‘We had to help’

NEWPORT BEACH — Watching the devastating footage of the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in 2004, surf filmmakers Timmy Turner and Kristian McCue of Huntington Beach had a hard time sitting idly by.

The pair, along with other surf industry heavies — including Newport resident Bill Sharp, former editor of Surfing magazine; surf writer Matt George; and surf photographer Dustin Humphrey — have spent innumerable hours taking advantage of Indonesia’s epic surf breaks and hospitable people, and they wanted to give something back.

So Turner, McCue and the others, with the help of longtime Quiksilver executive and Newport Beach resident Danny Kwock, documented their trip to Indonesia to help the country that had provided them and other surfers with waves, films and photo spreads for years.

The film, “The Tsunami Diaries,” won the Newport Beach Film Festival’s 2006 humanitarian award and will be screened at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Huntington Beach High School auditorium. Part of the proceeds from next week’s event will go back to the Indonesian people.

There will be raffle prizes, including a Doc surfboard and Quiksilver gear.

“We’ve spent so much time in Indonesia, and it’s given us so much. We had to help,” Turner said, sitting on a wall at 54th Street in Newport on Tuesday.

Stefan Jeremias of Newport Beach-based Sea Crown Ventures is releasing the film and is one of four films he will be taking to Mipdoc documentary film festival in Cannes. “Tsunami Diaries” will play in France the same day it will be screened in Huntington.

The Huntington screening will kick off a grass roots tour around California before the DVD is released in May.

“This is a great thing they did,” Jeremias said. “It has a great message for the younger generation — to see guys like Timmy and Dustin [Humprey], Kristian [McCue] and Bill [Sharp] and Matt [George] doing this can empower people.”

The surfers-turned-relief-workers left for Indonesia about a week after the tsunami ravaged the coastline of the country, and they spent about two weeks preparing, gathering supplies and traveling to small, remote villages on the islands.

The group was originally planning to go as part of Surf Aid but were turned away. But that didn’t deter Turner or McCue.

What started as a group of surfers, surf journalists and filmmakers — and Turner’s mom, Michelle Turner, owner of the Sugar Shack in Huntington Beach — figuring out how to help turned out to be a relief mission complete with four doctors, massive amounts of supplies and a modern-day ark that took goats and chickens to villages so villagers could replenish the animal population.

The group woke up at sunrise and worked into the night some days, helping rebuild houses, treating injuries and feeding the people in the villages. Unlike more populated areas, the villages had no fatalities, but on their way, the group did see dead bodies floating in the water, a reminder of the tsunami’s wrath.

With the help of Indonesian fishermen whose boats had not been damaged in the tsunami, the crew went to about seven villages — one per day — to pass out what they brought.

“The whole place was wiped out,” Turner said. “It was just cement blocks everywhere, no more houses.”

They said the people welcomed them, despite the destruction that had washed through their villages. “That was the best part — at the end of the day we’d cut up fruit, and even with everything these families lost, they were still happy,” McCue said. “They still had their families and that was all that mattered.”

Editing and promoting the movie was stalled because of work schedules and because that year Turner became ill with a life-threatening staph infection, which put him out of commission till the middle of last year.

But these days, Turner is “almost back to 100%,” he said, and defied doctors expectations and suggestions, getting back in the water last May. He is now enjoying time with his family, working at the Sugar Shack and filming for his next surf flick, which will focus on cold-water adventures.

“My doctor told me not to go back to the tropics,” Turner said. But instead of giving up on surf filmmaking, Turner turned to the cold water for inspiration and traveled north.

He’s filmed in Canada, Alaska and New York, where he braved the 37-degree Atlantic Ocean and snow-covered beaches. He plans to go to Norway, Iceland and Greenland next.

He and McCue can now joke about Turner “being on his death bed” after the filming of “The Tsunami Diaries.” But more than that, Turner is glad to be back in the water, back at work and feeling useful.

“The kids are good. The waves are good,” Turner said. “I’m just happy to be alive.”

Tickets are available for $10 at the Sugar Shack or at the door.