Hi! I'm Heidi. Can I pay you $128 for a surf lesson?
Hi! I'm Heidi. Can I pay you $128 for a surf lesson?

Get Rich: Teach surf in Norway!

Chas Smith

By

The "learn-to-surf" economy is booming up north!

Has your life plan stalled? Looking for a change? A way to maybe even get rich? Well look no farther than Norway! Scandinavia’s crown jewel offers stunning vistas, universal healthcare, zero “immigrants” and surf instructor jobs that pay $128 per lesson.

That’s 50% higher than the closest competitor! Or something. I failed math!

But how do I know what the various worldwide surf instructor rates are? Oh, well, surfholidays.com just released their patented Surf Lesson Price Index™ and let’s briefly scan the whole list.

It would be hard to make a fine living in even Ecuador for $22. Australia’s paltry $49 per lesson is not enough to buy an avo toast + long black. How many lessons do you think Rihanna has taken in Barbados and did she get a discount or pay the full $77? Sitting in Cornwall’s freezing cold stew does not seem worth $39 and while it is cute that Puerto Rico considers itself a first world country, I can’t imagine anyone there having $80 let alone paying that much for a surf lesson. It seems like a scam.

Many questions and thoughts but Norway. Will you quit your current job and move to Norway? I feel it would be a power move. A good look for you.

And now let us listen to Norway’s other best thing… Turbonegro.

Breaking: Night surfing makes news!

Steve Rees

By

Does this look fun? But what if you had MDMA?

According to a recent CBS news report, a New Breed of “daredevils” attempt to avoid crowds by surfing at night. Oh, how inventive.

Watch the clip here!

Night surfing. So what, right?  We’ve all had our fun without the sun. But watching this got me thinking. These guys are a little too stoked to be fumbling around in the water at night.  What might their motives truly be?

I’m guessing they are all playing a little unfair game of “Did you see me on that last wave?”  (Answer: Of course not.)  In fact, a night surfer could claim just about anything without the slightest detection of a blind audience, yes? Flailing arms, stink bugged legs, and an all around kook-style become irrelevant.

After all, something tells us that the New Breed is not much concerned with the particulars of a sharp rail game when their number one priority is having florescent lights inserted into the back half of a surfboard.

Just a hunch.

But do you night surf Malibu? Are you a daredevil?

Carroll: “Put surfing in Special Olympics!”

Chas Smith

By

Venerated surf journalist has greatest idea of last decade!

You don’t get to be a venerated surf journalist by being just any dumb asshole. No. It takes work. Precision. Dedication. A lifetime of watching men in neoprene pantsuits, or virtually naked, dance upon the water.

The few who last a decade plus in this profession are uniquely qualified to weigh in on this or that. To truly call themselves “surf journalists.” I barely qualify even though I have spent the past fifteen years talking to Dane Reynolds et. al.

And I am very much put to shame by Nick Carroll, the most venerated surf journalist of all and maybe of all-time. He just weighed in on surfing’s inclusion into the Olympics, writing:

Surfing shouldn’t be in the Olympics, just in the Special Olympics.

The simplicity, beauty and truth of that one sentence is almost more than I can take. More than I could ever create. Also, an unsurprisingly, Nick Carroll is totally right.

Surfers are special. We think of ourselves as special, act special, want to be treated special, do special things. We belong in the Special Olympics.

For those unawares, the Special Olympics were founded by John F. Kennedy’s sister Eunice in 1962 in order to bring the wonders of athletic competition into the lives of the physically and intellectually disabled.

The organization has since grown into a gorgeous representation of humankind at its best. Its website reads:

Special Olympics is a global movement of people creating a new world of inclusion and community, where every single person is accepted and welcomed, regardless of ability or disability. We are helping to make the world a better, healthier and more joyful place — one athlete, one volunteer, one family member at a time.

And just think what magnificent social reverberation would occur if the International Surfing Association informed the International Olympic Committee that we surfers chose to be with our peers. That we chose to be Special Olympians.

It would be a better Olympic story than Cool Runnings! A better Olympic story than the Miracle on Ice! A better Olympic story than Eddie the Eagle.

The best Olympic story of all time.

And thank you Nick Carroll.

ISA? Let’s do this thing!

Surf Journalism: BBC reporter gives lesson!

Chas Smith

By

On how to deliver the news on certain stories...

Let’s just take a few minutes to get real. Surfing is a very worthwhile thing to do but not all “surfing” is “surfing.” You know what I’m saying? Like, riding a SUP is not surfing. And wakeboarding is not surfing. And hydrofoiling across great stretches of ocean is not surfing. And riding an egg shape is not surfing unless it is foam. And dogs surfing is not surfing.

Things that aren’t surfing may still be fun but they are also not very worthwhile.

A BBC reporter understood this and delivered a story about surfing dogs with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. Let’s watch.

Now, I bring this up because Surfer fawned over a recent clip of Gerry Lopez bodysurfing in a river. Let us watch then read.

Gerry Lopez has always been a trailblazer. When Pipeline got crowded, he bolted for Indonesia. When that got inudated with surfers, he headed for Oregon to snowboard. When river surfing got popular, he started bodysurfing in rivers.

Wait, what? Well, Lopez hasn’t stopped river surfing by any means. But he did just post a video on Instagram of him bodysurfing with a handplane in a river near his home of Bend, Oregon.

Lopez is no stranger to river surfing and displaying the possibilities of fun within them. A regular in the Bend, Oregon river surfing scene, Lopez recently told our own Senior Editor Jon Perino that river waves are perfect set-ups for bodysurfing.

So Lopez did just that. And as the timeless style master he is, Lopez did so while wearing a hat and sunglasses. Leave it to Lopez to introduce the world to river bodysurfing.

I understand that Gerry Lopez has earned the right to do whatever he wishes but large Germans have been doing this sort of thing for millennia. And calling Lopez’s hat/sunglass combo “timeless style” is sacrilegious.

We must be careful and deliver droll BBC style reports on news items that fail to clear our admittedly low bar lest we all become like The Inertia, which wrote:

Gerry Lopez knows water. He’s figured out a way to keep himself young, and it involves water, whether it’s in liquid form or frozen. He also knows surfing, and knows that surfing is all about having fun. Surfing doesn’t require a board–all it requires is a wave and a willingness to slide on it.

Fucking The Inertia…

Winner: Surfing’s best video game!

Chas Smith

By

All bizarre but each captivating!

There is a new surf video game being released later this month for X-Box and Playstation called Surf World Series. It is described as:

An arcade-style representation of surfing, featuring monster waves to take on at a range of iconic locations.

These include places like Bell’s Beach, Australia and Waimea Bay, Hawaii, where you can tackle extreme waves, pulling off increasingly challenging tricks like kickflips, cutbacks and massive aerials, all while navigating towering tubes. Surf World Series features 44 solo challenges to complete, as well as online competition for up to 16 players in three different modes.

And looks like this:

Doesn’t the way the digital surfer slides around the wave seem so… typically odd? So… weirdly completely off? Like, the angle is all strange. Moving forward and sideways at the same time or something. How, in 2017, have video game makers not been able to capture even 3% of what surfing looks like?

Strange.

But it did make me wonder, what is the best surfing video game of all time? I offer the following for your consideration:

T&C’s Wood & Water Rage:

Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer:

Transworld Surf:

Sunny Garcia Surfing:

Championship Surfer (for Dreamcast):

Which wins? Which is surfing’s best video game? And when BeachGrit releases BeachGrit Pro Shred Man! what features/waves/worlds/moves do you think it should include?

Photo: Jack English
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