Not Now!
Not Now!

The day the World Surf League told me to beat it!

The gravy train has derailed!

It is day five of the Oi Rio Pro or at least I think it is. Much like Kelly Slater our coverage of the event has gone missing. It would be impossibly rude to make Longtom wake up in the middle of a Byron night to watch the world’s better surfers dance in Brazil and so this morning, after receiving a text from Nobel Prize winner Jamie Tworkowski* that Gerry Lopez was on the mic and performing admirably, I decided to take the contest duties upon myself.

I sat down on a corinthian leather stool, breathed deeply through my nose and pressed www.worldsurfleague.com into the browser and there I was, or almost because then I had to press the “watch” button. I thought, after pressing, that Adriano de Souza’s face would pop onto my screen but instead the above window and the words, “Just sign up to watch live. It’s free.” followed by the standard “Continue with Facebook” “Continue with Google” and then, inexplicably, “we won’t post anything without asking.”

Post what without asking? My mind whirled into Cambridge Analytica territory. What on earth does the WSL want to post? Personality quizzes for my friends? Pleas for help? No, it was already too stressful so I pressed the “Not Now” option nestled into the left corner.

This took me back to the beginning and I pressed watch and was again taken to the “Continue with Facebook” “Continue with Google” “we won’t post anything without asking.”

Again and again and again. The same loop. There was no way out and I smashed “Not Now” more vigorously each and every time, sweat starting to bead on my forehead. I’ve downloaded your app, WSL. I’ve given you the better part of my youth but you want more. Always more. Why can’t you listen to my “Not Now”? Why can’t you respect my body and my choices? Why is “Not Now” not really an option?

I finally gave up, exhausted, without any professional surfing to soothe my soul.

So. Who is doing good? Is Gerry Lopez a sweet addition to the team? What about Chris Cote? Who did Chris replace anyhow? Is Julian Wilson still in the Jeep Leaderboard Yellow Jersey? More questions to come.

* I once had dinner with Emily Ratajkowski. She was a fine conversationalist and I thought her and Jamie Tworkowski would cut a striking figure and that they should get married and hyphenate Jamie and Emily Ratajkowski-Tworkowski. I was drinking Moscow Mules at that dinner out of a paper straw.

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john john florence brazil
The Hawaiian John John Florence, who is eight-to-one to win in Brazil. Are these odds enough to tempt you? Turn a hundred into eight hundred? | Photo: WSL

Just in: USA Legalises Surf Betting!

The joys (and perils) of gambling on surf contests comes to America!

If you live in America, you might have looked wanly at all the surf gambling ads buttressing this website. The offers have been almost too good to be true: free money to get you going (up to $500) and odds generous enough to make it worth your while having a swing.

But Australia only. The land of the free etc.

This damn stupid rule changed last night when the US Supreme Court made a decision that will allow the individual States to legalise sports gambling. The court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 that barred state-authorised sports gambling… with Nevada as the exception. Sports betting is worth over $199 billion per year in the US.

New Jersey wants to be the first (this actually came about from the major sports leagues suing the Govener of NJ), and Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and West Virginia are expected to quickly jump on the legal bookmaking wagon.

Not good news for Nevada as they took $4.8 billion worth of sports bets in 2017 and had the US monopoly for 26 years. 

So what’s going to happen now is that States will have to work with professional sports leagues like the NBA and MLB on their demands for an “integrity fee” to be paid from all bets to the leagues. This fee is around 0.5% – 1% of the bet. The NBA and other leagues have defended their reasoning for the fee as a need to police the game from criminals looking to fix games, and implement compliance systems across their leagues.

Our friends at William Hill wants to be the first bookmaker to mine this lucrative vein of gold. They intend to offer sports betting in New Jersey locations as “soon as responsibly possible,” according to CEO Joe Asher. “We’re thinking in the realm of weeks.” They’re targeting the NBA Finals.

Soon, BeachGrit’s US audience will be able to join up to William Hill and receive our lovely bonus bet offer.

MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren told CNBC on Monday that it will be able to offer sports betting around the country “very quickly.”

“We have already established the architecture to deploy sports betting as soon as the states allow us to do that,” Murren said. “We have already the software. We have our mobile app called PlayMGM that is already activated in Nevada.”

Will the WSL, finally be able to take a seat alongside Adam Silver from the NBA and then NFL’s Roger Gooddell, NFL, to negotiate an integrity fee that will protect surfing from the perils of gambling?

Is this the river of gold that might save the WSL’s thirty million dollar investment? Internal sources tell us the WSL has already been in talks with at least one of Australia’s biggest gambling houses.

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Dion Agius Byron House

Buy: Dion Agius’ Shipping Container House!

Don't blow the chance to live like a king!

Do you dream of, one day, living in a sub-tropical paradise where everyone is young and beautiful and sex positive? And with waves that have crystalline lips and that crash onto powder white sand?

This place exists and it is called Byron Bay.

If you’ve a little cash in the bank or a generous line of credit, therefore, you might want to make an offer on the pro surfer Dion Agius’ “Forest Bungalow”, a shipping container bungalow midway between Byron Bay and Suffolk Park.

Pretty girl magnetises from outdoor tub.

(See it or rent it on Air BnB here) 

Dion, who is thirty-three years old (“Crazy! I can’t believe it! Where did those years ago?’) and  lives alone in a little house in north-east Tasmania, has put the property he bought four years ago on the market last night and is asking for “expressions of interest.”

Pretty girl in Dion’s Byron studio hammock.

From the real estate advertisement, 

This stunning 1289m2 block comes with approved council DA plans for a beautiful architecturally designed home. Given the size of the land STCA there is potential for subdivision. The land currently hosts a very cool converted shipping container.

Treed crown reserve on both the north and eastern sides enhances the appeal and privacy, as does the beautiful established trees and tropical gardens that are well positioned along the boundaries giving you your own private forest home to an abundance of local birds.

The little house Dion built.

Earlier today, I spoke to Dion about the sale. It is a rare thing to get Dion on the telephone. There is no reception in his little wooden cabin in the town of Scamander at the mouth of the Scamander River between Saint Helens and Saint Mary and he has to walk down to the river to make or take a call.

He hadn’t surfed for a month since busting an ear drum during a trip to Indonesia.

“It was horrible. I slapped my head super hard,” he says.

I was living in LA with my buddy who ended up passing away and it got to the point where I was living in this shithole traffic going to showings and thinking, ‘What the fuck am I doing? This is horrible.’ It made me revaluate my life. It’s not about making a quick buck. I found a spot down here, forty acres on a river, no one around.”

Dion moved to Tasmania after two years in Los Angeles selling Epohke sunglasses that he describes as “the worst two years of my life. It changed my whole perspective on life. I was living with my buddy who ended up passing away and it got to the point where I was living in this shithole traffic going to showings and thinking, ‘What the fuck am I doing? This is horrible.’ It made me revaluate my life. It’s not about making a quick buck. I found a spot down here, forty acres on a river, no one around.”

His plan when he bought the Byron property in late 2014 for $610,000 was to winter in Byron and summer in Tasmania, where he grew up and lived until he was fourteen. As it transpired, after he built his shipping container studio it was booked out so often he could never find a slot.

Dion says he doesn’t particularly want to sell the Byron house but, well, property is going pretty nuts in town and he figures why not cash in before the boom evaporates.

“I haven’t put a price on it. The real estate agent and I are just feeling it out, seeing what people are thinking. The thing is, I love the block. It backs onto crown land and the previous owners planted a little tropical forest on it. That was the reason I bought it so, for me, it’s worth quite a bit. I looked at a lot of other spots but I didn’t find anything as special.”

The money would be useful. He’s doing up his house (He’ll be slinging VJ lining on the walls and installing lights after he hangs up) and is trying to convince buddies to build their own shacks on his forty acres, “a little getaway commune with my friends,” he says. “I want to create a gallery, a studio, do events, festivals, fun stuff.”

As it is, he hangs by himself most of the time, although his parents are fifteen minutes drive away and some of his best friends from primary school are nearby, although family commitments usually keep ’em busy.

“I surf or go skate. And I have space and trees,” he says. “That’s what it’s all about.”

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All things are possible with Kelly as your guide!
All things are possible with Kelly as your guide!

Revealed: The ultimate Surf Ranch experience!

Kelly Slater takes you in the barrel!

Kelly Slater’s delightful girlfriend Kalani Miller posted a video on Instagram a few hours ago that, I believe, reveals the uppermost echelon on Surf Ranch experiences. In it, she can be seen crouched on the middle/front of a longer, wider board. Kelly Slater stands behind her and deftly steers the thing into and out of a small but seemingly very satisfying barrel.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiuZCOrBcQB/

And there we have it. The very exclusive ceiling.

Now, as the World Surf League has brought Surf Ranch online we’ve seen a few different pricing options. We’ve seen $115,000.00 for a two-day getaway. We’ve seen $9788.00 for a one-hour session. What then can we guess the tandem barrel with Kelly Slater will cost? Kelly’s steady hand on your shoulder. His calm voice in your ear saying, “Crouch down. Feel the rhythm of my nature.”

How much?

I would imagine, with the precedent that has been set, this experience could top $500,000.00. Of course it would include lunch and transportation too and from Surf Ranch from the Tachi Palace Casino and Hotel. I would imagine there would be many takers in Silicon Valley. Dot com folk trying to one-up the experiences of their peers. Also, I think for $250,000.00 Surf Ranch could provide other notable surf celebrities like Kalani Robb as barrel guides.

The future is bright.

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great white shark

Letter from Byron: Living with shark paranoia.

Life as a surfer in a town where getting hit by a Great White ain't just a hypothetical.

One of my duties as Ballina Shire’s third best but busiest part-time surf journalist, maybe the most pleasureable, is engaging in back and forths with BeachGrit Principal Derek Rielly.

The man, as evidenced by his tete a tetes with Matt Warshaw and Louie Samuels, is the best back and forther in the business. I like to taunt  DR with images of perfect surf and he, I think, likes to keep tabs on me during late-night coverage of international surf contests. Making sure I’m on the tools etc etc and not skiving off and making up the story by cribbing others people’s words and styles, as some surf journalists are wont to do. 

Couple of days ago I sent him a pic of a perfect head-high left wedge breaking in a remote rainforest clad cove with nekkid gals glossy as seals frolicking in the shorebreak. No one out. If Lewis Samuels could describe Kelly’s machine wave as having a sacred dimension then you would be justified in describing the phenomenology of surfing this joint as numinous. Needing to get the tub stink off me I surfed solo, describing the experience to DR as perfect, save for the aroma of shark paranoia which haunts the beaches here.

He said, “Please describe”.

I do thusly. 

There are two steep tracks down, whichever one you choose, should you choose to surf alone, you won’t be getting back up with half a leg chewed off. If you get bit, you’ll fade to grey on this beach right here, surrounded by paradise. I chose the northern track, a sketchy slide down a crumbling rock cliff, so I could get a good aerial view of the left and adjacent rocks. Any shapes, bait balls, strange water movement could be inspected. The water was clear, which used to be a sign of safety until Paul Cox, then Tadashi, then Matt Lee all got chomped in sunshine and clear water. 

The paddle out is joy, a little conveyor belt ride out in a rip next to the rocks, eyeballing lefts sucking off the sandbar. The waves ride so punchy and fun, easy speed off the wedge, a turn or two, a closeout smash, a backdoor tube, the fins out on the coping. Perfection, as it turns out, is not monolithic. The gals have robed up, disappearing like ants single file into the jungle track, still long minutes away from Instagramming the shots, sexting lovers. Too late anyhow, for interlopers to arrive before dark. 

I am, as the saying goes, alone with the perfect wave and my thoughts. The mind games begin. A stupid voiceover intrudes, it’s recurring: The attack when it came was swift and brutal. I can push it away with a counter-vailing thought: fuck off you drama queen. That suffices for a while.

I look around. Nothing. Water, swishing around the rocks, afternoon glare, the shadow line from the high cove is moving towards me. A perfect place for an ambush predator to cruise. This I know. 

The strategy is, if you are being circled to slowly motor towards the shark, let it know there’ll be a face off. That’s not made up. You can’t face what you can’t see.

Whatever happens, I don’t want to get ambushed. Don’t want to get hit from behind. I lift my legs up and lay on the board, but now I can’t see. I’m too low down to the water. If you can see, you’ll survive. The strategy is, if you are being circled to slowly motor towards the shark, let it know there’ll be a face off. That’s not made up. You can’t face what you can’t see. 

Something moving rapidly on the periphery of my vision startles me. A surge of adrenalin as I swivel to face it. It’s just a juvenile gannet, mottled grey, gliding at sea level from behind the rocks. It looked like a fin for a microsecond.

Another wave ridden, this time I paddle back out slowly with one arm, trying to look behind me into the glare and the shadow line. It’s not accurate to describe this state of heightened arousal as fear. I’ll jam this fucking board straight down it’s throat I think. But then, remembering the last guy at Cobblestones, the shark came back after he speared it. Fanning lost his board, the stoner from Denmark lost his board. My strategy seems weak if it involves a swim. I want a new strategy but I can’t think of one. 

A good friend was one who dragged Tadashi’s legless body to the beach. He fell into death quickly, while they tried to hold onto him. This friend, a type common in this area, harder, fitter and more competent at 50 than they are at 20, fell to pieces. A year later he was fat, sagging, lifeless eyes.

A piping bird song comes out of the bush and I pay attention to it, to take my mind off it.

Is the paranoia justified? 

Tadashi got hit from behind.

Matt Lee got hit in the whitewater paddling back out.

I knew both.

A good friend was one who dragged Tadashi’s legless body to the beach. He was grey, still conscious, he fell into death quickly, while they tried to hold onto him. This friend, a type common in this area, harder, fitter and more competent at 50 than they are at 20, fell to pieces. A year later he was fat, sagging, lifeless eyes. He’s come back now, I’m happy to say. But it was a long road.

Matt was grey when they got him to the beach, ripped to pieces. By a miracle the chopper was close by and carrying reserves of blood. He died three times on the chopper ride, and again at the hospital. In a small town these incidents linger deep and last long.

Three times I have been bumped. The first at a reefbreak in the Marshall Islands. A closeout, non surf spot in front of a cemetery and abandoned war dump. Nothing more than dodging coral heads after 21 days at sea. Duckdiving, some huge mass that felt like a bar fridge had been thrown at me, knocked me off the board. Beside me a chunky blacktip accelerated away. It took me half the paddle in to feel my leg, but it was all still there. 

Twice at Lennox Point, once way out the back I was swirled at ultra close range by a white, that dragged me off my board by the whirlpool it created. Then down the inside section when the mullet were running I got bumped hard underwater last May. A bull, I would think. Fair play when the mullet are thick. 

I sat on the gunwhale reading a book when the engineer came and gave me a big shove overboard. We’d been having an argument about sharks and his view was that whalers were basically timid and shy. So he pushed me into a school of them to prove the point.

Another time on the FV Alliance, an 85foot steel hulled trawler a hundred nautical miles north of Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, I was cleaning nets with 40-50 whaler sharks all burleyed up. Finishing, I sat on the gunwhale reading a book when the engineer came and gave me a big shove overboard. We’d been having an argument about sharks and his view was that whalers were basically timid and shy. So he pushed me into a school of them to prove the point. 

Amongst his tears of laughter he shouted, “your book! Get your book!”. I went back in and got it. It was a paperback of Nietzsches’ Twilight of the Idols. No way to replace that a thousand miles from the nearest bookshop.

All of which is to say, sharks are not the unknown to me. My fear is not irrational. 

But I don’t want to end up like Tadashi. Or Matt, or the guy at Cobblestones. A minor leg bite, probably would be good for business, but who could engineer that?

Last wave.

Good to get the feet back on the sand. Euphoric even. Booze and drugs can destroy a man. But so can the routine of soft options. Danger, real or imagined, sharpens the mind wonderfully. 

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