Waves pumping, pretty empty, your anti-shark device is busted. What would you do?

A little quiz. You’re a screwfoot. What would you risk to surf empty-ish, six-foot warm-water lefts?

The French surfer, Kim Mahbouli, who died yesterday when he was hit by a bull shark, ignored dirty water and a mostly empty lineup to surf perfect St Leu, a wave that used to be a blue-ribbon stop on the pro tour.

Reports that his three pals were wearing shark repellants are yet to be confirmed, but I can report Mahbouli’s own device was out of action, a not uncommon occurrence according to the local I spoke to.

The most commonly used devices on Reunion are the RPELA from Western Australia, which is integrated into your board and costs around five hundred bucks, and NoShark, which y’strap to your ankle, also around five cees.

Both of ’em work by sending out electricity to fuck with the shark’s electro-receptors.

Mahbouli went to school in Reunion, was a shredder and, like a lot of us, couldn’t see past the dreamy funnels hitting St Leu’s famous bowl.

“I was angry against Kim,” said the local I spoke to. “The water was murky and you don’t go in the afternoon. Why? I wouldn’t go and nor would most of my friends.

“But, when you are young you push your limits and at St Leu nobody’s in the water so you have the great session of your life. I can understand. I surfed two weeks ago in the morning, the water wasn’t very clear and I didn’t have a shark device. The waves are beautiful and you stay.

“But it’s a big price to pay.”

In a story, Requiem for Kim, on island’s primary news website, Clicanoo, Philippe Le Clarie wrote, in part:

It’s like a bad dream. A broken board and a body under a white sheet. A friend, a son, a surf buddy torn out of life because he went surfing.

There it was at Saint-Leu. Kim Mabhouli knew the spot. He knew that the ocean had been banned temporarily – a beautiful oxymoron – for years.

But how to banish the sea when you live on an island. As well forbid to drink in the middle of the desert. Water is life. In Reunion, for so long already, water is death.

When the whole world sings the wedding of the man and the ocean, in Reunion, we count the dead, the unemployed, the tourists, one by one, on the deserted beaches.

And in the middle of all this there is suffering.

Usual story, bull shark, hits leg, surfer dies etc on that godforsaken island…

Is a man-eaten-by-shark-on-Reunion-Island story news anymore? Yesterday, a surfer from Paris, Kim Mahbouli, went surfing, got hit, lost a leg, died.

The attack was the twenty-fourth in eight years and the eleventh fatal. In January, a fisherman died when a bull shark hit his leg.

Yeah, Mahbouli, who was twenty eight, was surfing in one of those banned areas ’cause the French way of solving an imbalance of bull sharks in the local ecosystem is to just stop people going in it. 

And, yeah, his pals apparently had shark repellant devices strapped to their ankles (Modom leashes?).

But what are you going to do?

There’s waves and the odds of getting hit by a shark, as we keep hearing, are about the same as visitation from curious aliens or a meteor strike.

Tourists getting their legs bitten off and subsequently dying on the beach has ruined tourism on that Indian Ocean-Franco paradise. Y’ain’t seen anything like this Creole version of Tahiti, with its volcano and reef passes and exceptional boulangeries.

And the people! Some dark, some light, most possessing some beguiling physical characterstic, blue eyes popping out of choco skin, for instance.

But ever since a marine sanctuary was created in 2007, the bull sharks have taken hold of the ocean.

“There is no more life. There is no more turtles. There is no more fish. No more nothing. No more reef sharks. Because the bull sharks have eaten everything. And now, because there’s nothing left to eat, it’s the surfers.” Jeremy Flores.

A few years ago, I interviewed Jez Flores, who grew up there, about it.

“From generation to generation there were always fishermen and then people from overseas, environmentalists, came and they stopped fishing in a 10-kilometre area where all the shark attacks are now happening,” says Jez. “That was eight years ago. By the time they stopped fishing the sharks didn’t have anything to fear anymore so they started coming and now it’s dead territory. They ate everything. There is no more life. There is no more turtles. There is no more fish. No more nothing. No more reef sharks. Because the bull sharks have eaten everything. And now, because there’s nothing left to eat, it’s the surfers.”

When thirteen-year-old shredder Elio Canestri was killed in front of his pals in 2015, Jez told me, “All these sharks, bro, fuck, it’s the real deal. Perfect waves. Sunny day. Eight kids in the water and the shark attacked in the middle of everyone. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how those kids feel?”

Even Kelly Slater, who ain’t gung-ho when it comes to killing animals, advocated a cull.

“Honestly, I won’t be popular for saying this but there needs to be a serious cull on Reunion and it should happen every day. There is a clear imbalance happening in the ocean there. If the whole world had these rates of attack nobody would use the ocean and literally millions of people would be dying like this. The French govt needs to figure this out asap. 20 attacks since 2011!?”

Jez visits regularly. He don’t surf.

“It’s not worth the risk,” he said.

(Note: It’s five am in Reunion. Got a few pals there. I’ll call ’em for the inside story in a few hours.)

"The sceptical treatise that we have all contributed to right here on BeachGrit was not delivered by Chas and Dave. Erik Logan was not called to account for being Erik Logan. He was not challenged."

I’m like you. I’m just a punter who loves surfing but doesn’t get to do it nearly as often as he’d like.

We share the barriers, partners, kids, jobs, family, friends, money, geography, our health, the weather. In varying degrees, they all amount to the same thing: not as much time as we’d like to just surf.

And therein lies my problem with Erik Logan.

He’s not like me. Not even a little bit.

Educated the expensive way, he knows his claret from his Beaujolais.

Decides he’s going to be “a surfer” in his 40s or whatever.

Gets to surf every day he feels like it.

Has a personal photographer.

Probably spends more on boards every month than I do on my mortgage.

Swans around tropical surf camps.

Hangs out with surf glitterati.

And, presumably, makes a shit ton of money from all of it.

I’ve never been on a boat trip. Aside from one Indo trip (too long ago now to even savour the memories) I’ve never been in the tropics. I can’t afford any of that.

My world is one of eking a living at the 9-5. Of enduring all the bullshit that life throws at you. Of trying to negotiate and squeeze a few hours in the water here and there. Of constantly having to apologise for it.

None of this is his fault, of course.

I listened to Chas n Dave be hosted by ELo. It was not what I was expecting. The sceptical whothefuckareyoucunt treatise that we have all contributed to right here on BeachGrit was not delivered. Erik Logan was not called to account for being Erik Logan. He was not challenged.

We all play the cards we’re dealt, for the most part. But how am I supposed to back a guy like that?

What would he possibly know or care about my surf experience?

And what’s to admire in a rich man trying to get richer through surf?

I listened to Chas n Dave be hosted by ELo. It was not what I was expecting. The sceptical whothefuckareyoucunt treatise that we have all contributed to right here on BeachGrit was not delivered. Erik Logan was not called to account for being Erik Logan. He was not challenged.

I don’t blame them. ELo was charming. He seemed like a good guy, albeit a practised one. They walked into his world and he called the plays. They may run rings round him in the water, but over a conference table, or in the world of media, Erik Logan is the Alpha.

His vision of the WSL is a broad church, with space on the pews for everyone. Surfing through the eyes of Eric Logan is a happy-clappy inclusive utopia.

It’s nice, romantic even.

But it’s bullshit. And worse, it’s disingenuous.

Because the subtext is clear. The WSL is becoming a dragnet.

They want to control every aspect of surfing because that is how you maximise profit.

Erik Logan is clearly a mercenary, and in his world the North Stars shine bright. Once upon a time we told Google what we were interested in, now they tell us. Jeff Bezos was just a guy who sold books.

So, the plan is to package surfing up, tie a neat little bow around it, and sell it back to us?

I say fuck that. You don’t own it.

I could believe Erik Logan is a nice man, I just don’t believe he’s The People. I’m not sure I trust his motivations. He understands productivity, and efficiency, and maximising gains.

I’m not sure he really understands what surfing is. I’m not sure any of us do, except in our own context.

I teach high school English, as I’ve mentioned before. Language and literature is a broad church, too. I introduce kids to texts that I like, that’s only natural.

But I try, at all costs, not to be too prescriptive. I don’t tell them what to like, what’s good art or what’s bad art. You’ve got to let them find it for themselves.

Find what you love and let it kill you.

As a kid I loved to read. But all through school and university I pretty much gave up on it. I resented being told what to do, what was good and bad. What I should read. How I was meant to feel about something.

That’s the thing with writing, or surfing, or any creative pursuit. It’s yours to make of it what you want. And there will always be a dualism that can’t be justified or explained. It is at once everything, and nothing.

It’s just words on a page, except it’s not.

It’s just actors playing a role, except it’s not.

It’s just wiggling along a wave, except it’s not.

It’s how it makes you feel that’s important.

And the feeling is yours. No-one has any right to dictate it, or control it, or worse: try and sell it to you.