In May 1980 three Sydney surfers - cousins Chris Goodnow and Tony Fitzpatrick, and their friend Scott Wakefield - became arguably the first surfers to visit the Mentawais. Among their discoveries was a wave that's now considered one of the world's best, Macaronis.

A volley of emails leads to a quick dash down underer where Ross Clarke-Jones hooks up with Doug Young and photographer Derek Morrison, the three of them motoring into New Zealand's deep south.

Time to throw off the bowlines...or kickstart the engine in this case, as vagabond Victorian Matty Hannon loads a couple of Corey Graham handshapes onto his steed and rides from the top of Alaska down the Pacific coast toward Patagonia.

They say that when someone has a near death experience their life flashes before their eyes. And if corporations are people - as the US Supreme Court says they are - then it's only fitting to revisit the forty-something year journey of Quiksilver.

William Finnegan is a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 1978 he travelled through Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji, where he and his travel partner, Bryan Di Salvatore, were among the first to surf Tavarua. In this excerpt from 'Barbarian Days', Finnegan's surfing memoir, he and Di Salvatore have just landed in Australia, a nation of "smart-mouthed diggers with no respect for authority." Best of all, Kirra is just beginning to break.

"Just come on over, there's been waves every day!"

The tone of the message was chipper but the reply required some tact. After all, as every surfer knows, there are waves and then there are waves, and for this trip we most definitely sought the latter.