PAYBACK: TWO GREAT WHITES KILLED IN WA

Surfer loses both hands in shark attack. Two white pointers killed by pro-active government… 

“Y’all know me. Know how I earn a livin’. I’ll catch this bird for you, but it ain’t gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down the pond chasin’ bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin’, little tenderizin’, an’ down you go. And we gotta do it quick.”

Remember Quint? The shark fisherman from Jaws? Well, turns out he had a point.

Actually, ‘member Jaws, and the good people of Amity Island racked with paranoia in need of an end to the “shark menace?

Well, cast your mind back just three weeks and you’ll recall a still-pissed West Oz premier Colin Barnett shaking his fist towards the ocean and telling all who would listen that rogue sharks would be “destroyed and removed.”

Barnett, of course, was still quivering with anger at the decision by his own Environmental Protection Agency, who advised against the redeployment of 72 shiny new baited hooks this summer.

But yesterday he kept good on that promise and authorised the swift “humane destruction” of not one but two four-metre white pointers found swimming in the vicinity of an attack on surfer Sean Pollard near the beautiful fishing town of Esperance.

 The 23-year-old from the state’s south-west was surfing solo prior to the attack and the injuries…Jesus… Sean lost the hand from one arm and part of his other arm from the elbow down.

He reportedly told paramedics that two sharks, perhaps bronze whalers, had attacked him.

The town’s shire president, Malcolm Heasman, absolutely caught on the hop by the circling press, urged locals and visitors, comprised of families enjoying school holidays enjoy to “exercise caution,” before stating:

“I am extremely sad, but I guess we live in a coastal community so from time to time unfortunately these things happen,” Mr Heasman said. “We would prefer they didn’t.”

 But for better or worse, the two whites were in the area, and out they came, straight onto the back of a waiting truck for transport to Perth, trailed by news crews, where they are currently being examined to determine if they were indeed the culprits.

And the method of their capture? Drum lines and baited hooks.  The whole incident unfolded at such a pace that opponents of any form of retribution towards the sharks did not have a chance to voice their disgust.

But, jeez, what do you think? Victory for good old common sense or knee-jerk reaction?

Picture Quint, talking to us from beyond the grave. Fixing us with that steely gaze, bottle of rum in one hand and sharp gaff in the other.

“You’ve gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive…then ante up.”

Let the debate begin.


surfer hair

CANDID: HOW SURFER-HAIR RUINED MY LIFE

When you're 15 years old, losing those golden stripes will tip you into the deepest existential gloom… 

I grew up, like every other kid, building a castle of unfulfilled moments, lost opportunities and slammed doors. An accumulation of regrets so painful – all those gals never kissed, all those set waves never ridden, all those heats lost cause of, what, nerves? – that if I ever let myself wade back into ’em I’d drive myself into the arms of crazy.

But, there was this one time. And, if I could backspin the planet 20 years or some, I’d play it diff.

I don’t remember her name, but I can’t forget her deep brown skin. She was just short of sixteen years, but lived alone, or so she said. The small house was one street back from the beach, an hour from my parent’s house, where I lived.

The situation was unusual, sure. But, when you’re 15-and-a-half and staring at a gal whose breasts speak of buttery milk and carnal abundance and she tells you there ain’t another soul in that house, in that house with the bedroom that faces east and so the morning sun pours onto the bed, onto her sweating body, you don’t argue the point.

I had met her outside a bar on a Friday night and she’d invited me to her house the following weekend. She was tall and had long limbs, a face too pretty, a gal built for modelling.

I was just coming out a summer of eight-hour beach days. My dark hair was balayaged with blond stripes, my body, although not the sort to thrill gym kinkos, was tight enough and brown, too. I was riding high. A surfer. And, surfers ruled my town.

In my pre-surf life, this gal wouldn’t have exercised her neck to check me out. Now, suddenly, I was going to her house, to the the empty house. I imagined her deep and fathomless submission to me. My expert groping hands leading her queer clumsiness. She would experience a seething electric female ecstasy while I controlled her like a master puppeteer.

I  imagined this many times in the week leading to our appointment. I spent so much time in my room, my mom thought I’d become clinically depressed.

Two days before we were to meet I decided to really light shit up by getting a killer haircut. At the big-city hairdresser, I showed ’em a photo of a CK model and paid fifty bucks for a cut and blow-dry. I watched handfuls of blond waft onto the floor, little golden parachutes whose contrasting beauty had secured me this erotic rendezvous. I watched as they were swept into the trapdoor at the corner of the salon. I might’ve whispered goodbye as the flap slammed shut.

That afternoon, I cried in the bathroom as I stared at the stupid boy with monotone  hair stiffened by gel on the sides and awash with mousse on the top panel. Then, I ran to the drug store and bought a bottle of “Honey Blonde”.

While my parents slept, I painted the peroxide in long stripes. It turned my dark hair red.

It looks okay, I said to myself.

On the day I was going to meet her I scooped up a handfuls of pomade, gel and mousse. I worked it in, I smooth it over. I shaped and sculpted.

It looks okay, I said to myself.

But, it didn’t.

And the gal’s face said it all when my bike came up her driveway and her vision was filled with an ordinary boy and not a surfing super hero.

What happened to your hair, she said, although the question rang rhetorically not quizzically.

If I was a painter, I could’ve made a masterpiece of that moment, a study of profound disappointment.

Then she said, Let’s go to the beach. 

On the beach I showed her my right bicep that I had inflated by lifting my school bag 200 times a day in front of the mirror.

I invited her to run her hands over the bulge in my arm.

It feels pretty good, she said.

But she kept looking at my hair.

It’s red, she said at one point.

I left at exactly three-thirty pm that afternoon.

I know because the radio news was on and there was something about the Australian surfer Martin Potter winning the world title, and I now hated Martin Potter because his hair was a bed of sun-burnt curls and I knew that if Martin Potter was here on this driveway, near this girl in the scoop leg shorts and the loose singlet that was cut low on the sides, he could take her, he could take her now, right in front of me, and they would bang and they would bang.

And, then they would laugh at my red hair while they smoked cigarettes and the sun coming through the bedroom window baked their skin even darker.

Regrets, yeah, I’ve had a few.


john john florence portrait
So serious and so much talent! But without the wrapping of beautiful words? What do we have? | Photo: Morgan Maassen

In Defense of the Hard-Working Sport Journalist

Surf without its journalist is like music without its soul.

Ex-Yankee baseball player, and Hall of Fame lock, Derek Jeter has recently launched a website called “The Players Tribune” and its sole aim is to make athletes horribly boring just like he. You can read a wonderful story about it on esquire.com right here.

In a nutshell, Jeter considers journalists “filters.” Cumbersome little things that get lodged between the fascinating athlete and his adoring fan. And is he ever wrong!

If our surf world is a microcosm of sport, and I believe it is, then eight out of ten “athletes” are dull to the max. It takes the journalist, and his swift pen, to breathe life into otherwise very feeble material.

“Athletes” don’t tell stories. They are stories. And without the Sean Dohertys, Matt Warshaws, Travis Ferres, Nick Carrolls of the world the whole thing would be as bland as a Joel Parkinson cutback. Pretty? Yes. Interesting? Fuck no.

Go out and hug your favorite sport journalist today and thank him for a job well done. And for telling you that Kolohe means “li’l rascal” in Hawaiian.


Candid: I was the world’s worst surf guide!

What does it take to be the bitch, the foil, the man servant to surfers on vacation? Phil Goodrich explains.

December 2005. I was already saving and planning my trip back to Indonesia when I received an email from a boat captain that I greatly respected.

“It’s a new resort so we can’t pay you but you’ll get room and board and you can surf and paint all you want. Just take the guests surfing.”

I was over the moon! I got chosen to be an Indonesian surf guide! Some would consider it a dream job: endless days of perfect waves, drop the guests off in the lineup, answer a few questions. How hard could it be?

For the last five years I had been traveling to Indonesia the hard way. I was always alone and staying in the cheapest and most feral of accommodations. I would haggle every rupiah to its lowest price. I studied the language and culture. My whole existence and identity was based around Indonesia.

What I didn’t realise was that I had become an emaciated cliche. When I got invited to be a surf guide on the island of North Sipora, I didn’t realise what kind of personality traits were required to be a good surf guide.

It started off badly. Roger was our first guest. He was a civil servant from Sydney. His boat trip plans fell through in Padang so the resort was his plan B or C. He let me know this straight away. His smug face suggested that he was doing us a favour by booking and being the first guest.

Roger reminded me of a cross between Fred Flintstone and Herman Munster. At dinner on our first evening he brought a guide book of Mentawai surf breaks to the table. It was battered and dog-eared with extensive notes in the margins. He began giving me a verbal pop quiz about each wave. In reality, I was new to the Mentawais. My area of expertise was Nias Island. One of the co-owners had taken me around on the speed-boat and shown me most of the spots and I had taken notes as to what wind and swell direction were optimal.

I was in no position to offer much of an opinion and the resort’s promise of internet and a cell phone had fallen through. This meant that I had no way to check a surf forecast and the resort was located on the leeward side of the island.  The closest spot was Icelands which meant it was a 10-minute boat ride and impossible to tell what the conditions were like.

Unbeknown to Roger, the main owner had informed me that because we only had one guest it didn’t justify using the amount of fuel necessary to reach the Playgrounds area. I was told to secretly keep him in our local vicinity which meant Scarecrows to Icelands. Roger told me at the end of dinner that he was keen to score Rifles, a very fast and shallow right in the Playgrounds area. I felt trouble brewing immediately.

On our first morning we came around the channel at Tua Pejat and pulled up to a wave we nicknamed Ombak Tidur (Sleepy Wave). Absolutely flawless five-foot peaks were spinning across the reef. There were no charter boats in sight. No local fishing boats. Roger was unaffected. Ombak Tidur was not in his guide book.

“We should go to Rifles,” he said.

I was trying to wax my board and apply sunscreen at the same time.

“Roger, IT’S GOING OFF RIGHT HERE! THERE ARE NO OTHER BOATS. It’s just you and me, man! We have it to ourselves!”

“I’m the guest here and I want to go to Rifles,” he said.

“Well, I’m the guide and its firing. We’re surfing here,” I said as I dived off the boat.

I watched as he fumbled with all of his gear and clumsily paddled into the lineup.  I called him into a nice set wave and watched as he slowly tried to get to his feet.  Roger did an excellent cartwheel down the face and got washed all the way inside. I didn’t see him again for maybe four hours.

I surfed until I couldn’t paddle anymore and got barrelled on just about every wave. As I approached the boat I noticed his arms folded across his chest and a scowl on his face.

Things got worse for Roger and me. He didn’t enjoy lefts and 7 Palm, Scarecrows, Telescopes and Icelands were the four closest breaks to the resort (all lefts). For the rest of the week he let me know how good all of the other waves in the Playgrounds are must be.

Roger complained about me when he got back to Padang on the Sumatran mainland. I only got to guide about five more trips and combined with my constant nagging about the internet and cell phone reception the Italian owner had enough. I listened as the chef received a phone call at dinner.

“Yes. Uh huh. Ok.  I’ll tell him.  Bye,” muttered the chef. “That was Seb. He says you’re fired mate.”

The motherfucker didn’t even have the balls to fire me face to face or even tell me directly over the phone.

So what makes a good surf guide? The finest example was Christian Jon Barton (Barts). I say this not because he passed away this October but because it is a plain fact. The guy was a legend in every sense of the word. He had the unique ability to combine confidence, knowledge, skill, patience, and people skills. He was a fiend for perfect waves. He coveted the best conditions possible for the guests and the mundane questions that plagued most guides would not faze Barts. The most challenging circumstances were water off a duck’s back. Within the rumour-mill and back-stabbing world that is Padang (the charter boat departure port) he was able to transcend all of the petty feuds. This allowed him the freedom to work for multiple charter boats and resorts. He was liked and respected by all of the captains and resort owners and especially the guests. He could mingle with top 16 WCT surfers and affluent, awkward old guys. He made every guest feel important. His confidence was contagious so everyone believed that they were headed for the best possible waves according to the weather conditions. He embraced all of the roles of a surf guide – coach, weatherman, referee, first aid expert, cheerleader, ding repairman, board caddy and psychologist. He juggled all of these hats while patiently waiting for the set of the day when he would pull in and get spat out or destroy the lip with expert precision.

Indonesia has not been the same this year without Christian. I’m working as a surf guide at Macaronis Resort for a few trips and as much as I’ve tried to honour his memory I still fall short. My people skills are still atrocious. I come off as aloof and indecisive. I’m usually just learning names when people are about to finish their trip. Although I am clearly better than that first attempt in 2006 I can still wear the badge of The World’s Worst Surf Guide.

(This video short is a collection of Phil’s waves as a surf guide. And to see his artwork, click here!)

Confessions Of The Worst Surf Guide Ever from Phil Goodrich on Vimeo.

 

 

 


Alex Florence with surfboard in Hawaii
Alex Florence, mom to John John (named after the son of the US prez), Nathan and Ivan. How smart's this gal? She ploughed through a degree in English literature and used her student loans to fund her and her boys' beach lifestyles. Alex says that if you saw the size of her student loans, which she's only just paid off, you'd think she was the "gnarliest surgeon ever."

The remarkable voyage of Mom John Florence

If you want to really know John John, y'better meet his mama…

How about we start at the beginning? Back in 1986, when Alex Florence, from Ocean Grove, a Christian seaside community, in New Jersey (yeah, the not-so-glam part of New York) and the sweetest of sixteens, told her parents she was going to the North Shore and asked if they’d, like, mind, driving her to La Guardia airport.

The surfing thing had been in her head ever since she was 12 and she was soaking her brain every day in surf movies like Beyond Blazing Boards and riding skateboards all over town and surfing in oversized wetsuits.

One day Alex was sitting in the room of one of her pals watching surf vids on the portable television set with the giant video cassette recorder hooked up and said: “I’m going to be one of those girls!”

With a backpack and a skateboard and a couple of c-notes in her purse, the lil blonde teenager landed in Honolulu, walked out to the Nitmiz and just stuck out her thumb. She stepped off in Haleiwa where another gal, who was 19 but seemed so worldly, picked her up and said,

“Say, girl, do you need a job?”

Uh, yeah. 

Well, we’re filming this movie, North Shore and…”

Do what I did and download the movie and check out the Halloween party scene 20 minutes in. Sure is a scene. Laird Hamilton is in lycra pants and his bare torso is painted in purple and lime zinc. A bearded Gerry Lopez is the Hui leader Vince, sullen, supping beers and looking evilly serene in a red bomber jacket and yellow tee. And, there, but don’t blink, is Mom John squeezing past the female lead Kiani and the Arizona wave pool champ Rick Kane. Yep, that shoulder length tangle of permed blond hair in the leopard skin lycra is the same gal who, five years, later would birth the first of three remarkable kids.

But, this is 1986, and, man alive, ain’t there some partying to do! The set of North Shore, which also starred eighties surf star Rob Page and perennial icon Mark Occhilupo, is a 21-day bender.

Three weeks ends too fast and Alex needs a place to crash and a job. She scoops up a room at Velzyland, just south of Sunset, and the most Hawaiian of the North Shore’s beachfront neighbourhoods. Fifty bucks a month for her room and Alex becomes one of five gals on the North Shore that actually surfs

And, yeah, V-Land is tough but the heavies take a liking to this tiny blonde thing, this little sister from the mainland. Back then, the gnarliest cat was a guy called Junior Boy Moepono, 150-plus kilos of Polynesian threat. And, for whatever reason, Junior kept a protective arm around Alex.

Later, Alex’d move to Kauai for a year, setting up at Hanalei Bay, right where the Irons kids grew up and then she’d take off to Bali for six months. Australian surfers taught her how to ride a motorbike in Poppies Lane. She hopped a boat to Lombok for a while and then did the 24-hour bemo-ferry run to G-Land where she got so lit up by malaria she had to call her parents to get flown home.

But, do you think little Alex can live in Ocean Grove?

Chasing money and more adventure, Alex grabbed  a cruise shop waitress gig with a gal pal who happened to a beauty who’d just won the Miss San Antonia beauty pageant. Her friend brought along her boyfriend and together they cruised the Caribbean.

Soon, more adventure. This time Europe as a backpacker. The couple had split back on the cruise ship and Alex and the guy travelled to Europe, strictly as pals. Separate beds. Totally on the level.

But, then, one night in Austria.

A few drinks.

Laughter.

Stumbling into the cold night.

One night.

One night in 1990 and the creation of John John Florence, named after the American president’s little boy, the kid who bravely saluted his Dad’s coffin in front of millions of Americans. Yeah, that’s a name that  has strength, that has courage.

The partnership didn’t work. How could it? Three little boys. Ain’t a lot of cash in the house they rented at Rocky Point. Dad soon disappeared into the penal system.

Alex remembers driving in her ancient Valiant, the ex-husband gone, John, five, Nathan, three, Ivan, a baby at one-and-a-half, looking over at her little boys and saying: “What do you guys want to do? We don’t have to do anything or be anywhere? We can stay out til 10:30! We can go to thrift stores!”

Alex took her kids everywhere and despite what y’might call a massive hand break, felt this sudden freedom. A total freedom. She took them everywhere. And that summer after the Dad split Alex packed up the house and with her three little ducklings that followed her everywhere, flew to Bingin in Bali where she knew a local family who’d let ’em stay in their warung, cheap.

Sure, she didn’t have much money, but here they were living on 10 dollars a day, and they stretched out their resources ($1200) for a sublime four months. Little Ivan, who was just over two then, had broken his leg on the trampoline before they’d split but Alex was cool, she just carried her kid everywhere.

Back on the Shore, Herbie Fletcher, a pioneer of jetskis in the surf, was towing John John into bombs when he was seven. Here they were, back at Rocky Point, just one house back from the sand, funded by taking in up to 10 boarders at a time, squeezing ’em into three bedrooms. Alex’d let floorspace for $250 a month. Whatever it took.

They built a half-pipe in the yard. Magazines British Vogue, US Vogue and Elle couldn’t help themselves when they heard about this gorgeous solo surf mom and her shaggy haired boys. Alex felt like she had a guardian angel. No money, but she was on the beach, was feeding her three boys and, well, you tell me that this ain’t the life.

Meanwhile, Alex was studying for her degree in English literature at the University of Honolulu. And, this is where it gets real good. Alex says that if you saw the size of her student loans, which she’s only just paid off, you’d think she was the “gnarliest surgeon ever.”

But, her gig was using her loans to support the family, to raise the kids. She didn’t want to leave her kids with just anybody. So she went to school at nights and took in boarders. Yeah, sometimes dinner was corn flakes, but  the kids were playing outside in the sun and were getting pushed (or towed) into waves by a role call of surfing icons including Nathan Fletcher, Danny Fuller, Kala and Kamalei Alexander, Herbie Fletcher and Pete Johnson.

Jamie O’Brien, too, but he was always a little crazy and’d sometimes throw dog shit at the kids. But, he also got John into contests and pushed into waves during his first-ever heat, aged four.

And, it wasn’t all surf. Nathan, a smart kid, would gobble up whatever lit books Alex threw at him, from Bukowski to Tom Wolfe. He’d mow through a thousand-page volume in one day.

Still, these were, are, ballsy little kids. Alex has lost count of how many times she’s thrown a bleeding kid in the car and hot-dogged it to emergency. John’s broken “almost everything”, his neck, his back, legs, wrists, arms, ankles. Ivan earned 55 stitches in his  face (rogue fin) after he paddled into a 25-footer that would later be nominated for the Billabong XXL wave of the year.

Eventually, they were squeezed out of the house by a sale, an owner moving back, whatever it was, Alex can’t remember.

So Alex and John John, now 10 but mature beyond his years, ’cause he’s seen some shit out there on the Shore and he knows what it’s like to live on nothing, were walking down the street that runs parallel to the beach and talking about the situation, saying stuff like, “Oh man, what are we going to do now?”

And, as they’re walking, there’s this little beach house, just on the corner of where they live now, and Alex, being Alex, sees this car in the driveway, looks at John, who nods, and they walk right up to the owner, their brown faces break into gazillion watt smiles, and they say, “How about it?”

And, suddenly, they’re at Pipe.

And, the rest, y’might say, is the first day of the rest of their life.