BeachGritto before you go!
Have you ever felt like you were being followed? Downtown after bar close and the shadows haunt your every step? Being a mother duck in general?
Surfline is doing that to me, like, right now.
If you’ve been following along with my recent escapades, you’ll know that after a trip to Panama one month ago, I left for Australia and am now posted in Fiji. It’s a hard life but somebody has to do it.
And it turns out I’m not the only one!
An explanation: a few days into my Panama trip, I saw an IG post by none other than Luke Davis, in which he was surfing Bocas Del Toro’s premier wave. The caption read: (palm tree emoji) @surfline #ShadowCompany
This made me think that he, and Surfline, were headed my way for the peak of the swell. My suspicions were quickly confirmed when I heard through Hookers and Cocaine Wireless that not only Luke, but also Koa, Billy, and Nathan were headed to the islands.
I never saw the boys over there, as they had their sights set on a particularly hairy beast, but their presence was felt nonetheless.
Then, just two days into my Fiji trip, Koa Rothman posts this picture. Suspicious, but not surprising. Pros love Cloudbreak too.
Then the swell showed up early. Wasn’t supposed to be solid until the evening, but Tuesday morning provided some of the cleanest, most impeccable four-to-six footers anyone could ask for (more on that soon). Harry Bryant got a looney double-drainer that you’ll probably see soon.
Because it started pulsing earlier than expected, the morning was relatively uncrowded. I got three fun ones and called it a session as the tide was beginning to swamp. As I climbed aboard our boat, Tavarua II rolled in ten people deep. Luke Davis, Koa Rothman, Billy Kemper, Nathan Florence, Koa Smith, Alex Gray plus a few filmers.
Once everyone hopped in the water, I asked the Tavi photog, “Those boys here with Surfline?”
“Just kind of on their own trip, I think,” he told me. “But yeah the story and photos will probably go to Surfline.”
Oh those bastards! Do you think they read our site and picked their destinations off of it? And the only reason they didn’t come to Oz was the vagueness of my prose?
That would make BeachGrit the new forecast leader in surf! Who knew!