Breaking: “Suicide bombing” shark wraps
body around Hong Kong yacht rudder during famed Hobart to Sydney
race as likely protest against Chinese policies!
By Chas Smith
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.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
The legendary Brock Little as shot by Buzzy
Kerbox.
Breaking: The Eddie gets “yellow alert” for
possible early-week run as “apocalyptic” swell makes its way toward
Waimea Bay!
By Chas Smith
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.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
“Impact was bad. My left side, my left neck
and shoulder went numb instantly. They call it a stinger. When the
wave sucked back over I went over the falls and then I don’t know
if I blacked out quickly but I just remember I was on the bottom,
on the rocks, on my back.” @wsl @caitmiersphotography.
Jamie Mitchell on his epic Jaws contest
wipeout: “I don’t feel immortal; It shows how close you are to
dying!”
By Derek Rielly
Hits the bottom so hard his wetsuit is ripped and
his ass, legs and feet are cut. He pulls his inflatable vest but
the downward pressure is so great nothing happens.
Two weeks ago, Maui surfer Billy Kemper won his fourth
Jaws contest, his second in a row, in thirty-foot-plus
waves.
It was a very good event, and not just for the thrill of seeing
large tubes ridden, but for the satisfaction of watching
competitors brought down violently by the impossible-to-fight
physics of giant moving hunks of water.
And, Australian surfer Jamie Mitchell, the man Kelly Slater
calls “one of the greatest unknown sportsmen of all time” for his
ten consecutive victories in the Molokai to Oahu paddle race, had a
wipeout that really pushed his face through the window.
Jamie, who turns forty-three in a few weeks, was at home at
Sunset Beach on the North Shore, where he live with his wife and
two kids, when I called to discuss the event.
The last time we’d spoken was four years ago when I’d recorded
an audio track of Jamie describing what it was like to be shoved
underwater on a sixty-foot wave, in that case, Belharra, at
Saint-Jean-de-Luz in France’s south-west.
This wipeout, during his round one heat of the contest, was
worse.
Jamie’s one of the best in the game but whenever he has a heat
in some big-wave event he tends to only catch one wave so he’s made
it his goal to ride four waves in ever heat.
At Jaws, he was almost twenty minute in, half the heat gone, and
he was waveless. Jamie told himself, “Whatever comes in, I’m taking
it. It doesn’t matter how big it is or how late I am getting into
it.’
Almost immediately after he made his vow, the biggest wave of
the morning, perhaps the day, poked its nose over the
fence.
Twiggy Baker was further out. He missed it.
Jamie was in a good spot to catch it. He turned, put down his
head and used those formidable paddle arms to get him into the wave
as fast as he could.
“I knew this was going to be the wave of my life or the wipeout
of my life,” he says.
The funny thing about Jaws is it can look glassy, but a
fifty-foot wave, which is how big Jamie is calling this, generates
its own offshore, adding to the east-south-east coming into the
right.
“I thought I was in,” says Jamie. “The nose was actually pointed
down. If you look closely you can see my left hand is trying to
push the nose of my board down.”
Jamie knows that once a bit of wind gets under the nose of your
board, you’re fucked.
“I knew I wasn’t going to make it so I jumped to try and
penetrate. But the wave was so big when I was falling my leash and
my board yanked me.”
He ended up hitting the wave on his left side, head and shoulder
first.
How was the impact?
“Impact was bad. My left side, my left neck and shoulder went
numb instantly. They call it a stinger. When the wave sucked back
over I went over the falls and then I don’t know if I blacked out
quickly but I just remember I was on the bottom, on the rocks, on
my back.”
Jamie hits the bottom so hard his wetsuit is ripped and his ass,
legs and feet are cut. He pulls his inflatable vest but the
downward pressure is so great nothing happens.
“I couldn’t do anything. I was at the mercy of this thing,” he
says.
Even his board was completely submerged.
“Normally, when you’re underwater half your board is
tombstoning. My was underwater. And my leg was getting yanked to
the surface but I was stuck on the bottom.”
Jamie remembers thinking, let it play out, save your oxygen.
“It’s hard because you’re fight or flight and your initial
thought is get to the surface to avoid a two-wave holdout,” he
says. “But then, if you don’t converse your oxygen and you do have
a two-wave holdout, well…”
Pause.
“You let yourself go and be calm.”
When he made it to the surface, almost on the rocks, Jamie
swallowed a half-breath of air before a second wave hit him. Water
safety patroller Abe Lerner got him on the rescue ski but Jamie
couldn’t use his left arm. Dragged aboard, he was pulled off the
back of the sled by his board hitting the water. Jamie enjoyed
another wave on the head before getting out the back and into the
final ten minutes of is heat.
“But it was all over. I got a mild concussion. I was seeing
stars and feeling wobbly, drunk, what a boxer feels after getting
hit. I just had to survive the rest of the heat.”
Afterwards, Jamie had people come up to him and say that it was
lucky he took the wipeout as he had the tools, the training, the
lungs to survive it.
“That’s the exact reason I train. To be able to be calm in that
situation and be able to get back to my family.”
How did it compare to his Belharra wipeout?
“Belharra was bad but Jaws was a lot worse. A lot more violent.
The one at Belharra rolled me underwater a long way. Jaws pinned me
to the bottom and I went so deep so fast I didn’t equalise. All of
a sudden I was on the bottom. It was crazy.”
I say that he must feel sorta immortal, capable of surviving
anything, after the wipeout.
“Not really. There’s another big swell coming and I’m interested
to see how I’m going to feel. It rattled me, to be honest. I’ve
thought about a few different things, scenarios since. I don’t feel
immortal. It shows how close you are to actually dying. It’s closer
than you think.”
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Ironbound (pictured) cursing "artists" and
"dissidents."
Official End of the World: “Rotund” Great
White shark refuses to leave South Florida, threatening to eat
every single Miami “artist” and anti-Cuban “dissident!”
By Chas Smith
This is the end, my friend. Etc.
But have you ever been to South Florida?
Miami-adjacent? I have but only twice. Once when circumnavigating
the entire state for a very important Surfing magazine
feature. Can you believe that Surfing magazine was once a
thing?
I can’t.
But it was the best thing, edited by the most handsome surf
journalist ever Travis Ferre, photo edited by almost equally
handsome Peter Taras. Maybe Greek. Maybe not. And, in retrospect, I
cannot believe the powers that be chose to shutter Surfing
instead of Surfer.
Surfer had the name, the history, but Surfing
had the spunk. The features from Florida and so I was there, then,
circumnavigating the State, staying at The Standard when I was in
Miami.
Not recommended, to be honest, but when I was there a few years
later I stayed at the Faena and ooooee!
You should too.
Or maybe not.
Miami has no surf, zero surf, but also it was just revealed
today that a massive Great White named “Ironbound” is refusing to
leave those cocaine-infused waters (buy
here) but do you not believe me?
Do you think I’m tossing smoke in order to protect my favorite
Miami-adjacent surf breaks?
For shame.
There is no such thing and I would never do that to you but
let’s head
together to CNN for the latest on this unseemly
incursion.
Tourists and snowbirds aren’t the only ones spending the
holidays around South Florida.
A 12-foot, 4-inch long great white shark that researchers
have named Ironbound has been tracked to the waters south of Key
Biscayne, near Miami.
The adult male shark weighs 998 pounds, according to the
group OCEARCH, which tagged and is tracking the shark.
Ironbound was caught and tagged on October 3 off Lunenburg,
Nova Scotia, and has traveled 1,473 miles down the US East Coast
since then. He’s named after West Ironbound Island, which is near
where he was caught.
It’s been a busy week for the shark trackers.
OCEARCH said that seven of its tagged sharks have pinged
with their location in recent days.
Etc.
And you don’t want to learn any more. You shouldn’t. It’s the
official end of our species but happy New Year, I guess?
If you haven’t been eaten?
Stop surfing now.
It’s all over.
A wrap.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
"What you gonna do about it Kelly?"
Christmas Day Horror: Beach closed after
“massive” Great White circles two teenage surfers at new artificial
reef!
By Chas Smith
Extreme Grinch.
But what did you do on Christmas day after
opening your gifts? Attend a boozy brunch? Head to the movies?
Shiver uncontrollably while contemplating how finite life truly
is?
Go surfing?
Surfing would have been the right call, paddling off those extra
lbs, communing with nature etc. except, as you are very well aware,
we are currently living through a shark apocalypse and the beasts
respect neither life nor holiday tradition, religious or non.
And the Great Whites’ Jehovah’s Witness-like attitude was put on
wickedly scary display at an Australian beach not far from Burleigh
Heads that is proud host of a new artificial reef.
Our source, preferring to remain unnamed so as not to raise the
shark’s hackles, was there enjoying a warm and sunny Christmas day
with his family.
“It was a little onshore, not amazing, but there were a few
waves hitting the reef.” He said. “Interestingly, when the council
first made the reef it was super shallow and looking like there’d
be a wild wedge but the council scooped out a bunch of the rock to
make it deeper and, obviously, less dangerous. It’s not as good but
it breaks and it attracts marine life.”
That dreaded marine life.
In any case, our source saw two teenage surfers, good surfers
who are likely innocent but one never quite knows with teenagers
these days. They told him they were going to hit the reef. He
watched them catch a few early afternoon waves then suddenly a
jetski comes flying in, snags both boys and races them to the
sand.
Our source asked them what happened. They replied that they were
circled by a Great White so close they could see the markings,
scratches, on its monstrous dorsal fin.
The beach was shut down for one hour.
There was nothing on local news but much chatter in the lineup
and in town about the predatory visitor.
“We’ve definitely seen an increase in sharks since the reef.
We’ve seen a few bulls, a few smaller sharks.” our source said,
“But nothing like Christmas Day. This is Jaws.”
Would Jaws stop you from surfing the new artificial reef?
Per the council’s description:
The artificial reef is constructed of large rock boulders
and is 1.5 metres below the average water level at its highest
point. Significant investigation and design effort has gone into
designing the artificial reef, including coastal data analysis,
computer modelling and wave tank testing.
It both sounds and looks fun but…
…oh I just don’t know anymore. I think we gift the ocean to the
hideous, horrible, carnivorous sons of guns at this point.
I think if you received a brand-new surfboard under the
Christmas tree that it be returned for a beach volleyball.
