Much on the line!

The extended Thanksgiving weekend, in America, starting Wednesday night and extending through Sunday late is the sportingest time of the year with almost too much action, from college football to the pros, college basketball to the pros, and professional surfing.

Right now the women are in unruly Honolua Bay with much on the line.

World titles, Olympic berths, etc.

The swell is set to build through the day. “Pretty sizey fashion” according to Ron Blakey. Barton Lynch is currently advising the meditation in order to keep emotions in check.

Also, the men have just kicked off in burgeoning Sunset.

What does that mean?

I don’t know.

But shall we watch together and chat?

Who do you have?

What are your hopes?

Click here!

And here (for Sunset)!

An ode to joy!

And I use the word “surfer” broadly, here, as in “kite surfer” but, honestly, feel that strange bunch of oddities is nearer and dearer to the surfer heart than stand-up paddleboarders, goat boaters, foilers and whatever it is that World Surf League President of Content, Media, Storytelling and Transformation Erik “ELo” Logan is straddling.

In my experience, the kite surfer only unfurls her wares when the lineup has become an unruly wind-wipped mess. And then he provides much entertainment with his jumps and loops, bobs and weaves.

Well, one of these “brethren” got swept out to sea over the weekend and let us read of his harrowing tale from the pages of CNN. Let us push our morning slice of leftover rhubarb pie to the side and really dig in here.

Two helicopters, two rescue boats and members of a local police force all jumped into action after a kite surfer was seen drifting out to sea on Thanksgiving near Ocean City, New Jersey.

Turns out, all it took to find the guy was a phone call.

Some 16 hours after three US Coast Guard stations began deploying crews in response to a 911 call about a black-clad surfer getting pushed out by waves, the missing person “called and reported themselves to be safe,” officials of the branch’s 5th District Mid-Atlantic region said Friday.

“The missing kite surfer contacted (Coast Guard) watchstanders to inform them that after his kite malfunctioned, he had cut it free and used the board to paddle ashore and return home,” they said in a news release.

“Kite surfer located!” the Ocean City Police Department posted late Friday on Facebook. “Unaware of rescue efforts, he went about his Thanksgiving.”
Coast Guard and police officials did not release the name of the kite surfer.

Search parties had found a black and white “Ocean Rodeo Cypher 10” kite in the water but did not find the board or missing surfer, the Ocean City Police Department said.

“Cases like this … illustrate the importance of labeling your kayaks, canoes, kite boards and other recreational marine vehicles, so that in the event they are lost, or you are missing, we can reach out to contact you or return it,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Castonguay, a watchstander at the Sector Delaware Bay command center.

What a happy ending and while CNN’s reportage does not state the unnamed kite surfer was discovered in his bed I must assume he was because of all that turkey and rhubarb pie etc. Much tryptophan.

Now, a few questions for you.

Will you label your surfboard with your name, phone number and address? I think it might be a good idea. I think you should ask your shaper to glass all of that important information right on.

And what is your favorite sort of pie?

I’m a rhubarb man through and through but where do you dip your fork?

Let's get ready to rumble!

But what are your true feelings on colonialism? Oh, you can speak freely here. We’re all friends and mostly products of and/or genetic participants in the Great Game. Do you, like Indonesia’s brave Soekarno,”…hate imperialism. I detest colonialism. And I fear the consequences of their last bitter struggle for life.” Or are you more like Thomas Pynchon, believing, “Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul, where a fellow can let his pants down and relax, enjoy the smell of his own shit.”

Well, wherever you land on that spectrum, France’s crown jewel of Tahiti, some 16,000 kilometers away from capital Paris, has emerged as the leading candidate to host the surfing portion of the 2024 Olympic Games

And let us go, quickly, to the French news service for the very latest.

The French Polynesian island of almost 200,000 inhabitants is a full 15,760km (9,755 miles) and a 23-hour flight away from the French capital.

The village of Teahupo’o boasts some of the biggest waves on the surfing map with regular large waves guaranteed in August.

The 48 surfers who make it to the Olympic finals will know the location well due to its place on the Billabong Pro circuit.

The name Teahupo’o translates as “to sever the head” and there have been five surf-related deaths there in the past 20 years.

“If the International Olympic Committee rubber stamp the project Tahiti could be adopted as host location on December 12,” one source told AFP.

Do you think the World Surf League is frustrated that it got called “The Billabong Pro” circuit?

More importantly, is pumping Olympic Teahupoo what it will take to turn the masses on to surfing? The great, yet-to-be-tapped-but-potential fan base stretching from Des Moines to Fresno?

Big, meaty, sever the head, Teahupoo feat. late drops, big wipeouts and a 54-year-old Kelly Slater?

Maybe.

But can the Billabong Pro circuit i.e. World Surf League wait a full 4.5 years for those masses to get turned on? Will co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff keep kicking our can down the road?

More as the story develops.