Tiger shark gets caught by baited hooks in Western Australia
Killing ain't a pretty biz. Here, we see a tiger shark that's been caught on one of the WA gov's baited hooks. But let's think for a second. Let's utilise our enormous human brain capacities. How do you think that sushi on that plate in front of you got there? Or that delicious fish burger before it was flame grilled and served with chilli mayonnaise? If y'against killin', you're against killin'. | Photo: Sea Shepherd

Killer Sharks Get Free-ish Pass in WA

No more baited hooks in Western Australia. But great whites might still get iced if there's more killins… 

Western Australia has a shark problem. That ain’t news. Eight deaths since 2008 (on surfers, bodyboarders, snorkellers and swiimmers), and attacks spiking off the charts since 2000, isn’t good for tourism or the beach lifestyle Australia’s biggest state is famous for.

But it ain’t news.

What is news is that the Environmental Protection Authority has scuttled plans by the WA government to re-deploy baited hooks off Perth and south-west beaches.

Yeah, the stats aren’t pretty. Instead of cleaning up great whites, the hooks killed 64 tiger sharks and various other fish. And, visually, the sight of ensnarled sharks being hauled up the starboard side to receive a bullet to the head or knife to the guts belly was always going to be a tough sell.

Yeah, but still.

WA’s premier Barnett had planned to roll out 72 freshly baited hooks come November. He also was pushing for a wider exclusion zone around the contractors (hello Sea Shepherd!) and the freedom to bring the hooks closer to shore if deemed necessary.

No way, said EPA Chairman Dr Paul Vogel, pointing instead to a “high degree of scientific uncertainty” and inability by the Barnett Government to provide a “high level of confidence” to the EPA that his multi million dollar program was indeed an efficient way of dealing with the shark menace. “The EPA has adopted a cautious approach by recommending against the (Government’s) proposal,” Dr Vogel said.

Barnett bit his lip and promised any rogue shark would still be dealt with, “destroyed and removed”, to be precise.

Either way, sure is great news for the white pointer, better still perhaps for the scores who joined the masses on the foreshore, banging drums, blowing whistles and and pleading for the sharks to be left alone to go about their business.

“More chance of being run over by a car!” they shrieked. “You’re in their environment!”

Don’t you dare suggest the removal of a few apex predators is going to help you sleep better at night. Who cares about you and your pre-dawn surfs, your late arvo glass-offs, your kiddies and their comps.

#Save the Great White Shark!

#I Know I Eat Sushi But Sharks Are Special! To hell with tuna!

Surfing WA Chairman, Bob Welch, was one of few who held firm when he learnt of the surprise ruling by the EPA. “We are very disappointed,” said Welch. “Our members will expect us to continue a pro-active stance in considering their safety while in the ocean. We will continue to work with the government on investigating all possible strategies to maintain safety.”

And for now, that means helicopter patrols over Perth’s metro beaches and a paranoia-inducing Twitter feed which provides up-to-the-minute updates on any shark sighting. Feel like a surf? Head to Twitter and discover there’s two great whites offshore. But, yes! It’s their ocean!

For surfers in the state’s south-west, particularly in and around Margaret River, the proposed helicopter patrols will prove little comfort given the clumsy system in place should a shark be sighted.

Guidelines set out by Fisheries WA in 2012 state it will only act on a sighting if verified by “experienced commercial fishers, Surf Life Saving WA representatives or Fisheries officers.”

The guidelines say that sightings from that select group, “have tended to be more reliable than reports from the general public.”

“I can’t really say having a helicopter buzz over every couple hours made me feel any safer,” says surfer Dino Adrian of last year’s rush to ease a scared populous. “I can’t really say that the hooks made me feel any safer either, but something had to be done.”

And therein lies the real issue. Something had to be done. But what?

Chris Boyd was killed while surfing at Umbis in November 2013, a beautiful wave known for throwing up throaty barrels located a stone’s throw off the beach along the Ellensbrook side of Gracetown.

His death, like every other, sent a chill down the spine of every surfer in Margaret River, given it’s ferocity and the fact it occurred on an absolutely stunning spring morning, throwing every preconceived idea of when and where attacks occur out the window.

The area surrounding Umbis came under immediate suspicion. Two other surfers had been killed a short walk away and every surfer  has a story about being chased out of the water by sharks with eyes “as big as oranges”.

“It was a pretty hectic period,” says Adrian of the aftermath left by Boyd’s death. “I was glad when Barnett did something but it freaked me the fuck out that Chris was killed where he was. There’s so many good waves over that side of town, but I don’t surf there anymore – except North Point but even that’s a bit of a gamble.”

Similarly, another well-regarded surfer Chris Ross, himself no stranger to deep water and all of its ghastly inhabitants, recalls a growing sense of dread at the spike in sightings.

“I grew up in Margs and I can’t recall it (shark menace) even being a problem when I was a kid,” he says. “But I think that white pointers have been a protected species for long enough that there population just grew and grew and it’s just gotten to the point that there’s so many of them. You’d have to say it’s out of control.”

The stats back Ross up. Before 2004, in the hundred or so years of records being kept? No fatal attacks. The great white shark has been a protected species since 1999.

Ross, like Adrian and like a lot of others down this way who would rather remain nameless, want action.

Ross suggests taking the white pointer off the protected species list for a while, Adrian favouring a scientific approach.

“The drum lines were a bit of a knee-jerk reaction,” says Adrian. “But good on Barnett I reckon, he had to do something quickly and he did. I’d just like to see more research into why there’s so many big sharks all of a sudden.”

And so, as the whales start to appear off the coast on their annual path down south, the surfer in the south-west can only look out to sea and imagine what follows those beautiful big blubbery mammals and hope that dark shape below is just a dolphin.

Just a dolphin.

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John John announces retirement!

He will become a pirate alongside Greyson Thunder Fletcher.

I will say, without fear of contradiction, that The Surfer’s Journal is the most radical publication, maybe even thing, in our surf world. Its existence is based almost entirely on sales. It is thick, meandering, very tactile. As far as I can tell the staff gives no care to social media or the Internet as a whole. Radical!

And the soon to be released issue, 23.5, might be the grandest, most radical yet. It is entirely dedicated to the Hoffman-Fletchers. Anyone who has spent time in their sphere knows they are mercurial, at best. Their reach across our landscape, though, is undeniable, from Walter to Joyce to Marty to Herbie to Dibi to Christian to Nathan, and the Journal does a fantastic job capturing the angles (Lewis Samuels writes a gorgeous piece on Herb). But my fav slice (and Fletcher) is Christian’s son Greyson Thunder. Such a sweet, young man rolled into the packaging of a lumberjack! And he is interviewed by the savant of our time, up and coming surf journalist, John John Florence.

It is a brilliant conversation, worth buying the issue for, but the end, which I share here, is particularly wonderful:

John John: Do you want to be surfing and skating in ten years?

Greyson: Of course.

John Johh: Do you want to be doing it competitively?

Greyson: For fun. Yes.

John John: I want to retire in ten years.

Greyson: You’re going to retire in ten years?

John John: Yeah. We should retire at the same time and go on sick boat trips and stuff.

Greyson: It’s possible.

Possible and fantastic! I, firstly, love that John John will disappear in ten years, leaving King Kelly to sit alone like a Gollum with all his preciouses (that he will have to re-engrave WSL). I love, secondly, the image of these two going berserk on the high seas. They will be pirates and no port will be safe, no fair maiden secure. Surfers/skaters should have turned to piracy years ago. Damn Somalis beat us all to the punch, but I’m just glad that in ten years time we will field the best team ever. A freshly retired Capt. John John and his trusty first mate Greyson.  And we have The Surfer’s Journal to thank. Reader supported piracy! Yo-ho!

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Matahi Drollet gets tubed at Teahupoo in Tahiti
Matahi Drollet is the 17-year-old kid brother of Manoa Drollet, who launched him into the wave of the day during the filming for Point Break II at Teahupoo. "He's only 17, man, and he looks younger," says Dylan, "and he went off, mate. He got the biggest drainer. He went deep and made it. On one of my boards too!" | Photo: © 2014 Raihei Tapeta / Mataiea Lifestyle Tahiti

LAURIE TOWNER BUSTS JAW! PLUS FLIPPED SKIS AND A FIGHT!

Hollywood comes to Teahupoo for Point Break II

Australian stunt-man Laurie Towner bounced off the Teahupoo reef yesterday and sprung his jaw in two. Pop! Holes in his neck! Holes in his head! Body all cut up! The second wave got him, too, and he blacked out and came to in the lagoon a few hundred metres in with tow-pal Laird pulling him out of the drink.

That’s the kinda thing that happens when you’re a stuntman on the remake of a schmaltz classic like 1991’s Point Break that requires the hero to ride the offspring of a “50-year-storm.”  In this case, it was an ultra-long period swell which meant it was ultra-powerful but also ultra-slow.

And Laurie, 28, who prefers his tubs on the deep side, wasn’t going to have arm-chair jockeys telling the world he coulda got deeper. How many chances was he going to get?

Laurie is, or at least was, ’cause it’s the past tense now that he’s sitting in hospital waiting for his gal to arrive from Australia, the stunt double for Johnny Utah, the film’s FBI agent protagonist. Laurie can’t fly ’cause “so much water rushed into his head and into his sinuses,” says Dylan Longbottom, the other major stunt surfer, who doubles for the film’s conflicted surf guru villain Bohdi.

Bruce Irons stepped in for Laurie and for the rest of yesterday, and today (Friday, Tahiti time), he and Dylan doubled in tubes. Dylan, 40, who also shaped all the tow and paddle boards used in the movie, says the pair got “some crazy, drain-y ones. I was so deep and I was pumping and pumping and flying and I’m thinking…shit… he’s gone and I look back and I see him right at the end come flying out. I couldn’t believe it!”

For the past two-and-a-half weeks all the home-stays, pensions and hotels near and around Teauhupoo as well as hotels in the Tahitian capital of Papeete have been filled with that wonderful mix of Hollywood investors, directors and actors and production crew along with the hardest-edge watermen water patrol guys (Brian Keaulana, Raimana Van Bastolaer, Vetea “Poto” David) as well as camera men (including the most enduring Don King) and surfers.

Laird Hamilton stars as a vagabond tow driver and was also Laurie’s tow driver, now Bruce’s. Dylan has Raimana, who also acts as coordinator for all the boats, cranes, skis, drones and everything else that comes with a movie that ain’t bringing home a shekel in change from a hundred mill.

Such an event doesn’t come without casualties, even with Laurie excepted. Poto’s ski sunk ’cause of a too-heavy camera attached to it and another ski was flipped and the 200-gee camera strapped onto the sled was drowned.

There was even a fight! At least according to one photographer.

“It’s been a hilarious couple of days with Hollywood trying to shut it off to the locals which failed miserably, Hawaiian water patrol flipping skis, a fight out the back amongst a couple of very well-known riders and basically all the superstar riders being dominated by a 16-year-old local.”

The kid was Manoa Drollet’s little bro, Matahi, getting the deepest and biggest tub.

“He’s only 17, man, and he looks younger,” says Dylan, “and he went off, mate. He got the wave of the day. The biggest drainer. He went deep and made it. On one of my boards too!”

Matahi Drollet’s Bomb During Filming of Point Break 2 from MSW on Vimeo.

 

And what does Dylan think the movie going to be like? Cheese or Rock? Well, for one, he can’t give away too much, ’cause he’s read the script and it’s secret and shit, but he’s seen the rushes. “This one’s for real,” says Dylan. “This movie’s going to be sick, man!”

 

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Not exclusive: The ASP changes its name to WSL?

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Chris Cote naked for Hurley
"So I roll up to the #hurleypro and my sister (who works at Hurley) says she has something for me," says Chris Cote. "She hands me a hand-shaped, custom Bob Hurley surfboard airbrushed by C.R Stecyk and signed by both of them! Bob's message said: 'Hurley family for Chris, first Hurley Ad guy.' I was in Hurley's first ever ad in a zine in 1998 or 1999 I'm pretty sure before they actually had any clothing. In the ad, I was naked covered in chips and salsa with the tag, 'Chris Cote can't wait for his new Hurley clothes!' The photo was taken when I was a roadie for @blink182."

EXCLUSIVE: When Hurley used to sell naked boys!

More sought after than even the Phantom Fuse 3 Sport boardshort!

Before co-founding the most exciting web venture this side of Pied Piper’s data compression algorithm, I was Editor-at-living-Large of Surfing magazine, a fine, albeit conservative, enthusiast title.

My one-day-a-week, in office, consisted of not contributing anything worthwhile at the edit meeting and leaving before lunch. I truly loved my co-workers, each and every one, but I was not built for the cubicle. Or to have bosses. During the five minutes I was semi-lucid, I would yammer on about how conservative every damn thing had gotten. Why couldn’t we have fun anymore? What was so wrong about writing the truth? In my heart I knew the answer. The surf industry had grown into a bourgeois, feckless old man. Surfing magazine was completely benign, but even still, those above me regularly fielded calls from irate surf company middle managers who ruled like nasty little dictators, threatening to “pull ads” for even the slightest infraction. “Who cares?” I always thought. “Let them pull their stupid, suck ads. And let’s double down on their cheek by give them something worth pulling their shit ads over!” I was outvoted.

Hurley was amongst the worst. They once threatened to pull, and/or did pull, over a column likening Nike Surf to the Vietnam War. Bourgeois! Feckless! But feast your eyes on a naked Chris Cote, covered in chips and salsa, maybe getting urinated on, being used to sell…. Hurley! Amazing, you say? Yes it is. I called Chris to get the full story.

“Ha! I used to be a drum tech for Blink-182 and when we were on tour they would pay me extra to do stupid stuff. Once I worked an entire show wearing nothing but Reebok Pumps and underwear. This day, they covered me in chips and salsa and offered them to visiting journalists.”

But how did it come to be a Hurley ad? It does not necessarily reflect Bob’s taste.

“No it certainly does not. I’d have to think he was a bit shocked. You know, I don’t know who made the call on using it as an ad. Maybe Paul Gomez? It was before the company had even started making clothes. Like, right right when Bob split from Billabong. To be honest, I can’t even say if it was officially sanctioned or not.”

How much fun is it to do unsanctioned things? I will tell you. SO FUN! Come ride the Beach Grit train, Hurley. Shake off stern disapproval of, like, everything and live in the sun! We can all eat chips and salsa off of a naked Chris Cote. We can all be wonderful, surfing friends.

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