Slater Knifes God-Son! Day Three, J-Bay Open 2015

And Medina strips the saloon, Alejo lashes the wheel, Reynolds goes home to Sammy Boo…

Hey presto! Despite everything, despite a weak little swell hugging the Jeffreys Bay reef, despite the ocean appearing, at times, as bare as an egg, the third round of the J-Bay Open was a notch above the usual.

Kelly Slater, who is roughly the same age as Kolohe Andino’s father Dino, was mechanical in his defeat of the boy, offering no mercy in waves that should’ve, by rights, suited the frontside fin throws of the 21 year old. Certainly not a man whose next milestone birthday is 50.

And what a squawking Kolohe made when he lost! His head sunk forward in wretchedness, he wrung his hands, he whimpered and then… pop! pop! pop!… his fist found the deck of his surfboard.

Gabriel Medina raped our attention with two backside air reverses on the one wave, the second a very grand sight.

That little wild pigeon, Filipe, tried to emulate Gabriel’s two pack when he nailed two alley-oops on the same wave. What might Alejo do to respond? But for all Filipe’s calculated abandon, it was a set wave, impressively cut apart by Alejo, that froze the heat, one judge even awarding it a 10.

Young turkey Filipe was amiable in the loss, hugging his fellow Brazilian, knowing, I suppose, that he has Trestles, Hossegor and Portugal to sprinkle his gold dust and win an unlikely world title.

That infernal nuisance Adriano de Souza beat Dane Reynolds for the first time in six heats. Blown clean away! Dane with his downy round face and general energeticalness and Adriano, that mite with the impish erect body, heavy dark eyebrows, big head-top and a receding chin. He has really beautiful lips, I’ll admit, so beautiful they look as if they were sculptured.

Michel Bourez and Bede Durbidge are two surfers who aren’t entirely dissimilar. They finished their heat with fifteen and a half-ish points apiece, Michel advancing by virtue of a higher scoring wave.

Don’t wanna go heat by heat? Jump into the minute-long highlights here! And don’t miss heat three of round four: Mick Fanning, Gabriel Medina and Kelly Slater. What a sight that’s going to be!