This picture was taken on the island of Soqotra, off Yemen's southern coast. It was a untamed place where the wind howled offshore each side, each day. I have no idea how that happens. This fisherman was proud that we had come to his village. I think I found that Che sticker somewhere deep in Yemen's interior. The same place we stumbled upon a Yemeni who spoke fluent Spanish because he had studied in Cuba. Southern Yemen was communist affiliated in the 1960s. The trip was partially "sponsored" by Op. Spy gave us sunglasses. They were all given away.

Yemen: Love in the time of Cholera!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

What is the best way to counter a human tragedy?

One of my proudest life achievements is being included in Matt Warshaw’s epic Encyclopedia of Surfing (subscribe here already). The world’s greatest and only surf historian describes me thusly:

Bright, hyper-ironic surf journalist, author, and bon vivant from Coos Bay, Oregon; frequent contributor to Stab magazine, contributing editor at Surfing magazine, and co-founder of Beach Grit, a surfing website.

And while I’m only “bright” when juxtaposed with Stab’s utterly retarded staff and while, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I don’t contribute to them quite so much anymore and while Surfing magazine is totally dead in the grave, I did co-found BeachGrit and I am hyper-ironic. So hyper-ironic, in fact, that I can rarely discern what I actually believe about any given topic.

It’s anti-depressive!

But son of a bitch this last week has kicked me in the gut. Between a massive American shift toward identity politics and Presidential incompetence and terrorist attacks in Spain and ignorant babbling on the right and panicked screeching on the left, it all feels like a mess.

The thing that gets me most, though, isn’t happening in North America or Europe and it isn’t on the front page of any American newspaper and nobody is ignorantly babbling or panically screeching about it.

It’s happening in Yemen where Saudi Arabia, for no even halfway good reason and with the United States’ support, has bombed the country into the worst humanitarian crisis in the entire world. And today it was revealed that the Saudis are targeting children with their bombs.

And it crushes me. I’ve been to Yemen six or so times in my life. It was where I got my start as a “surf journalist” writing the worst thing ever for Australia’s Surfing Life. It was there I first shot an AK-47. There I first shook hands with a man affiliated with Al-Qaeda. There I first saw a tree bleed. That initial trip was from Sana’a, the capital, down to Aden and then along the entire coast, for three months, all the way to Oman.

Subsequent trips involved riding motorcycles from edge to edge, driving a Land Rover from edge to edge and sailing along its Red Sea coast.

It was always wild, magical, brilliant. Untethered. Yemen is not blessed/cursed with oil like its Arabian peninsula neighbors and has a rough, independent people so was mostly left alone over the last few centuries. My three friends and I were the first white men ever seen in some of those far off towns. At the time I thought it was a fun footnote. Today I think I am one of the few westerners on earth who know what Yemen really is. Like, really really is, and I have a responsibility to say something about its destruction.

But what?

What works? I have no idea how to cut through the clutter, how to get anyone’s attention. I suppose I’ve reached a desperation point and no longer care what works. I’m going to start doing what I know. I’m going to start posting stories about those trips. About the waves, the people, the architecture, food, customs, religious practices, color, spark, life. I am going to spend the next six months painting a non-ironic picture of the country I love most right here.

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And it would be easy to think that surfing here is mostly white but guess what? It isn't! A new story in LeBron James's website The Undefeated is titled Black People Don't Surf? This Org Proves That's Not True. | Photo: @theundefeated

Surfing: Not as racist as you think!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Think surfing ain't diverse? Think again!

Surfing has a reputation, I think, for being a very white thing. Oh sure there are Brazilians and Fijians and Hawaiians and Tahitians and Indonesians but the outward facing representation is, more often than not, a blonde boy with blue eyes and pouty lips.

In Southern California, where I live, “ethnic diversity” is not the first thought that pops into my head when I paddle out each and every other day.

And it would be easy to think that surfing here is mostly white but guess what? It isn’t! A new story in LeBron James’s website The Undefeated is titled Black People Don’t Surf? This Org Proves That’s Not True.

Let’s read a few sections!

Four years ago, Detroit native Mimi Miller had never been in the ocean. Now she’s a devoted bodyboarder, surfer and volunteer for the Black Surfers Collective — a group that, according to its mission, raises cultural awareness and promotes diversity in the sport of surfing through community activities, outreach and camaraderie.

On Aug. 12, you could find Miller standing on the shoreline of Los Angeles’ Santa Monica State Beach, clapping and cheering on newcomers who took part in the collective’s monthly free lessons to introduce black people to surfing, called Pan African Beach Days.

Miller and the rest of the collective’s members are part of the proud if lesser-known tradition of black surfing, which some would argue goes back to native Hawaiians (descendants of Polynesians), who are credited with inventing the sport in the first place. Among the legendary surf icons are Montgomery “Buttons” Kaluhiokalani, a black Hawaiian whom Surfer magazine called “the father of modern day surfing.”

L.A. has its own lore, beginning with black surf pioneer Nick Gabaldon, who frequented the Inkwell Beach in Santa Monica in the 1940s, where black beachgoers congregated during segregation. Also, the late Dedon Kamathi, a radio host and onetime Black Panther, was a surfing devotee, as was police abuse victim Rodney King.

Pan African Beach Day was launched a few years ago because too few black people in L.A. get to the beach, and they don’t always have a background in swimming to enjoy the water, Rachal explained. He credited the Surf Bus Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes ocean sports and safety in L.A., for helping make Beach Day a success by supplying the boards, instructing students and providing additional volunteers. Beach Days are open to anyone, although most participants are people of color.

So very wonderful but could we back up just a touch. Rodney King was a surfer?

Mr. King was made famous for getting beaten by a pile of white police officers in 1992. Their subsequent acquittal led to the massive Los Angeles riots. He sued the city of Los Angeles and won 3.8 million dollars which he used to start a record label.

From 1993 on he got busted lots for drunk driving, won some celebrity boxing bouts and appeared on various reality television shows.

In 2012 his body was discovered at the bottom of a swimming pool. Toxicology reports declared a combination of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine contributed to his drowning.

A surfer indeed!

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Watch: How Jordy Smith came to own J-Bay!

By Derek Rielly

7 years ago

"Jordy Smith is the best surfer at Jeffreys Bay," says Joel Parkinson. Yes?

In the film below, we’re gifted a five-minute short on Jordy Smith and his relationship with Jeffreys Bay, funded by his sponsor Red Bull, and made by Sage Erickson’s stud Jacob Woden.

Joel Parkinson is interviewed and says Jordy is the best surfer there, something the remote observer might call into question after Filipe Toledo’s dominant performance one month ago.

We stand cheek by jowl with his dad Graham and his pal Chad du Toit as Jordy makes a perfect heat before, in the words of Red Bull, “a string of strange occurrences conspired against him” and he finished fifth.

The strangest occurrence might’ve been Jordy’s own conservatism during the event. As was reported here, an analysis of his performance revealed a deeply risk-averse approach.

Let’s recap.

Jordy Smith is the worst safety surfer on tour. I went through every single one of his scoring waves and gave every turn a number from 1-10. Ten was the highest-risk turn, the most radical and zero was, well, falling off or doing nothing.

As a reference point, Jordy’s standard top-turn wrap, a turn he can do with zero risk 99.99% of the time, was assigned a five. This was painstaking, tedious work. Out of 85 counted turns, 17 scored in the excellent range (eight and above) and eight of those came in a single heat (round five resurf against Conner Coffin, Jordy’s best heat by a mile).

Jordy’s average turn score came in at a very safe 6.22. That is, safe surfing.

Jordy’s camp can rail against this and shoot the messenger or they can do the analysis themselves and face the reality. Absent an angry, belligerent Jordy, what we get is safe, low energy surfing.

The highlight of the film might be Jordy’s suggestion that Nelson Mandela, looking down from the paradise of the afterlife, gifted him two perfect waves.

Whatever, the short is enough to make you want to hitch your pyjama pants and jump a bird to J-Bay.

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This, the high-water mark of P-Pass. Stormy Andy Irons by DJ Struntz for Surfing magazine.

Mystery: 5 Waves That Just Disappeared!

By Derek Rielly

7 years ago

Can waves be decommissioned? Surf media says yes!

Just two days ago, I saw a husky old-timer who asked me if I’d like to buy some digital photos.

The description of his photographs sounded wonderful. It was a sequence and featured a young, and fairly it, surfer descending the ladder into a big tube.

“Ours,” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, looking like an awful wreck.

“Couldn’t sell ’em to Surfline,” I asked?

“They don’t want anything from Ours,” he said.

Oh I knew.

Ours is a casualty of the media game where waves, like surfers, shine and blink like satellites, before, eventually, being decommissioned and forgotten.

And photographers trying to sell images of the following waves are worse than toothaches.

Let’s see if you can remember the following:

#1 Ours (RIP 2016): The Red Bull contest there last year was very good, but you might have to travel to a European or South American print magazine to find any current images of that spectacular, and very hard to surf, wave.

#2 P-Pass (RIP 2015): Do you remember, and maybe you won’t being twelve years old, when this Micronesian reef was everywhere, when north swells shadowed by little wind created an exodus of surfers and photographers on Continental Airlines? P-Pass peaked with DJ Struntz-Andy Irons a decade ago, although it was a sorta buy with mags, websites until two years ago. This post is the last recorded feature on P-Pass.

# 3 Lances Right aka Hollow Trees (RIP 2010): Before P-Pass there was a relatively easy to surf righthand point-to-ledge in the Mentawai Islands. Lance’s greatest gift was its proximity too the afternoon sun, the light gaily illuminating the tube every afternoon. Perfect for photographers soused on Indonesian beer and shooting from a large boat.

Peter Frieden’s epic photo of Lance’s Rights.

#4 Cloud 9 (RIP 1999): The jewel in a Filipino crown of thorns that breaks thirty days a year. Tortured a thousand surf photographers and pro’s, who didn’t figure out you need a monsoon for any sorta swell to light it up, until its unsurprising demise at the turn of the century.

# 5 Mundaka (RIP 2009): So fun, but so never breaks!

What waves do you think will decommissioned next?

Nazaré, obviously, but what else?

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Podcast: Rory Parker x Zach Weisberg!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

A podcast gift from Santa's big red bag!

Some mornings I wake up glum. It is cloudy, I am tried, spent, the surf is flat, there is no funny surf news, there are no professional surf contests, there will be nothing on television that evening and the covers got pulled off in the middle of the night and I spent the whole thing half asleep and cold.

Other mornings I wake up and Rory Parker has interviewed Zach Weisberg on his podcast Everything is Always Terrible.

Of course you know Rory Parker, the one time BeachGrit contributor who left in a blaze of very hurt feelings. And of course you know Zach Weisberg, the founder of Venice-adjacent’s favorite parkour website The Inertia.

Together?

Like Christmas!

The last time Rory Parker stopped by BeachGrit he explained “Why I quit.” A snippet?

In the beginning there were lots of kind words about being ‘partners’ and a ‘team,’ but when push came to shove they made it clear they’d always considered me an independent contractor.
I should’ve quit then, but I let Derek talk me into hanging around with a bunch of vague promises. Because I truly enjoyed writing for BG. It was fun.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

If I’m being totally honest, a few kind words would have been enough to keep me around. But that was too much to ask for.

Chas loves to play up the fact that he’s an unpleasant person. And he truly is. Rather than being a partner in the site I loved I found myself working, for free, for someone I can’t stand.

I had been begging for this sort of honesty since “Rory Parker” left the byline and wanted to further explore so quickly emailed him and said I would come onto his podcast and we could talk lots about. He asked, “Why would I do that?” To which I confusedly responded, “To get more listeners?”

His answer was, “I’m happy with the listeners that I have.”

Hmmmm and the very definition of an echo chamber. All fine and good but I still want Rory to have more listeners so let’s listen in on him and Zach!

I skipped around a bit, I’ll be honest, and heard some talk about racism, coffee, diabetes and wrestling. It was a conversation between two very like-minded men with slightly different approaches to life. Rory sounds upbeat. Zach sounds like he knows he accidentally created Venice-adjacent’s favorite parkour website and hates himself for it every day.

The only moment that gave me pause was when Rory discussed not wanting to be “friends” with professional surfers because when he covered the Pipe contest for BeachGrit he sat in the bleachers for hours and it was boring.

I may be unpleasant but would have gladly told him that no one sits in the bleachers at Pipe especially not professional surfers or anyone even remotely related to professional surfing for that matter. Fun means crashing the various houses one by one and drinking their beers.

But to each his own, I suppose, and listen here to the rest!

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Eat beach grit spam!