"You MUST come to the country house this spring. We've just renovated the guest quarters..."
"You MUST come to the country house this spring. We've just renovated the guest quarters..."

Luxury lifestyle magazine declares: “Winter surfing is the new skiing!”

Chas Smith

By

Fancy.

Would you consider your lifestyle luxurious? I mean, if you really took it apart, dissecting where you live, what you drive, what sort of coffee you drink, the BeachGrit shirt you are wearing right now (buy here) would it be considered opulent by the vast majority of the world’s population?

I think yes for all of us and especially because we are surfers, the new skiers shushing, driving Audis with fancy Swedish rack systems, vacationing in St. Moritz etc. and let us go straight to the luxury lifestyle magazine Condé Nast Traveller for a look at the hot new trend sweeping the upper-middle-to-upper classes.

Well this isn’t so bad, I think as I step into the dark, frigid water. New Hampshire in February is known for its heavy snowfall, “Nor’Easter” storms, and ski resorts of the ice-clad, teeth chattering variety. But somehow I’ve found myself surfboard in hand, marching straight into the North Atlantic. As I wade chest-deep into the water, I develop a mantra to reassure myself: I’m still warm. Snow flurries float just above the water. I’m still warm.

I pass a few waves with ease before I get caught off guard by a much larger wave crashing down around me. That’s when it hits me, literally and figuratively: This is New Hampshire in February. The sea slaps me square in the face, my only exposed skin, and at 39°F it might as well be solid ice. A few rogue streams of cold water sneak their way into my thick wetsuit through the hood, trickling slowly down my neck. It’s back-bending agony, but my body recovers and I’m able to keep paddling. I’m still warm, I tell myself.

Out on the water that day, the remarkable thing wasn’t that I found some of the most surfable, enjoyable waves I’ve found anywhere. It was that I wasn’t alone.

Can you believe?

Winter surfing as new skiing?

Where shall we head to toast Hot Toddys and laugh about our investment portfolios?

Lake Michigan?

Cornwall, England?

You choose.

Bangladeshis no dig chick shredders.

Film about heroic girl surfer “hurts religious sentiment”; ban sought in High Court!

Derek Rielly

By

"No Dorai tells the story of a poor girl named Ayesha who falls in love with surfing and takes up the sport in defiance of a conservative society that often pushes girls to marry early."

It may be exceedingly difficult to believe, or picture, but the patriarchal hellholes of Australia and the US, may not be the worst places on earth to be a woman.

In Bangladesh, that lovely little corner of south-east Asia that was formerly East Pakistan, woman are encouraged to marry young (a third of girls are married before they turn fifteen, almost two-thirds by the time they hit eighteen), acid violence is a thing, as is gang rape, coerced suicide etc.

Now, a movie based on that country’s most high-profile female surfer, No Dorai (“Not Afraid”), which was released on November 29, is facing a high court action for it to be banned for “hurtling religious sentiments” in the Muslim majority nation.

From Aljazeera, 

The film’s producer, Mahboob Rahman, said the High Court has asked the filmmakers to justify by next month why the censor certificate should not be withdrawn, adding they would fight moves to shut the movie down.

Released on November 29, the much anticipated No Dorai tells the story of a poor girl named Ayesha who falls in love with surfing and takes up the sport in defiance of a conservative society that often pushes girls to marry early.

No Dorai is the first film in Bangladesh to focus on female surfers and deal with poverty as well as discrimination against women in the country of 160 million.

Rahman said he was surprised by the reaction to the film.

“There is a group that wants women to stay indoors,” Rahman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that he had also received threats online.

“Some people are saying that Ayesha wears a bikini in the movie and that this is against our religion. There is no such scene … these people haven’t watched the movie.”

The row over the film started when Islam sent a legal notice to the filmmakers on December 4 calling for the movie to be banned and said some scenes in the movie “hurt religious sentiments”. He did not name specific scenes.

“We want the censor board to cancel the movie’s certificate. We want the movie to be withdrawn and we also want the filmmakers to apologise,” Islam told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Surfing is not a sport that is encouraged for women in Bangladesh, where more than half of girls end up getting married before they turn 18, according to the United Nations, even though child marriage is banned.

Rahman said he came up with the idea of a movie about surfing in Bangladesh when he met Nasima Akter, a female surfer from the southern beach town of Cox’s Bazar who received global media coverage after out-surfing her male peers.

Akter was made homeless at the age of seven and found hope in surfing in Cox’s Bazar, which boasts the world’s longest uninterrupted sandy beach.

She was featured in a documentary by US filmmaker Heather Kessinger, called The Most Fearless: An Unexpected Surf Story, that was released four years ago, when Akter was 18.

Rahman said Akter is now married with two children and rarely surfs.

No Dorai, however, ends on a different note, with Ayesha fighting back to continue surfing.

“In Bangladesh and many places, women are oppressed and not allowed to do what they like … we gave a different ending and made the protagonist very strong so that she fights back and inspires more women,” said Rahman.

DAMNED LIAR!

Question: Does the World Surf League’s bald-faced false narrative regarding wave quality help foster a toxic, corrosive Internet environment?

Chas Smith

By

It's a click racket!

I’ve been sitting on this damned Pipe contest all day long based on a completely bullish Surfline forecast last night and equally bullish posts from the twin surf-lite websites of greater Venice Beach. That’s what I get for trusting people who ride extra volume twin fins/poorly conceived “partners” when not lying in order to save… reputations.

I get pushing a morning surf by 20 minutes in order to ensure our patented* Comment Live: post actually goes comment live. Pushing the traditional 11 am cocktail to near 12:20 pm. And what are they doing to us? What are the Santa Monica lever pullers doing to us?

I’ll tell you. Trapping us all in a non-stop loop of checking every hour, on the hour, promising epic buoys for the epic boys, Pipes for the Snipes.

And then nothing.

But has our World Surf League not read all the horrific studies of delayed Internet gratification?

The poison of the youth?

And let us read of the epic story of a small Indonesian village seeking to free its children from Internet addiction.

A city in Indonesia hopes nature can save kids from internet addiction. But can chicks and trees really replace iPhones and smart TVs?

The city of Bandung in West Java has launched a pilot program to get students away from screens by giving them baby chickens and chili seeds in the hopes that the children will spend less time on electronic devices and more time caring for their pets or plants.

The Bandung government said that 2,000 chicks and 1,500 chili seeds are being provided to 10 elementary schools and two junior high schools in the city, which is about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of the capital Jakarta.

Mayor Oded M. Danial held a symbolic hand-over ceremony earlier this week to launch the program. He said he hopes the project will help get children to use electronic gadgets less frequently, but that local education authorities need time to evaluate it.

World Surf League?

I know you are reading. I know you feel bad about this… this… (earmuffs Indonesian children) cocktease. Can’t you but give us baby chickens and chili seeds instead of all day waits with Pat O Instagram posts feeding eternal hope?

Please?

Boooo.

Booooooooo.

See you tomorrow.

*Not patented.

Exciting re-enactment of rescue.
Exciting re-enactment of rescue.

Happy Ending: “Distressed surfer” from Humboldt State University daringly rescued by Coast Guard helicopter before he drifts out to sea!

Chas Smith

By

Come feel the wind in your hair!

And can we talk about the incredible Jaws event once more before our attention swings to Pipeline and today’s crowning of both its Master and the Championship Tour Champion? I almost can’t wait but… Jaws. It was just so much fun. The amount of waves ridden, the boldness of the competitors, the daring jet-ski rescues, that iconic yellow helicopter swirling overhead.

But have you ever ridden in a helicopter? I have a small handful of times in Papua New Guinea, backcountry Wyoming and Canada. The way those whirly birds raise straight from the ground, the way they dip, dodge, dive and duck is incredible.

Well, a very lucky young man, a university student from Humboldt State University just north of San Francisco’s Bay Area, got to play Jaws rescue and go for a ride and let’s read the thrilling tale Kris Nagel from a very well-written Coast Guard press release.

The Coast Guard and a California State Park Lifeguard rescued a 20-year-old Humboldt State University student from being swept into a rocky shoreline near Moonstone Beach, Sunday afternoon.

At approximately 1:30 p.m., Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay received a 911-dispatch call reporting a surfer being swept toward a rocky shoreline due to a combination of rough seas and the surfer’s exhaustion.

Sector Humboldt Bay dispatched an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew and issued an urgent marine information broadcast via VHF-FM channel 16.

The Dolphin crew arrived on-scene at approximately 2:00 p.m. and found California State Park Lifeguard, Keven Harder, was in the water and had established contact with the distressed surfer.

After it was determined that the swimmer was too fatigued to make it back to shore, Harder signaled the Dolphin crew to deploy their rescue swimmer to hoist the surfer. Once the surfer was hoisted, the Dolphin crew remained on scene until Harder was able to swim back to the beach.

The fatigued surfer, Kris Nagel, was taken to the California Redwood Coast – Humboldt County Airport and transferred to emergency medical services personnel who evaluated and released him.

Kris Nagel (left) with his hero.
Kris Nagel (left) with his hero.

I wish our World Surf League would also employ the Coast Guard press release writer for its own. I can taste the salt. Feel the wind.

And have you ever been rescued anywhere? Skiing? Snowboarding? Mountain biking, hiking, street luge?

Describe!

Just in: Surfer or diver dead after suspected shark attack on Australian beach

Derek Rielly

By

Beach-walker makes gruesome discover of leg, with bootie, on remote beach…

A beach-walker made a gruesome discovery this afternoon when the skeletal remains of a leg with a bootie attached was found washed ashore near the town of Mylestom on Australia’s mid-north coast.

Investigators suspect the leg came from a surfer, diver or swimmer – but how many swimmers wear booties? – and was the result of a shark attack.

Mylestom is a pretty little hamlet, population three hundred and thirty nine, near the mouth of the Bellinger River and half-an-hour’s drive south of Coffs Harbour on NSW’s mid-north coast.

Police were called to the town’s North Beach at two pm, forensics shot some photos and the bones were removed before high tide. Police are now combing through missing persons reports for a possible match.

The last fatal shark attack at North Beach happened eighty-one years ago, almost to the day, when swimmer Daniel Graham was attacked and killed on December 28, 1938.

Six years ago, bodyboarder Zach Young, who was nineteen, was attacked and killed at nearby Campbells Beach, twenty miles north.

Photo: Jack English
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