Best of: Words by Morgan Williamson!

Get into a freeform kinda groove...

I’ve been listening to a lot of jazz lately. What started as an accident has become a ’round the clock obsession. I read that rats given lots of cocaine prefer jazz over other types of music. Hmmm. In any case, here is a very jazzy remix of words by surfwear retailer Stab’s very own Morgan Williamson. All his. All the time, baby. Enjoy.

With coast comes crashing ocean, jagged cliffs, roads, surfers, seals and… sharks. With sharks come misunderstanding, innate fear, black eyes and a bite to be avoided. Injuries suck. Plain and simple. If it keeps you out of the water, you end up left with thoughts of ‘what the hell do I do now?’ Whatever your ailment, hearing you’ll be without physical activity for months is like having your fingernails peeled back. You can do what makes the most sense, which is sit around, drink beer, watch TV and twiddle your thumbs (assuming you still can). The more you drink the slower you heal; bad blood. The pain pills are nice. They’ll leave you confused about what day it is, who you are and what you’re doing in this little world. Ladies and Gentleman, Kelly Slater’s green. And not because of the price of Outerknown beanies, not that kind of green. The King’s new wave, you know that chocolate barrel that we all watched with our mouths on the rug is 100 percent solar powered.

El Niño saw California’s drought and filled some buckets, it rained there… like a few times. People are ecstatic, the drought is over, the reservoirs have been replenished, the Sierra snow pack is saved. A few rains and California’s surely out of the woods… Will they ever again see the sun? Yes! February’s rolled around and the Golden State’s survived yet another harsh winter, it’s beach weather, rejoice. Meanwhile, the evangelicals in Texas are still praying for rain. Oh boy, it’s a big universe out there and you’re just a speck of matter. Space… man. We all get hurt, ’cause shit happens. For us, it’s an out of sight, out of mind thing, thoughts of sharks don’t enter our cerebrum when the surf’s pumping and we’re on the conveyor belt, paddling like madmen, tongues slacked out the sides of our cheeks like labradors. It’s funny, sharks by some are seen as an irrational fear: “You’ve got a better chance of getting struck by lightning than being attacked by a shark,” we’ve heard and said. The concept of no work just surf’s a dream. But not all grow up with a plethora of sponsorships and hype. Some have to work, or at least attempt. Surfing’s up there in the world’s hardest sport to make it in along with golf, tennis and baseball. And not to say that professional surfing’s not a ‘job’… It’s just a better ‘job’ than anyone of us have.

But if these guys worked full time your downtime would be filled with less surf porn and more porn porn. That is unless you were on the coast of Los Angeles last summer where a white shark was reeled into a group of long distance swimmers by a fisherman off the Manhattan Pier resulting in a hefty chomp early July, and by later July a few miles down the road, on the affluent coast of Marina Del Rey, lightning struck the beach leaving one dead and 13 injured… Hell, you can’t write reality. Surfing implements a junky mentality, and our types get hooked on the stoke and no 12-step program can get you off the stuff. The sharks can’t keep us out (with the exception of Brazil’s Recife where people straight-up don’t go in the water and bull sharks swarm empty lineups like an agitated hornet’s nest. Bottom turns aren’t given much thought or discussion. They tend to slide up the feed without a double tap, in search of more W O W. They’re surfing’s lay-up, everything else is the dunk. Without them, there’d be no manoeuvre. Surfing would be reduced to straight-line mundanity – perhaps a joy for some, but certainly not us. So, with an ominous crescendo of clashing white piano keys in mind, here’s 10 of the world’s sharkiest waves that when on, all us pathetic addicts couldn’t help but paddle out.

Now, acquaint yourself with The Sky Surf Park at SKYPLEX in Orlando, Florida. How suiting, why should the ‘theme park capitol of the world’ miss out on the artificial wave venture? The cool cats over at American Wave Machines thought about this and said, “fuck boys, let’s stick one of these puppies on a rooftop.” Well, actually if we are clueing in on some factual half-assed journalism, according to a press release something a bit more professional came from their mouths. Many things don’t coincide: the Kardashians having reason for fame, Kanye West and humility, Johnny Cash and white, Bill Cosby and safe drinking. So we can’t expect great waves to only be found in first world countries. And it’s better they aren’t. The possibility of untouched Malibus, Rincons, Snappers, Lowers, Pipes and Hossegors is what keeps us searching. Shooting down to Baja, getting shacked then indulging in cheap tacos, beer and maybe a sneaky trip to Bada Bing’s a good time, when it runs smooth. Occasionally as a traveling surfer things do go wrong and hopefully you have a grip of cash on you. Although that can also dig the hole you’re in a bit deeper. Honesty’s a cruel bitch.