shaping each board and Margaret is upstairs in her office working with everything from this year’s budget, marketing, foreign dealers to organizing which board is going where. In between them are up to 12 guys working, everyone with their precise task.

Bing boards are the dreams of many, shipped worldwide, handcrafted, “Made in California”, with every inch of soul. Matt, Margaret and Co. are producing them with a bunch of awesome people. It’s all very amazing, I would live there or any of their employees’ lives any day. You probably gotta watch it to understand how real their dream is.

Just as amazing, Matt & Margaret open their home in Encinitas for dealers, teamriders and friends from all over the world, including Swedish bloggers they’ve never met before. We were fortunate to hang out with them and the whole team for a few days.

Here’s our view of it.

Mick’s face was one of the first one who greeted us when we arrived to the Bing surfboard factory on the hill in Encinitas. He has a face you rember, it’s the archetype of the American dream with a perfect smile. I remember I wondered if all Californian guys were gonna look like that, later I found out that they don’t.. And if his look is hard to forget, wait til you see him surf!

The following day we packed the car full of Bing boards and drove to San O. Watching Mick surf made Petter and me speachless, he was proabably the first really good longboarder we came across and even though we have met many good ones since then we havn’t yet seen anyone who is as fast on the board as Mick. A noose rider out of this world. It’s amazing to watch! When people on the beach comments his quick moves his friends tell them that he used to be a ballerina and that’s why he is so good..

Mick Rodgers is not a ballerina, it is his dedication and love for surfing that has taken him where he is today. He started surfing when he was six years old, now he is a team rider of Bing Surfboards. He works in the surf factory when he’s not in school or in the surf. He is a “eat, surf, sleep, eat”-guy and his friend Kyle told us that he sorts You Tube surf clips after the date they were added, that’s how many surf clips he is watching!

To make the American dream even more perfect he drives a beautiful, old Chevrolet truck. It matches perfectly to his Bing logs.

We are leaving California.. uhuhuhuuuu..

It´s always like this when traveling round on a bigger trip. Leaving one place for the next one is part of the adventure of being on the go, still so hard some times.. This goodbye was one of the harder ones. California has been better than in any californian dream we could ever dream. And we have been dreaming about california quite a lot. High way one, the surf scene, the oldies on longboards, san franciscos tilting streets, the golden gate, napa valley, the road food, the big size cars, cans, supermarkets, the high calorie big size food plates and the calorie measurement below all the dishes in the menu, the perfect californian youths and the bing surfboards. Everything was so perfect. We are really thinking about attending to the university here here for next autumn.

Would it be possible to study in lets say california, sleep in a van and surf every day? That would be my dream of a study life at least.

Mexico here we come!

Stopped in Pfeiffer National Park, Big Sur and got the chance to try our Sea to Summit gear. We have been sleeping in their sleeping bags in the car and just love them, but this time we got the chance to try out their Specialist duo tent, a tent that folds as big as a small pet bottle. Looking at it from the outside Petter had his doubts if it would fits us both, but when we got in in we were amazed over how spacious it felt and Petter who’s 190 cm fitted with out any problems. Once back out on highway one we met Stan, an extraordinary bird/wildlife guide who knew Big Sur like the inside of his pocket and showed us a very rare bird; the Californian condor. A amazing bird with almost 3 meters wing span, not many years ago there were only 22 wild condors left. The biologists has made a great job fighting for them and we were lucky to se 14 of them.

Look closely at this last image. Compare the bird to the cars just below it. When one of them cruzed over the road the it looked pretty much as wide as the whole road! That’s how big they are.

I guess it haven’t been the easiest thing to follow how we traveled through California, that’s because we traveled back an forth… A lot. The original plan was to go from San Francisco to San Diego but because of different reasons (you know it hardly ever goes as planned, at least not for us) we ended up driving on the highway 5 down to Encinitas, San Diego then back up the same way to San Francisco and then to wine countries before we got to the amazingly beautiful Highway 1 all the way from Sonoma to Encinitas again. Here’s my notes from the trip, don’t now if they’ll help you or make you guys more confused.. Forgot to put out Santa Cruz and Maverricks I noticed now tough.