"Dangerous marine life."

There was once a time when Portugal’s navy ruled all the oceans of the earth. The tiny European nation wielded this power by exploring far away worlds, conquering some and destroying others, walloping competing navies while also enjoying lightly toasted Francesinhas.

All things come to an end, though, and Portuguese naval might faded with the invent of Great Britain. Soon there were only aggrieved memories of what once was. The faint tang of vanished power mingling with the smell of bacalhau a bras.

Well, breaking news from St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continually inhabited settlement of European origin in the United States of America, suggest that a revival may be in the works as an armada of “furious” man o’ wars have surrounded the city, washing up on the beach, stinging people and forcing them to urinate all over each other but let’s go directly to the source, to ABC’s First Coast News for the terrifying latest.

If you are planning to celebrate the holiday break at the beach, be careful. There have been multiple reports of Portuguese Man O’Wars washing up along local beaches.

Photos posted on various Facebook groups showed the Man O’Wars on St. Augustine Beach as well as Neptune Beach.

However, if you are at an isolated beach with no lifeguard tower, there are a few ways you can treat yourself. According to Web.com, you can stop the stinging by rinsing the area with vinegar for at least 30 seconds.

Next, remove tentacles with a pair of tweezers and soak the affected area in hot water for at least 20 minutes

Clean open sores three times a day and apply antibiotic ointment. Bandage if needed.

Keep an eye on the flags that are flying at the beaches. If it’s purple, it means “dangerous marine life” and you’re advised to use caution when in the water.

Remove tentacles with a pair of tweezers? Clean open sores three times a day?

Very disgusting and, I imagine, against the Geneva Conventions. I imagine this will all be reviewed by The Hague soon.

But, quickly, have you ever paddled through a jelly whilst surfing? Was it a Portuguese man o’ war exhibiting his nationalistic zeal? How did it end? Did you bring up Portugal’s failing economy in a dismissive way?

Rude.

More as the story develops.

But what if....

I’ll tell you what, no one, or thing, teases like The Eddie. Not Jaws, Pipeline, the notorious fickle Mundaka or Scarlet Johansson. The last time the big wave invitational ran was 2016 when a loaf of bread $1.42, a gallon of milk $3.19 and Xi Jinping was president of China. John John Florence won the day with quiet elan. The time before that was 2009 when a loaf of bread cost $1.45, a gallon of milk $2.69 and Li’l Wayne topped the music charts. Greg Long won that day and I was perched on Waimea’s beachfront amphitheater watching with my much younger eyes.

Those were the days.

But back to 2019/20, the contest was given a “yellow alert” days ago but has since been downgraded to “red” as the projected swell shall, theoretically, arrive during the unsurfable hour of midnight and let us go straight to Hawaii’s KHON news for a word from director Liam McNamara:

“Everybody’s welcome to come out to the North Shore if they want to see the big waves because it’s going to be big. It’s going to be beautiful. Probably going to have some great waves at Waimea and then Pipeline. But unfortunately, the tens and thousands of people that were going to come out for the event? They can go to work. They can enjoy their New Year’s Eve, their New Year’s Day festivities.”

Drat.

A New Year’s Eve Eddie would have been something.

But back to the swell peaking at midnight, imagine if they brought some very big lights down and shined them at the waves. Imagine how wonderfully picturesque and exciting it would be to run as the year flips from 2019 to 2020.

I think we wage a very slight online pressure campaign to see if we can’t get this to happen. No bullying, mind you, just a very subtle questioning of the contest organizers’ bravery.

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.