A boy can dream...

Give: The gift that every surfer, murfer, Bight Fighter, SUP pilot and ecologically-minded wave tank proprietor craves!

Give the gift of BeachGrit!

What is your favorite holiday movie of all time? Do you go for the classics like White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street, the modern classics like Home Alone and Elf or the super-modern, likely-to-be-classics like The Best Man Holiday?

Me?

Oh, I go for the darkly poetic The Silence of the Lambs, which came out January 30, 1991, counting as the very far reaches of “holiday.”

There is one scene in particular that really speaks to me. The famous one where Buffalo Bill is dancing to Goodbye Horses while getting all gussied up as his guest tries to befriend his dog.

When I watch, I picture the World Surf League’s President of Storytelling Erik “ELo” Logan as Buffalo Bill and you in the pit. Instead of him putting on the body parts of previous victims and make-up, though, I picture him putting on BeachGrit merchandise.

I picture him putting on our Ultra Hard Beach Candy t-shirt.

Buy here!

Or I picture him putting on our VAL and Proud t-shirt.

Buy here!

Heck, sometimes I even picture him putting on our “Girls” t-shirt, a print which Derek Rielly describes as, “Our boldest yet.”

Buy here!

In each and every case, though, I picture you in the bottom of the pit trying to coax Kelly Slater to come save you by throwing chia seeds and conspiracy theories.

A nice scene, no?

Go Black Friday at BeachGrit and give the gift of… imagination!

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Question: Which wave pool technology will be first into the dumpster in our new and glorious, environmentally-friendly Surf Ranch Era?

With every boom comes a bust!

Today is Black Friday in the United States of America and I believe many other countries have taken up this ode to unchecked materialism as well. Do you celebrate with “door busters” etc. in Australia? Are stores running half-off cachaça sales in Brazil? Can overweight men be seen, right now, clubbing each other with loaded Harrods shopping bags in Jolly Old England?

I assume yes. But speaking of England, its newest wave tank at Bristol is up and running and I wonder how many of the United Kingdom’s surfers will find a day pass to The Wave under 2019’s Christmas tree? Or how many Victorians will find a BOGO coupon to Melbourne’s URBNSRF in their stocking hung by the chimney with care?

The wave tank explosion certainly is impressive and would have been impossible to foresee without Kelly Slater’s voodoo eyes a decade ago. There are so many that I can no longer keep them straight. Thankfully there is an online magazine dedicated solely to plungers, sleds, etc. and it is my pleasure to direct you toward Wave Pool Mag for all your curiosities and needs. They even have a wonderful podcast.

And I should be lobbing this question to them but it will be more fun to carry on ill-informed. Because as I see it, there is no way all the various technologies can stay viable and in business.

Take Surf Lakes, for example. After a botched preview ambassador/owners Barton Lynch and Mark Occy tried to get on the sled and reset but was anyone watching with URBNSURF coming online?

And while Kelly Slater and Co. bulldoze pristine land Australia, in an environmentally beneficial fashion, for their first open-to-the-public offering, Waco seems to still be firing right along with no end in sight. There’s going to be a private, members only facility in Palm Springs to compete with other Palm Springs pools but… the question I have for you, this Black Friday, the important matter for you to fully engage, is which facility will declare bankruptcy first?

Which glorious vision, millions in building, exciting marketing drawings etc. will be crumpled, shuttered and written off as a loss?

As a bonus question, which entire technology will first go into the dumpster? Or are the plungers, sleds, etc. all going to thrive?

They’re not all going to thrive. So which one will you be able to buy next year for free as long as you agree to haul it out?

Have fun shopping!

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We'll bulldoze it all then build, get this, an "eco-resort" and…hee hee…an "environmental education centre based on the site’s wetlands and nearby waterways."

Longtom investigates WSL’s billion-dollar Australian wavepool development: “I’m sad that surfers will be behind the bulldozers, erasing this wildlife”

When Kelly thinks about what is being done in his name and looks in the mirror, does he still see an environmentalist looking back at him?

(Editor’s note: Last month, the WSL announced a billion-dollar development on 510-hectares, or 1200 acres, of “highly constrained land” near the Queensland beach town of Coolum. The proposal includes a Surf Ranch wrapped in a 20,000-person stadium, a six-star eco-resort, restaurants, bars, a retail village and “an environmental education centre based on the site’s wetlands and nearby waterways.” The WSL’s Andrew Stark said the local surfing community was “ecstatic and excited.” Over the course of the next week, the writer Steve “Longtom” Shearer will investigate these claims as well as the mood on the ground.)

I got into Coolum, proposed site of a massive Surf Ranch development last night. It’s not foreign territory.

I lived up the road for a few years, hustling up grub stakes in between overseas trips. I drove around looking for the old bottle-shop I worked at. Gone. Under the bulldozer’s plough. The town of Coolum, compared to how I remember it from twenty years ago, has been gussied up, impeccably landscaped, with a Stepford Wives feel about it.

For those unfamiliar with the area it’s a sub-tropical surf town, nestled against a series of headlands that are mostly crap but have golden moments and miles and miles of serviceable beachbreak in either direction.

To the south, the coastline breaks at the Maroochy River. To the north, the beachbreaks end at the vast headland complex with world-class pointbreaks of Noosa Heads. It has flat spells but no-one is angsting about being a surfer. A couple of hundred days per year of easy, warm water go-outs are on offer.

It’s prosperous.

Like most of coastal Australia it’s upgraded to Surf Cafe living, which is an actual book you can buy. The carpark outside my budget accomodation, chosen for it’s proximity to the best beachbreak in town is full of new four-wheel-drives.

Tradies and contractors are killing it. You’ll get change from nine hundred grand for a house and land just off the beach, but not much. One-point-nine million will get you a ten-bed ranch on acreage with deep-water access to the river abutting the wavepool land.

I surf that beachie at dawn, trying to get a read on the temperature of the local surfing populace on the KSWC proposal. Then head for a second surf down the road to a beachie filled with punchy wedges. Enthusiasts were thin on the ground.

So, what do you think of the Kelly pool proposed for Coolum?

Salt and pepper beard, late-forties on Lost Rocket: Shrugs shoulders. “Not much, it’s already so crowded. That’ll just bring more people here. They won’t get their fill there.”

Early-thirties shredder on stubby four-fin: “It’s fucken BS, we won’t get to surf it. Taxpayers subsidising the privileged.”

Early twenties on a twinny: “Sick if we got to surf it. But how much is it going to cost and where do they get the water from? Already too much development around here.”

Mid-forties on a thruster: “I’m suss on it eh. Taxpayer funded and locals will have to pay big time to play.”

By mid-morning I’d racked up a small cricket score of super fun waves; probably the best I’d had for a month. It was crowded, few grumbles in the carpark but the vibe in the water was sound. Free people enjoying nature’s gifts and all that. I showered off next to a sign: Please help us conserve water. Every drop is precious.

I had to drive to Noosa, twenty kilometres away, to find a true believer. On the way I drove around looking for the beach shacks I used to live in. Gone. Like the bottle-shop, they’d been bulldozed.

My existence here had been erased from history. In their place were architect-designed homes, tacky mansions; the spoils of wealth. A secret little beach track down to a reliable rip bowl left was the only piece of archaeological evidence of previous habitation I could find.

The two kids in the Rip Curl shop were non-plussed on the pool. Bring crowds, too expensive etc.

The manager, former pro longboarder Dane Wilson, thought: awesome. His take was it was as an amazing opportunity for the local kids to step up to the elite level and an interesting posit that the price of Mentawai travel might come down because people might come to the pool instead and the decreased demand for Indo might put downward pressure on prices.

Also, of course, a golden opportunity for surf retail inside the complex.

Coolum surf shop owner Genevieve Kendall was more ambivalent.

Her first response to the pool was “where will the water come from?” She described the mood at the initial community “consultation” meeting* with Andrew Stark as “frothing” but that as time had passed the vibe had become more subdued.

How much will it cost and how often will I be able to access it were unanswered questions.

A little strange, when they propose turning soil next year.

“I want my kids to have jobs in the area and the Sunshine coast does need jobs,” she said. “I’m broadly for it, I think a wavepool is a good fit for the area but there’s still a lot of unanswered questions.”

Husband Chris was concerned about the development outpacing infrastructure and the effect that would have on the lifestyle of the area.

Glancing left at the site which is bordered by the road the presence of water on the ground, despite the drought, is startling. Fifteen hundred residential lots, commercial, retail, hotels plus the wavepool on some of the lowest lying floodplain in south-east Queensland. What, as they say, could go wrong?

She mentioned the traffic and how gnarly it was around the site. I road-tested the gnarl and can confirm. Trying to enter the roundabout where Sunshine Motorway and Coolum-Yandina road converge was as fucking frightening as a three-am tweaker.

Drive-time from the airport is fourteen-minutes at a hundred k’s heading due north up the Sunshine Motorway. Glancing left at the site which is bordered by the road the presence of water on the ground, despite the drought, is startling. Fifteen hundred residential lots, commercial, retail, hotels plus the wavepool on some of the lowest lying floodplain in south-east Queensland.

What, as they say, could go wrong?

The developer’s eye eludes me. I see trees and bush. Birds, insects, frogs. I feel sad that surfers will be the ones behind the bull-dozers, erasing this wildlife, this bush from history. From what I can see though, although there is ambivalence, distrust and even hostility to the Coolum wave pool development, that is unlikely to stop the bulldozers.

I put boots on the ground at the site. I know this country very well. It’s in my blood. My people come from the Queensland cane swamps. They are Danes, Swedes, Sicilians.

Practical people.

They would understand the necessity of bulldozing the bush to make way for jobs. But I do not. The developer’s eye eludes me. I see trees and bush. Birds, insects, frogs. I feel sad that surfers will be the ones behind the bull-dozers, erasing this wildlife, this bush from history.

From what I can see though, although there is ambivalence, distrust and even hostility to the Coolum wave pool development, that is unlikely to stop the bulldozers.

The greenwashing on the project will be immense. Next level.

But I wonder, when Kelly thinks about what is being done in his name and looks in the mirror, does he still see an environmentalist looking back at him?

Next: Australia’s Chinatown?

*Described by upcoming state government election candidate Maria Suarez as “more of a sales pitch than true consultation”.

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The power of surfing!
The power of surfing!

Miracle: Boy born with less than 2% of brain grows it near whole thanks to “radical brain training” regiment including surfing!

It's the thankful season!

It is the official start of the holiday season here in the United States of America as today is Thanksgiving. Oh, you know how thankful I am for all of you, for the lives we share, laughs we have, love we spread. BeachGrit‘s anti-depressive community, I feel, has taken the wonderful Live, Laugh, Love motto shared by middle-class caucasian housewives and really taken it to the next level.

Here, we celebrate the wonders of surfing wherever they are found… from the craggly-tooth’d mouths of man-eating Great White sharks to Kelly Slater’s war with flat-earthers to a young British boy born with less than 3% of his brain who has grown most of it back thanks, in large part, to our water dance.

But let’s learn where and how. Let’s witness the miracle.

If doctors told you to terminate your pregnancy not once but five times, you might take them at their word.

But when Shelley and Rob Wall were advised to have an abortion after finding out that their baby had “no brain”, they stuck to their guns.

And six years on, their son Noah has defied the odds — by “growing” a brain.

The Sun reports that the plucky youngster appeared on Good Morning Britain with his parents to share his extraordinary story, which Richard Madley called “a miracle”.

Despite his parents being told that there was no chance of his survival, Noah has totally exceeded all expectations.

Before Noah was born, doctors doubted he’d survive.

Mr and Mrs Wall have dedicated their time to his brain development and have taken him to Australia to a radical brain training centre.

Here, he has learned how to sit up unaided and even managed to go surfing.

Noah now wants to learn to walk and wants to continue learning how to surf and even start skiing.

The treatment that Noah’s been having in Australia is called “neurophysics” — a mixture of physiotherapy and cognitive exercises.

You and I can believe of course. Our brains and our hearts have grown thanks to surfing.

Thanks to each other.

Enjoy your turkey dinners, American brothers. Australian brothers, enjoy your neurophysics, New Zealander brothers, enjoy living in Middle-Earth and Scottish brother enjoy an extra two drams of Glenfiddich 1955.

Live, Laugh, Love, Surf!

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Jaw-dropping: Largest Great White shark ever recorded in the history of the world swimming off coast of Oahu!

Just in time for the Pipeline Masters.

And you thought you had seen it all. You thought that being shocked, amazed, jaw-dropped, scared senseless, really profoundly disturbed ceased sometime in your early teens.

For it was then you deduced that monsters weren’t real. That Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, Minnie Castavet were all dreams cooked up in the idle minds of Hollywood screenwriters. That the real Michael Meyers didn’t wear an emotionless white mask but was rather a chubby Canadian, friend of Garth, voice of Shrek.

You imagined getting swallowed whole by a Great White shark, surfboard and all, was pure fiction.

Well, meet Deep Blue.

The largest Great White ever recorded in the history of the world, a terrifying 20+ ft, the size of an extra-large school bus, is currently menacing off the coast of Oahu and just in time for the Pipeline Masters.

Ocean Ramsey, activist/shark whisperer, decided to swim with the beast and let us huddle under our blankets while reading her account in Honolulu’s Star-Advertiser.

“I’m without words; it’s heartwarming; she’s probably the most gentle great white I’ve ever seen. Big pregnant females are actually the safest ones to be with, the biggest oldest ones, because they’ve seen it all — including us.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4BWGOxA5mH/

But have they seen Pipeline Masters?

I fear Deep Blue could fit Gabriel Medina, Jordy Smith and Kolohe Andino comfortably in her belly. I fear she could eat 20 of the world’s best 30 surfers for a snack.

Very scary.

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