Happy New Year!

You may, or may not, be aware, American and European friends, that Australia is in the southern hemisphere thus experiencing “summer” while the rest of us shiver while sipping various hot chocolates and/or toddys. And this Australian summer is breaking all records with regards to heat. It is so hot that fire hydrants are chasing dogs. It is so hot that the birds are using potholders to pull worms out the ground. It is so hot that Satan himself has moved from down down under to simply down under.

All anyone wants to do is take a nice refreshing dip in the still almost cool ocean. To be able to go for a wonderful New Year’s Eve surf.

Well, the bastards of the deep, prehistoric apex predators, heartless sociopathic Great White sharks have decided this is the moment to hover, aggressively curious, right off of New South Wales’ typically idyllic shore and let’s wince while heading to an Australian news site. Let’s recoil, slightly, in terror.

At least three beaches have been evacuated at Shoalhaven on the NSW South Coast following a flurry of shark sightings.

The state government’s SharkSmart website posted horrifying aerial shots of Great White sharks — including one showing a pair of surfers paddling uncomfortably close to a 2.5m great white.

The close call was recorded at Berrara Beach at 12.47pm today. The beach was evacuated and authorities notified following the sighting.

The creatures have forced the closure of two other beaches in the area, including Bherwerre, where a 3m Great White was photographed off shore at 12.44pm and Cudmirrah Beach, where a 2.5m great white was sighted at 12.45pm.

And I know we should all be selling our boards in order to take up the trending new hiking but couldn’t the monsters have given Australians through their own winter (our summer)?

Couldn’t they have at least waiting a few more months to usher in the official end?

Great Whites are deeply morally corrupt.

Possibly even morally bankrupt.

For white folk, by white folk.

But what is the number one demand on your personal checklist when planning a warm weather vacation? Good thread count? A swim-up pool bar? World-class waves within striking distance? Yes, yes and yes.

It’s difficult to even imagine taking a beach-esque journey without the pure joy of surfing but with the current and ongoing shark apocalypse, the Pastime of Kings is becoming more and more dangerous. Entirely deadly even.

What will we then do, in a few short years, when Great Whites, Tigers and Bulls officially refuse our oceanic entry?

Well, “canary in the coal mine” Réunion Island is beta testing a wonderful alternative. You, of course, know that the beautiful French territory floating just east of Madagascar, Jeremy Flores’ home, has seen more deadly attacks than anywhere else on earth. It is today what California, Australia and Florida will soon be.

Surfing has been banned for years now so how to draw tourists? How to get you and me?

And let’s turn directly to The New York Times for answers.

For a place long thought of as France’s Hawaii, the tourism sector has been staring down a crisis: One industry report from 2014 found that as many as 60 percent of travelers with plans to visit canceled their trips in the days after a new shark attack. But the shock seems to have prodded regional tourism authorities to come around to the view of locals, who have long regarded the island’s mountainous interior as its singular claim to fame.

In 2014, Réunion’s tourism office launched a campaign with the tagline, “Thinking of hiking? Hike in Réunion,” with advertorials featuring bronzed couples in fitness gear taking in the mountain views. It stepped up marketing in hiker-rich markets like Germany and sent 2,000 French visitors to its website a fresh Réunion pineapple in the mail. The office now markets Réunion as “Intensely Relaxing,” and recently partnered with the French magazine Géo for an online popularity contest that crowned one of Réunion’s best-known hiking routes, the GRR1, “the most beautiful trail in France.”

Hiking.

Are you a fan?

Could you be a fan?

“No sharks on land” as they say.

Should we get a jump on it and launch the World Hike League right today?

Let’s really put our heads together on this one.

Civil disobedience!

And we surfers have long respected the sociopathic Great White, Tiger and Bull for our legs dangle, succulently, in their domain. Our arms paddle so near their vicious teeth. Oh maybe “respect” isn’t the right word. Maybe “fear” or “dread” works better but all for good reason. The monstrous beasts have never exhibited any sort of conscience. Never hinted at a line they will not cross.

Sharks, Great Whites, Tigers and Bulls eat men and women alike, though almost exclusively men. They chew on young bones and old bones with equal relish and refuse to recognize, much less celebrate, holidays that traditionally bring all of creation into beautiful harmony.

I suggested, just yesterday, that the refusal to celebrate holidays might suggest that the apex predators are, in fact, Jehovah’s Witnesses though was sent a very angry email by one Jay Davies excoriating me for the remark.

Do you think it was the real Jay Davies? The surfing Jay Davies? He comes from Western Australia, where the “man-eaters” roam so may know where, or if, they attend Sunday/Saturday/Friday services.

More as that story develops, certainly, but in the meantime, recent news out of Eastern Australia hint that the evil, prehistoric shark may actually have political inclinations and we must turn to Daily Mail Online for better insights.

An ill-timed collision with a shark ruined Hong Kong supermaxi SHK Scallywag 100’s chances of a Sydney to Hobart podium finish, the yacht’s gutted skipper says.

Mark Witt, who launched a scathing attack at officials over radio check-in protocols in the lead-up to the race, said the accident happened on Friday night.

Scallywag had led the 75th edition of the race for much of Friday before being overtaken late in the day by eventual line honours winner Comanche.

The overseas yacht was locked in a tussle with the other three supermaxis when things went awry near Tasman Light off the state’s southeast.

‘We hit a shark and it wrapped around the rudder,’ Witt, who was competing in his 24th Sydney to Hobart, told AAP.

‘We had to drop all the sails and back the boat up to get the dead shark off the rudder. We lost about four miles.’

And it beggars belief to think that the shark, lethal and fast-swimming, didn’t wrap his torso around the Scallywag’s on purpose. That he wasn’t sending a message to Beijing over draconian, totalitarian Hong Kong policies.

Can you think of another reason?

Has mankind’s number one enemy developed a political conscience?

Or wait.

Is the cursed shark pro-China?

Oh it would make so much sense, the bastards.

The pure, undiluted bastards.

More as this story develops too.

Exciting to be alive for The Age of Global Warming.

And let’s be very honest with each other for a few holiday moments. First, do you wish your BeachGrit was doing more year-in-review-style postings? Even, perhaps, wrapping the entire last ten? I feel we have let you down in this regard. I feel we could have done very many “top ten surfboards of the decade” or “top ten professional surfers of the 2000s. At the very least a “top ten shark stories of the week.”

Well, tomorrow is another day and I will do my damnedest for you. For us.

In the meantime, The Eddie has received a “yellow alert” for a possible early-week run but let’s get the news from Hawaii itself. Let’s not culturally appropriate.

Organizers will make that call within the next 48 hours with an update at noon Saturday. If the contest is held, it would be the 10th run since its inception in 1985.

The National Weather Service said an extra large west-northwest swell is expected on Monday and will peak “well above” warning levels late Monday into Tuesday for north- and west-facing shores.

The swell is expected to be the largest of the season so far.

The “largest swell of the season so far” is saying a lot seeing that we’ve had many large days already.

Exciting.

But before you go, can I ask for a little more honesty? When you are driving and see a “yellow alert” do you ease off the gas like you should or punch it to the floor, instantly becoming a danger to yourself and others?

I thought so.

Maybe a New Year’s resolution?

More as the story develops.