The Brazil leg of the tour ain't looking so good
right now…
And another one bites the dust.
Rio ain’t doing so good. The original contest site is fucked,
Conner Coffin and Carissa Moore saw some dude get murdered. Parko’s
nursing a knee injury by competing in Bali. Kai Otton has “personal
matters” keeping him out of the feces infested nightmare they call
an ocean. Taj is over it.
Now, I don’t speak Portuguese, but I’ve got good enough Spanish
to puzzle it out. Because Portuguese, as well as Italian and
French, are all pretty much the same language. Just spoken with
varying amounts of marbles in your mouth.
He’ll be replaced by Lucas Silveira, 2016 World Junior
Champion.
Silveira’s instagram comfirms he will be competing in the
event.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFL2m3PBiQy
While the WSL hasn’t provided official confirmation that Mr
Slater is out I think it’s safe to say you should go adjust your
fantasy surfer teams accordingly. If you’ve still got Slater on
your team. Which I do not.
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Parker: “Happy Mother’s Day, yeah?”
By Rory Parker
Meet four dazzling surf moms!
Happy Mothers Day, yeah?
Weird holiday for me. Don’t speak to my own mother. I know I’ve
mentioned it before. Terrible woman, doesn’t get to be a part of my
life. But, still, once a year this day rolls around and kicks loose
the ol’ “Why didn’t you love me, Mommy?”
You’d think that shit would go away, but I guess it takes
therapy or something. Which I don’t go in for. Prefer not to put a
name to what’s wrong with me. Last time got me handed a ‘scrip for
lithium. No thanks, I prefer my drugs to be of the recreational
variety.
Got the best stepmom on Earth though. Still need to ring her up,
wish her well. Tried earlier but she was busy doing some crazy open
ocean paddle.
Then it’s time to hit up grandma. Finally the mother-in-law. So
it’s not like my life is terrible. Three great ladies who ain’t my
wife is pretty good, I think.
Nice thing about holidays in general, easy work for the day.
Pull together a few related clips, finish up early, go for a surf.
Been damn fun the last few days. Just enough punch to go fast, not
quite enough to make you hesitate. Which has made for some
spectacular ass beatings and left me sore as fuck each morning. But
that’s nothing a hot shower and a handful of ibuprofen won’t
fix.
Check out these surfing moms! Listed in no particular order.
Keala Kennelly
https://www.instagram.com/p/5kyJKzL4E5/
She didn’t give birth to the kid, but she’s still a mom. Right?
I mean, I don’t think Mothers Day is solely restricted to
birth-givers. Don’t see a reason it would be. But gender dynamics
are so confusing these days. I don’t really know what I’m talking
about. Figure you should take the kindest position.
Lisa Andersen
The fact that Andersen got knocked up by a judge while competing
on tour is pretty crazy. Not a great indicator of the judges’
abilities to avoid conflicts of interest.
But you can’t deny she among the best female surfers that ever
lived. She was so far ahead of the curve. If you could travel back
in time, kidnap her, force her to compete today, she’d still be
winning events.
Bethany Hamilton
Bethany may be a bit too godly for my taste, but you just can’t
ignore the fact that she’s a damn strong woman. Physically,
mentally, whatever. Shark attacks, child birth, seems like there
ain’t nothing she can’t come back from.
Not to mention her mind boggling ability to one hand paddle into
bombs, and somehow retain her balance despite the loss of an
arm.
Alex Florence
Definitely the worst surfer on the list, but that’s facing some
stiff competition. Mom John’s a pretty damn good longboarder. Tough
too. I’ve seen her take some solid beatings out at smallish
Pipe.
She’s also a single mother who raised three boys on the North
Shore without a single one turning into a drug addict or thief.
Which is a challenge. Lots of bad influences to contend with. I’m
surprised she hasn’t written some sort of mothering handbook yet.
She’s a smart lady, no doubt she could pump out a best seller.
There’s not really any video of her surfing floating around the
web so you’ll have to make do with this short little nothing
clip.
Too bad, because she does surf well.
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Blood Feud: Surfer vs. Central CA!
By Chas Smith
Don't you love when geriatrics cross swords?
You’ve surfed The Ranch, no? The Hollister
Ranch just a few hours north of Santa Babs, an hour or so south of
San Luis Obispo? I have maybe three times thanks to my wonderful
brother-in-law Tom. We woke up very early in the morning and
launched his little skiff off of the Goleta pier and skittered for
many minutes then surfed Little Drakes or Rights or Razors or
whatever the hell those waves are called. I got out after a few
hours and ate peanut butter sandwiches because I was very
hungry.
If you are unfamiliar with The Ranch’s set up, the waves all
break in front of private lands. In California the rich are not
allowed to own the water though and so if you have a boat, you are
allowed to surf. Or if you have a key to the lands. Or if you are
very rich.
In any case, it is a well known series of breaks and
accessible etc. and I didn’t think the “locals” ever got mad
because there aren’t any and there is enough of a barrier to entry
for it not to pack out. You have to have a boat. Or a key. Or
riches. Maybe if a person pulled up a party boat the “locals” would
get mad. Or maybe if lots of pictures appeared in Surfer
Magazine.
This last one just happened at the “locals” are apparently
furious at the elderly publication, sending in burning hot letters.
“Way to expose our breaks, kooks!” and “Kooks!” and “Don’t publish
pictures of our waves anymore, fucking kooks!”
Ain’t it wonderful when geriatrics fight battles from twenty
years ago? I very much enjoyed Donald J. Trump vs. Ted Cruz and I
very much enjoy this.
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Long Read: Two Surfers Killed in Mex
By Derek Rielly
It ain't pretty reading, but maybe a lesson in
there somewhere…
It’s hardly a secret that the government v drug cartels civil
war makes parts of Mex places you don’t want to go near. Two
Australian surfers, Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, had a swing
driving through the richly dysfunctional town of Navolato,
Sinaloa, however, and were killed, their
burnt-out bodies found in their surf van.
End of story? Yeah, kinda is. The Men’s Journal, however, just
dropped a long piece on the murders, documenting the doomed voyage
from Washington in North America, through Baja, and onto mainland
Mex.
Let’s study the piece.
In Baja the swell was epic. They ended up
scoring nearly perfect surf. They camped on remote beaches, cooked
meals on the sand, and woke at first light to paddle out. But after
a week of waves, it was time to move on.
The plan was to take a ferry across the Gulf of California,
the 140-mile-wide bay that separates the Baja California peninsula
from the Mexican mainland, then drive south. It was 560 miles from
the port of Topolobampo, Sinaloa, to Guadalajara. If they had any
hope of making Coleman’s meeting at noon with Gómez, they’d have to
drive through the night, taking turns at the wheel.
Then the ferry was delayed two hours. As they waited, Lucas
sent a message to a friend in Edmonton, where he lived with Cox.
“Can you do me a huge favor if you are seeing Josie?” he wrote. “We
have our three-year anniversary tomorrow and wanted to get some
things for her like flowers and red Lindt chocolate.”
When Lucas and Coleman finally arrived on the mainland, it
was just before midnight. The two, together and on their own, had
spent the last decade traveling the world racking up dozens of
countries — South Africa, Sri Lanka, Iceland, India — as well as
multiple surf odysseys to Mexico. They knew how to handle
themselves in foreign lands, but it’s almost certain they didn’t
know just how dangerous the stretch of road is that they were about
to set off on. In the last two years, at least half a dozen
travelers have been murdered on it, by bandits preying on
motorists. On maps it’s marked as the Benito Juárez Toll Road. But
locals have another name for it: the Highway of Death.
There is still a charcoal trace of burned
earth off to the side of the tractor path where someone
doused Adam Coleman’s van with gasoline and ignited it. When
investigators picked through the debris, they found two gas grills,
heat-swollen vegetable and soup cans, jars, dishes, and two sets of
human remains. At first, police figured the victims for tiangueros,
vendors who hawk their wares from street-market stalls in the city.
In Mexico, 95 percent of murders go unsolved, so the crime was
unlikely to warrant any special attention. It was largely a
coincidence that led the police to look more closely.
During the long drive south, Lucas and Cox had been texting
each other frequently. He’d tell her about the surf in Baja or
include her in a discussion he and Coleman were having. So after
receiving the flowers and chocolate, then not hearing from him for
24 hours, Cox had a feeling something had gone horribly
wrong.
“I knew he was dead,” she says. “But the families were
trying to keep positive.” Cox’s mother tried to assuage her fears,
telling her that Lucas probably just got caught up surfing. Gómez
was receiving the same sort of reassurances about Coleman. “I
reached out to one of his friends and told him I was upset, and he
tried to calm me down,” she says. “But more days went by, and we
had to begin the search.”
Seven days after last hearing from Lucas, Cox posted an
appeal on Facebook: “It breaks my heart to do this. . . . We are
appealing for any information regarding Dean Lucas and Adam
Coleman.” Gómez translated it into Spanish.
Pedro, the gas attendant who had given Lucas and Coleman
directions, had seen images of the burned van displayed on the
front page of a local paper. He recognized it immediately but had
no idea who the two gringos were. Then he happened to see Gómez’s
Facebook post, which had been shared widely.
“This is going to upset you,” he wrote to her shortly
afterward. “Please stay calm and try not to panic. The van in this
photo looks like your boyfriend’s.”
Suddenly the murders morphed from just another local tragedy
into an international incident, with headlines around the globe.
“Australian Surfers Missing in Notorious Sinaloa, Mexico,” ran a
headline on an Aussie news site. “Australian Surfers Feared
Murdered in Mexico During Quest for ‘Crazy Waves,’ ” ran another,
in the U.K.’s Telegraph.
The Sinaloa attorney general took the rare step of holding
press conferences to detail progress on the case. Within 48 hours
of discovering that the van had been registered to Coleman, he’d
announced, police had captured three suspects and had issued arrest
warrants for two others. State marshals from an elite investigative
unit had set a trap for the bandits, stopping them at 5 a.m. on a
dirt road leading from a breach in the fence along the Benito
Juárez. They recovered the getaway car, a Jeep Cherokee, and the
murder weapon, a .357 Magnum revolver. They’d also extracted signed
confessions from all three suspects in police custody.
At the wheel of the Cherokee was Julio César González Muñiz,
a round-faced 27-year-old with a wispy mustache. The marshals, the
arrest report notes, discovered the revolver in his waistband, and
a ballistics test quickly matched the gun to a bullet removed from
Coleman’s body. In the Cherokee’s passenger seat was the driver’s
first cousin, Martín Rogelio Muñiz Ponce.
The details of what happened that night come solely from the
confessions of the Muñiz cousins and Sergio Simón Benítez González,
their supposed lookout. On November 21, shortly after González
witnessed Lucas and Coleman passing through the toll booth, the
Cherokee pulled out behind them and flashed police strobes on the
dashboard. Lucas and Coleman continued to drive for another mile
before pulling over. One of the trio’s alleged accomplices that
night, José Luis Espinoza Bojórquez — who remains at large and has
at least two other murder charges against him — stepped out of the
Cherokee wearing the uniform of a highway patrol officer.
“They pulled two males out,” reads Julio César’s statement.
“One of them was shirtless and wearing shorts and had long
dreadlocks, the other was wearing dark pants and a black shirt.”
Bojórquez forced “the long-haired one” into the backseat of the
Cherokee and the other into the van and started driving to a nearby
field, so they’d be out of sight. But as they exited the highway,
Coleman tried to escape, forcing the Cherokee’s door open and
jumping onto the dirt road.
A desperate fistfight erupted. “This guy was getting in some
hard shots and beating the hell out of them,” the confession reads.
Muñiz pulled out the .357 and “put a bullet in the gringo, getting
him in the face.” Coleman was severely wounded, but not
fatally.
At that point, Bojórquez, “furious from the ass-whipping he
had gotten,” took charge. He jumped behind the wheel of the van
while the others loaded the wounded Coleman and Lucas into the
back. Soon they came to a stop at a tractor path dividing two
cornfields. Bojórquez took the gun, then went to the hinged side
doors of the van and fired four or five shots straight inside. The
assailants doused the van in gasoline and Bojórquez threw a lit
match inside.
Then we ended up extending the trip by two days. Flights were
cheaper that way, layovers minimal. Plenty of time to do what I
want. Which is four days partying in SJDS, followed by five
days chilling and surfing at Playa Gigante.
Decided to be magnanimous, let her have the extra days. So we’re
going to Granada. Yay. So many interesting doors and windows. Can’t
wait to walk around looking at old buildings.
In her mind she came up big. Got what she wants, still gets to
plan our next trip. It’ll be so fucking lame. Touring the covered
bridges of New England, or some such shit.
But that’s a problem for another day. Today it’s all about
planning for a trip I’ll actually enjoy. Which I do months in
advance. Missus prefers to wait until the last minute, then make me
pack for her. Then complain I forgot stuff. Real nice.
First and foremost, gotta get my old man medical kit together.
Can’t fly anywhere without it.
Benzodiazepines:Xanax is a real
problem for, like, millions of people. Insanely addictive,
withdrawal can actually kill you. Over-prescribed, ruins so many
lives.
But for those of us who don’t enjoy it enough to get hooked it’s
a travel wonder drug. Pop a few on the way to the airport, settle
into your seat. Blink your eyes and, hey look at that! You’ve
traveled halfway around the world in a matter of minutes.
They’ve got their drawbacks. Take them too early, toss in a
noggin full of hash oil, and you’re a confused mess. Been there,
done that. Staring at the self check-in kiosk, utterly befuddled,
until some kind soul asks if you need help. Take off your belt at
security and forget to hold up your pants. Give everyone a wink at
the goods.
And you’ve gotta stay away from the booze. Benzos plus alcohol
bring out the unrestrained id. Shit gets ugly.
They also turn me into a farting snoring mess, but that’s a
problem for those around me.
Stimulant Laxatives:Flying always
leaves me colossally constipated. Stomach full of clay, bloated and
sore and farty for days.
There are gentle solutions. Fiber and hydration and light meals
the day before departure. But none of those really solve the
problem, just reduce it.
Enter stimulant laxatives, an asshole emptying explosive fix.
Take a double dose your first night, wake up a few hours later and
spend some quality time moaning on the toilet as your stomach
clenches and evacuates your insides.
It’s not fun, but it works. Like tearing off a bandaid, gets
shit sorted fast rather than suffering slowly.
And you’ll be as light and free as a bird!
Alka-Seltzer:Heartburn, headaches,
hangovers, there’s nothing a little Alka-Seltzer won’t fix.
Add some low grade third world over the counter opiates and
you’ll go from shivering queasy mess to conquer the world superman
in ten minutes.
Nicotine lozenges: I can handle a long
stretch without a smoke, so long as I’m in my right mind. But
reduce my already lacking inhibitions and things get ugly. Cranky,
pissy, hair trigger temper. Mix in the aforementioned benzos and a
few ill advised cocktails (the no drinking thing is more of a
guideline than hard and fast rule) and there’s no telling what I’ll
do.
Addiction’s a hell of a thing. Turns us into monsters during
withdrawals. Thank god I’m only hooked on minor stuff. Like
nicotine and caffeine. And probably alcohol, if I’m being
honest.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros