So if you haven’t heard about it by now, you will be soon enough. Yesterday Herbie gathered together some of surfing’s brightest surfers to start production on his new and upcoming Wave Warriors film that will be released in late 2012.

This happened once before with the original Wave Warriors photo shoot back in the mid-80s, but since then nowhere in the history of surfing will you ever see these cast of characters together for a group pic. Everyone from Rob Machado, Danny Fuller, John John Florence, Bruce Irons, Christian Fletcher, Nathan Fletcher, Julian Wilson, Kolohe Andino, Buttons, Rory Russell, Makua Rothman, Alex Knoxt, the Gudauskas Brothers, and a slew of others got in on the act. Oh, yeah, and some guy named Kelly Slater - whoever he is, he was there, too, as was reknowned artist Julian Schnabel.

If you couldn’t tell by the elite list, this was an invite-only shoot of the best surfers on the planet, with loving acknowledgement and memory going out to Marvin Foster, Andy Irons, and Sion Milosky as well.

Past, present, future… we are the Wave Warriors!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se-kjVywe4I

December 12, 2011: Off-The-Wall, Oahu, Hawaii. Photo by Jim Russi

Nathan will now be riding for Arnette Sunglasses. And, personally, we’d like to think, “Who WOULDN’T want Nathan riding for them?”

http://www.arnette.com/blog/Arnette-Welcomes-Nathan-Flether-To-The-Surf-Team/

Last night at the Surfer Poll Awards - among an elite list of nominees that included Bruce Irons, Mark Healey, Dean Morrison, and Laurie Towner - Nathan beat the competition to win the prestigious “Heavy Water” Award.

We are so proud of you, Nathan. And we love you, too.

View the link to watch the nominated clips and Nathan’s acceptance speech.

http://www.surfermag.com/2011surferpoll/heavywater-nathanfletcher

Surfline has a nice little “North Shore Quiver Check” featuring our very own team rider Reef Mcintosh.

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/north-shore-quiver-check-reef-mcintosh_63164/

Check out his boards. And how are all those Astrodeck traction pads on the tails? Looking pretty sick! But we’re not biased or anything.

Reef Mcintosh's North Shore lovers.

Years in the making, the one and only surf series that mattered and that started the whole surf film craze. Herbie Fletcher is back with never-before-seen raw footage combined with an insane character-driven soundtrack and the best surfers on the planet that you all know as the WAVE WARRIORS! If you think you’ve seen it all, you’ve been sadly mistaken. This movie is gonna make grown men cry and punch themselves in the neck from sheer awe. Wave Warriors VI: Coming soon!

Check out the WWVI teaser piece on our video section here:

http://www.astrodeck.com/_vid/videos.php?id=176

An outside source recently pointed out that with Nathan’s current (and record-setting) 8 magazine covers in one month, as well as past cover shots of Christian and Herbie, there may be no other family in surf history with more combinations of front journal pieces. Those of us here at Astrodeck got a chuckle out of it and never really thought of it along those lines. But it is an accomplished feat of publication. So, yeah, we think it’s pretty bad ass, too.

Check out just a FEW of the covers that the Fletcher’s have graced over the years.

Herbie Fletcher: "Surfing Magazine", 1968

Herbie Fletcher: "Surfer Magazine", 1976

Herbie Fletcher: "Pacific Longboarder", 2005

Christian Fletcher: "Surfer Magazine", 1988

Christian Fletcher: "Breakout Magazine", 1990

Christian Fletcher: "Thrasher Magazine", 1991. (Christian was the only surfer to have ever been featured on the cover of this skate mag.)

Nathan Fletcher: "Surfer Magazine", 1999

Nathan Fletcher: "Surfing Magazine", 2008

Nathan Fletcher: "Transworld Surf", 2011

Gavin Beschen, Shane Beschen, Reef McIntosh, Makua Rothman, Matt “Archy” Archbold, Christian Fletcher, Nathan Fletcher, Kalani Chapman, Jamie Sterling, Danny Fuller, Timmy Reyes. Look at this roster. Team Astrodeck (or as some may call them, Team Terror) will be dominating much of the North Shore this Winter Season. No waves will be spared. No spot unridden. Other surfers will divert eye contact and question their manhood. Grown men will run out of the water, screaming and crying, wailing to God, “Why, Lord? Why can’t I surf like the rugged, brave hellion of Team Astrodeck?!”

Let’s face it. They’re the Wave Warriors. You couldn’t ignore them even if you tried.

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We’re running out of fingers to count off of. Nathan is now currently on the cover of eight different magazines.

We don’t know which front mag piece is our favorite: Surfing World? Transworld Surf? Surfer? On and on. To pick one over another would be too much of a “Sophie’s Choice” moment for us, and we just ain’t gonna do that.

But check out this cover from our friends over at Beach Brother Magazine. The French sure do know how to pick ‘em, don’t they? Oui, oui!

Nathan Fletcher on the cover of Beach Brother Magazine.

Well, well, well… it’s been awhile, stranger.  What’s new with you? Yeah? Really? You don’t say! That’s great. Anyway, back to me…

As is always the case, Astrodeck’s been on another trek of progression and everyone has been going at it nonstop. It’s hard to catch one’s breath and be able to just sit back when the revolving door of projects and cast of characters come passing through here on a daily basis. There’s never a dull moment. I swear, one of these days I’ll come into the office and find Oprah Winfrey sitting on a box of traction pads, fingers entwined over each other, begging Greyson to show her how to do a mean ole stalefish over at the San Clemente skate park. Don’t scoff. Seriously, these kinds of casual encounters happen here at the ‘deck.

Anyway, it’s been kinda like that lately. So excuse us if you feel like you’ve been neglected lately. It wasn’t intentional. It was life.

But we’re making it up to you now. We’re not ones to leave you in the dark when it comes to all the latest happenings. We appreciate the fact that you guys come back to check up on us, and we dig it even more when you write and verbally abuse us to post up more content. Ah, you volatile gluttons. You’re lucky we aim to please.

So where did we last leave off? Or better question, where do we even start?

Oh, I know. How about with Nathan?

Don’t play dumb. You’ve all seen and heard about Nathan’s two waves at Teahupo’o by now. In fact, the words “Nathan”, “Teahupo’o”, “insane”, “gnarliest barrel” and “balls the size of an abnormally large elephant with even bigger hints of gigantism” are now part of every day American lexicon. Five, count ‘em, FIVE covers (so far) of that Teahupo’o she-devil with Nathan trying to tame the bitch. Nathan is also being recognized for his remarkable feat with multiple nominations (for the “Monster Tube” and “Ride of the Year”) for the Billabong XXL Awards. Every time I see yet another photo of Nathan’s ride, I scream, pull out tufts of my hair, and run out of the room. It’s so intense. So surreal. Damn, Nathan, thanks for making the rest of us feel so human, and thanks for making me have bald spots on my head now.

(Nathan Fletcher covers. All photos were taken at Teahupo’o except for the bottom right Wavelength Cover - that front shot was taken at Cloudbreak, Fiji this past summer.)

In other Fletcher news, look for an upcoming pictorial blog by Herbie. Herb, Christian and Greyson spent a good portion of their Summer in France and Spain, traveling with Julian Schnabel, checking out the art scene, soaking in some Basque culture, skating the local parks. Christian and Greyson even scored some near-perfect days surfing Hossegor. Christian reported that the weather was warm and the swell was up. Even Julian found himself paddling out. More of this to follow at www.herbiefletcher.com

Dibi Fletcher is back with The D-Side. Back by popular demand! Her D-Side collection of interviews has taken us into the candid, poignant minds of people such as surf industry pioneers Grubby Clark and Walter Hoffman to Andy Irons (in one of his last interviews). There have also been anecdotes with the quirky, wild, vivid characters such as NFL great Kyle Turley, John John Florence, Bruce Irons, Eddie Rothman and a slew of others. So it’s only proper that Dibi include Jason Jessee into this mix of people. Jason is a complete classic. Check out his D-Side interview that’ll be posted up on Christian’s website within the next few days. www.christianfletchersurf.com

(The D-Side with Jason Jessee)

Kolohe Andino recently won the 2011 ASP SuperSurf International in Brazil. This was a coveted 6-Star event and Kolohe just killed it! He beat out fellow San Clementian Tanner Gudauskas. Looks like the SC boys were dominating the field. Kolohe pocketed $20,000 and jumped with 3,500 points in ranking. The kid is only 17! If he were in school, taking the SAT test, his score would be, like… well, we don’t know what the actual high score would be for the SAT, but you get the idea. He’d be valedictorian and nerd clinger for life! We’re so stoked that Kolohe is on the Astrodeck honor society.

Keep checking back here, within the next few weeks, Astrodeck will have a whole new inventory; with more stocked products and more NEW products. Traction pads, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. Just in time for Christmas! We’ve got some new Wave Warriors t-shirts featuring Nathan, and those will surely sell-out as soon as we get ‘em in. You guys can be so demanding! And we’re gonna also have a new line of Christian Fletcher t-shirts. Just wait ’til you guys see these new designs and graphics. You’re gonna go nutballs. We’ll keep you posted on when we have all our new stuff online.

Winter Season on the North Shore is coming up. We can’t wait. We’re looking forward to seeing the rest of the Astrodeck team dominating the scene. Just like they always do. Danny Fuller, Makua Rothman, Reef Macintosh, Archy, Kalani Chapman, Jamie Sterling, Gavin and Shane Beschen, Timmy Reyes, Nathan, and Christian, etc. The boys are gonna represent. Oh, it’s gonna be such an epic winter. I can feel it. Can you?

Here’s the lastest D-Side interview with surf/skate photographer Steve Sherman.

You can check out more of Sherm’s interview with Dibi Fletcher in an upcoming issue of Juice Magazine. But, for now, here’s a little teaser piece we’ve posted up on YouTube. In fact, check out all of our YouTube clips and videos under the name Zryder1.

Click link or cut/paste into your browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VibBqLmECs4