From Cocoa Beach to the North Shore
Pete “Flipper” Hodgson started surfing at Cocoa Beach, Florida, in 1965. As a kid he traveled to California with fellow Floridian Greg Loehr, and through the '70s and '80s he was one of the top competitors on the East Coast. In 1978 he won the Iron Man title at the U.S. Championships, and in 1979 he won the ECSC Masters.
After high school Pete worked as a firefighter and EMT. In 1982 Indian River County named him Fireman of the Year after he saved a surfer struck by lightning at Sebastian Inlet. In the '80s he traveled with the Sundek team and wrote features for Surfing and Surfer.
Then he moved to Hawaii. His photos of Sunny Garcia, the Irons brothers and Kelly Slater ran in Surfer, Surfing, The Surfer's Journal and Transworld Surf. In the '90s he co-produced, shot and edited H3O TV, an extreme sports show on Fox that featured surfing.
In 1996 he made Surf Aliens: five Hawaiians, Brock Little, Kalani Robb, Ross Williams, John Shimooka and Akila Aipa, exploring the Mentawai Islands aboard the Indies Trader with Captain Martin Daly. He later shot video for GoPro.
Pete was inducted into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame in 2020. He still shoots stills and still surfs. His entire video archive is now in the Nalu Vault, preserved by the Nalu Film Foundation.
