Reel fresh place to surf

Elia Powers

Decked out in Ocean Pacific beachwear, filmmaker Vince Deur looked

like a native Southern Californian on Wednesday as he toured the

Regency Lido Theater, where his film “Unsalted: A Great Lakes

Experience” debuts to the public tonight.

He acknowledges there will likely be skeptics in the audience: Is

it really possible to find adequate freshwater surfing 2,000 miles

away?

Deur, a lifelong Midwesterner, has compiled an hour of visual

evidence to use as defense.

“I’ve always wanted to move to California and live by the ocean,”

Deur said. “But before I do, I told myself, I had to do a movie about

surfing the Great Lakes.”

Deur’s first-ever feature-length documentary plays in tandem with

“Next in Line,” a film by Huntington Beach surfer Jessie Marley that

follows top surfers to their favorite locales around the world.

Both filmmakers will be on hand today to talk about their

productions.

Deur spent more than 15 years working on his project. His surfing

career began at the age of 15, when he discovered the rush of riding

the choppy waves of Lake Superior in the middle of winter.

The film begins with footage he shot in November 1990, when he

nearly drowned after getting caught in a rip current.

Deur said he was stuck 100 yards offshore but managed to swim to

safety. When he returned to his camera, he made a promise that he has

finally kept.

“I vowed to show everyone how beautiful these bodies of water

are,” Deur said. “It looks like the Caribbean sometimes. There are

little moments of beauty. I’ve always been enamored with surfing here

[the Great Lakes] -- it symbolizes adventure.”

Five years ago, Deur began serious shooting. Each winter, he

tracked weather reports and waited for the perfect windstorms.

When they arrived at any one of the lakes, he drove for hours to

capture surfers riding the waves

Some of Deur’s footage comes while he is standing on land. Other

shots are of him surfing while wearing a helmet camera.

Lake Superior surfer Brian Stabinger made cameo appearances in

“Unsalted.” He is traveling with Deur this week on the Southern

California leg of the 25-stop film tour.

Stabinger said there are obvious differences between Pacific Ocean

surfing and Great Lakes surfing.

“It’s a lot easier to surf in the ocean,” he said. “The waves are

a lot closer together on the lakes. Here you are able to pace

yourself.”

Great Lakes surfers regularly subject themselves to health risks

such as hypothermia, a point Deur makes clear in the film -- in the

DVD version of “Unsalted,” there is even a lesson in ocean safety.

The lake surfers wear high-tech body suits, boots and gloves to help

offset the cold.

Stabinger said the best Great Lakes surfing is from December to

March. He has gone into the water when the temperature dropped below

zero degrees Fahrenheit.

“It’s kind of surreal,” he said. “There’s a weird mist that hangs

over the lake.”

Both Deur and Stabinger said Great Lakes surfers are a tight-knit

community, one that finds camaraderie in the absurdity of their

actions.

“They are average Joes, blue-collar and white-collar people,” Deur

said. “There’s a tremendous bond. You’re often seen as an outcast,

and no one understands why you do what you do.”

Deur never lost faith in his project, but he needed to find

someone who believed in him.

Ian Cairns, chief executive officer at Laguna Beach-based Global

Sports Project, was that person. He said he saw potential in Deur’s

story but wanted him to add his side of the story.

“I wanted to make this more than a surf film,” said Cairns, a

former world-champion surfer who became co-writer and co-producer of

“Unsalted.” “To me, the story was that some mad man wants to make a

movie about people who surf in frigid weather. It adds a whole new

element to the movie.”

Deur added the personal touch, showing viewers what it was like to

shoot the film.

Still, he kept the focus on the regular Great Lakes surfers, a

group he said is gaining credibility.

“People were laughing at them before,” Deur said. “Now, people are

laughing with them. They are becoming part of the surfing family.”

* ELIA POWERS is the enterprise and general assignment reporter.

He may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or by e-mail at

elia.powers@latimes.com.