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And you thought Kelly Slater’s Olympic aspirations were inspirational. You thought the greatest competitive surfer the world has ever seen, armed with affirming life coach, supportive longtime girlfriend, millions of dollars, professional surfing’s owner Co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff, millions of sycophants including, but not limited to, the involuntarily celibate Ben Marcus, etc. was inspirational?

Well let me introduce you to 36-year-old Jay Quinn. He’s got none of that, surfs for the World’s Greatest Surf Paradise Great Britain and is headed to the Olympics, I think, but we must head to the BBC for all the truth and not only because the BBC is the historical record of the World’s Greatest Surf Paradise but because, much to Drew Kampion’s chagrin, I’m boozed again.

Britain’s number one surfer Jay Quinn feels he has a good chance of qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Games and is already dreaming of a podium finish in Japan next year.

The 36-year-old will be guaranteed an Olympic spot should he become the highest placed European competitor at the International Surfing Association World Games in Miyazaki, Japan from 7-11 September.

Born in Gisborne, New Zealand, Quinn qualifies for Great Britain through his Welsh-born mother and has become Welsh, British and European champion since moving to Cornwall in 2016.

New Zealand? Son of a bitch and Negatron? Can you claim some other nation too?

But ok here and let’s be real honest with each other. You have a shot. You know you do. What nationality can you claim? BeachGrit will sponsor if you can prove a legitimate shot for Kazakstan slash Kazakstan-esque nation.

I’m drunkenly serious.

"I've been fishing guiding on Sydney Harbour for 28 years and this is the worst I've ever seen it."

And you thought I was being shrill. Admit it, up until this moment right now you thought I was carrying on like an Alzheimeric old bitty clanging the gong in our town square, screaming “The sharks are coming! The sharks are coming!” when it was only just shadows upon the water. Only Nick Carroll out for his morning 100 kilometer paddle race.

Well, first they came for my once bucolic North County, San Diego then they came for once popular tourist destination Cape Cod, Mass. and now they are at your doorstep, Doubting Thomas, bumping sailboats, terrifying kayakers and severing heads for the shark-pocalypse has arrived in Sydney’s famed harbour.

Oh the prehistoric beasts have no manners whatsoever, and also no impulse control, man-eating whenever they feel the slightest urge and we must not delay in reading the latest horrors straight from the pages of the principled Daily Mail. We must go straight away.

Craig McGill, a respected guide and owner of fishing company Fishabout, said there are more sharks in the harbour than he has even seen before.

And the recent influx is having a devastating result with gory pictures showing half-eaten fish and even a shark severed in two found in the harbour’s waters.

Experts say reports of increased sightings are due to warmer waters allowing the sharks to come close to shore as they follow fish to eat.

Talking about the recent increase, Sydney-based Mr McGill told Daily Mail Australia: ‘There’s been a huge influx of sharks seen this year.

‘Yesterday I saw a hammerhead and then spotted a shark attacking a fish in the harbour.

‘I also recently saw a terrified kayaker being harassed by shark in the harbour,’ he added.

He said finding severed fish in the harbour has become regular, especially after sharks feed at dawn and dusk.

‘I’ve been fishing guiding on Sydney Harbour for 28 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,’ he said.

The selfish bastards have not only completely overrun the harbour, they’re menacing Sydney’s northern beaches as well. Just yesterday a pleasure sailor was out mere meters away from Manley Point when he spotted an ominous fin jutting out of the water. Upon closer inspection he realized it was a juvenile Great White and nearly 1.5 meters long.

He was reported as saying, “‘Holy shit, that is a baby great white…” and when asked responded, “It looked like an exact mini replica of a full grown white, with that crazy black eye and gaping mouth.”

To be honest, “that crazy black eye and gaping mouth” sounds a lot like Nick Carroll out for his evening 100 kilometer paddle race but, unlike you, I always believe in the shark crier.

More as the story develops.

I actually listened!

God bless Drew Kampion and I mean that seriously, honestly, with every ounce of passion in my fucked up heart and, truly, I am three sheets to the wind right now on Grey Goose (thanks to the Florida Surf Film Festival founders Kevin Miller and John Brooks who brought a bottle over recently buy tickets here (if it ain’t already sold out)) and La Croix Berry (which I hate but was just at Target buying daughter and her best friend toys because I just just got paid from Lonely Planet for contributing to their epic Epic Surf Breaks of the World book which will indeed be epic because I think Finnegan, Warshaw, George, Etc. have entries and remembered I had no mixer and La Croix Berry was the only anything besides Coca-Cola Target had at its self-checkout checkout.)

But I actually, really listened to the entire Drew Kampion x David Lee Scales podcast and God bless him (Drew Kampion… not David Lee. He shaves his balls).

Drew Kampion, for the surf culture tourist, was  the man who put the “journalist” in “surf journalist” and is epic. Almost as epic as the epic surf breaks of the world but I’m serious(ly fucked up) but also serious.

Drew Kampion hates me for such perfect reasons but also hates me for the wrong perfect reasons. The evil threatening force he perceives, he fears, is not fucked up-ness but rather the Wall of Positive Noise. That is surfing’s great enemy and if we don’t beat it back now we are done. Surfing is done. Surfing becomes a purely athletic pursuit.

A purely athletic pursuit layered with layers and layers of whitening toothpaste smiles.

No?

Disagree?

Tell me why because I refuse to become old (mentally).

I’m going to my Pacific Northwest soon and forcing Drew into the water but until then…

…I forgot.

*This message was brought to you on the wings of Grey Goose.

Local grommets who witnessed the incident described it as a full Mick Fanning deal.

World War II history records Japanese attacks on the Australian mainland and a strategy of planned retreat from the Allies below the sub-tropics, the so-called Brisbane Line. The Brisbane Line was actually the Bribie Line. Part of its defences were fortifications built on the beach at 8th Avenue, Woorim, where we played as kids.

Fifteen-year-old Riley Orchard was surfing in front of Red Fort, 8th Ave, when knocked from his board by an unknown species of shark Thursday around four pm, surfing what eyewitness and long-time Bribie shredder and old pal Brad Highlands described as a “classic nor-east day”.

Highlands, who is currently en route with a chainsaw to help clear a bushfire affected property in Northern New South Wales, was about forty metres away when the attack occurred, right on the low tide.

“He was just sitting there,” said Highlands “and all of a sudden, bang!, he’s off his board. He felt nothing brush him, no swoosh, nothing. He jumped back on his board, yelled out to Cain (his brother) ‘I think I just got hit!’ Cain thought he was bullshitting, he started paddling into shore and it wasn’t until he got to the beach and saw the board that he realised it was a shark.”

Normally, to fight the sweep on a nor-east day, surfers are required to constantly paddle, which helps the Bribie surfer hold their own in line-ups around the World. Luckily for Riley, he was sitting up and drifting, otherwise he “would have been bitten on the arm or shoulder” according to Highlands.

“He was just sitting there,” said Highlands “and all of a sudden, bang!, he’s off his board. He felt nothing brush him, no swoosh, nothing. He jumped back on his board, yelled out to Cain (his brother) ‘I think I just got hit!’ Cain thought he was bullshitting, he started paddling into shore and it wasn’t until he got to the beach and saw the board that he realised it was a shark.

“He was just shaken” said Highlands, “white as a ghost, non-stop shaking like he had hypothermia”.

Highlands said it was “was pretty weird. We were all in the carpark later, debriefing, giving Riley shit and letting him know he was lucky he doesn’t ride a boogieboard otherwise he wouldn’t be with us. It wasn’t until about eight o’clock that night a bit of shock came across me. How close it was and how it could have been me, could have been worse for him, or worse for any one of us, you know”

In thirty-knot winds, local grommets who witnessed the incident described it as a full Mick Fanning deal.

Police paid Highlands a visit Friday night, taking a statement to ensure the attack was not a hoax.

At the time of writing no shark species had been implicated in the attack, the first at Woorim since March 8th, 1992, according to local surfer and historian Brian “Gicka” Box.

Currently available data from the Queensland Shark Control Program, administered by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries lists 17 drumlines off the beach at Woorim. Two sharks were captured on the drumlines in 2018, none in 2019.

Presumably, Taronga Park zoo, which maintains the shark incident register in Australia will list the incident as “unprovoked attack”.

"A prize asshole..."

David Lee Scales and I are almost at the 50 podcast mark. 48 to be precise and 48 podcasts is a lot. Oh not for me, I just sit there with David Lee and jabber into a microphone but a lot for you. That is 48 podcasts, roughly 80 hours, of me jabbering into a glennmicrohall, David Lee jabbering too and sometimes Derek Rielly. We generally swerve from this topic to that but surfing is what drives our passions.

It’s what informs our lives.

I’ve written almost every time that it is our best episode but number 48 might well truly be for today I learned that Drew Kampion, legendary surf journalist, founder of a radical tone, respected, venerated loved by all is not dead. Furthermore he specifically hates me and what I do.

How epic is that?

How truly epic?

For me it is, marking a heretofore never even dreamed achievement and not only never dreamed because I thought he was dead.

I won’t spoil my reaction here, you must listen, but we also discuss narcissism and the very real possibility that Meryl Streep is a serial killer.

Again, this may possibly honestly be The Grit!‘s high-water mark. Don’t believe? Tell me why. Unlike Kelly Slater I crave negative feedback.