"Look mom, cancer!"
"Look mom, cancer!"

Menacing “toxin-filled froth” covers India’s most popular beach as unknowing teens snap selfies in, surfers paddle through, its acrid stench!

Like Huntington Beach only.... frothier!

Do you like to surf after a storm or do you play it cautiously and wait to paddle for the prescribed sixty-odd hours? As a child, growing up on the Oregon coast, I loathed the perpetual drizzle, the non-stop wet and grey, but giant rain squalls often calmed the ocean’s angry surface enough for fun surfs. In southern California, though, I learned that rains bring toxic run-off. Very yuck. Very gross with hairy bubbles etc. gliding on the water and so try to avoid post-rain surfs for at least a few hours.

At least we don’t live in India, I suppose, for there a “toxic-filled froth” washes up on the beach after the monsoon and let’s learn about this new environmental horror. Let’s really dig our teeth in to Al-Jazeera, which means The Peninsula, I believe.

A menacing white foam covered one of India’s most famous beaches in Chennai for the fourth straight day on Monday creating a new pollution hazard for the country.

Children have been playing and taking selfies in the clouds of white suds on Marina Beach, even though they give off an acrid smell and fishermen have been told not to go into the sea nearby.

Doctors have warned that skin problems could be caused by the foam, which forms every monsoon season but has been particularly bad this year.

Word has not got through to the hundreds of families who throng India’s longest urban beach, letting children happily skip in the toxin-filled froth.

The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board said it is analysing samples from the foam which has spread several kilometres along the beach.

“It is definitely not good for people to go into the foam but they just do not understand the risks,” said Pravakar Mishra, a scientist at the National Centre for Coastal Research in Chennai who has seen the clouds of foam grow in recent years.

Much like surfers, I suppose, not waiting the prescribed sixty-odd hours, post-storm, for a paddle.

Also, can Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch incorporate this phenom into its upcoming Freshwater Classic ’20? I think watching our professionals battle each other, and a toxin-filled froth, would be good viewing. I think numbers would certainly go up.


Winners get the girls, yes they do. Jackie and Brazilian model Julia Muniz.

Jack Robinson wins Sunset with highest heat total ever, qualifies for 2020 world tour!

"He's in synch with the ocean. It's like he's on another level. He's matrixed out," says Ross Williams.

If the Australian surfer Jack Robinson had been born two days earlier in 1997 there would be a compelling case that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Robinson, born December 27, carries around his own lightning and this afternoon, at Sunset Beach, Jackie strolled to victory, tearing the rest of the field to shreds, combo-ing every single other surfer in the final.

His 19.07 was the highest total in a final at Sunset ever.

“He’s in synch with the ocean. It’s like he’s on another level. He’s matrixed out,” said the commentator and coach of John John Florence, Ross Williams. “He’s seeing different dimensions to everybody else.”

“He’s in synch with the ocean. It’s like he’s on another level. He’s matrixed out,” said the commentator and coach of John John Florence, Ross Williams. “He’s seeing different dimensions to everybody else.”

This medium-sized boy with big bones and long muscles and who has a head of hair that looks like a bale of hay that’s just exploded, has now qualified for the 2020 tour, with its events at Margaret River, Grajagan, Teahupoo and Pipeline.

Jackie’s business will be, I predict to humiliate higher-rated surfers at dangerous reef ledges.

“I wanted to claim it, I wanted to stamp it,” said Jackie, in an accent that was neither Australian nor American, as he collected his thirty-gees and trophy.


Breaking: Scientist tasked with ejaculating semen from Great White sharks describes process as “Very fast and using a very big syringe!”

"Prodding the genitals of live great white sharks is only for the bravest of marine researchers..."

Of all the porns that exist, I feel Great White shark porn is under-appreciated. Imagine the stakes, the risk, the loss of life and limb involved in ejaculating semen from a man-eating Great White shark. Well, as harrowing as the process may be, a few brave scientists are willing to go the extra mile, as it were, for science.

Don’t believe?

Let us turn to the most well respected scientific journal this side of the Mississippi, the august Sacramento Bee.

Prodding the genitals of live great white sharks is only for the bravest of marine researchers, of which SeaWorld’s Gisele Montano may be the boldest.

Her job is to collect semen samples from the great white sharks caught by the nonprofit OCEARCH, in hopes of learning about where they mate, give birth and nurse along the East Coast.

Asked how she does this safely — given her patients are 1,000-pound apex predators — Montano confides that it’s not scary, but it is difficult.

“I would say they do feel something … but because of their size it must feel like a little tug or a little pinch. It does not hurt … It is a bit uncomfortable,” Montano told McClatchy.

“If you saw the size of the catheter and the size of the animal, you would see it’s very small by comparison.”

Her rushed tests take place as a handful of researchers with OCEARCH tag the shark with a satellite tracker, and other scientists take blood, stool and bacteria samples. In all, the sharks are out of the water no more than 15 minutes, which means there is no time to waste, she says.

Etc.

Oh I can only assume that the Great White shark, just cathetered, will be especially menacing in the lineup.

I can only guess that he’ll eat any surfer within “arm’s” length.

Best not to surf until this sort of nasty research is over.

More as the story develops.


Carissa Moore, thrilled.

Just in: Carissa Moore wins fourth world title; worst result all year a fifth!

Honolulu surfer scoops quad-pack of crowns.

You want consistency? Carissa Moore, the twenty-seven-year-old natural-footer from Honolulu who was crowned world champion moments ago, didn’t finish worse than fifth in any event in 2019.

Two wins, J-Bay and France, two seconds and a bank of thirds.

Hence, despite a little heat from Lakey Peterson and Caroline Marks, Carissa scooped up her fourth world title by virtue of a quarter-final win at the Lululemon Maui Pro.

Carissa, who was identified as a world title contender when she was a tweenie, won two events in her rookie year in 2010 and a first world title as an eighteen year old in 2011, still the youngest surfer ever to win a world title.

In that same year, Carissa received a wildcard entry into the two WQS events of the Hawaiian Triple Crown, at Sunset and Haleiwa.

Carissa competing against men wasn’t exactly new.

In 2007, she finished tenth in a men’s WQS event in Mexico.

Seconds ago, Carissa lost her semi-final against Stephanie Gilmore despite hitting the biggest wave of the heat with twenty-seven seconds left. An eight-and-a-piece instead  of the required nine-plus.

Not that it matters.

A weight lifted from her heart, ready to fly up to paradise etc.


Peter Mel (pictured), elated.
Peter Mel (pictured), elated.

Peter Mel on heartbreaking losses at Sunset: “Let’s just focus on the elation!”

Long live the Wall of Positive Noise!

The Vans World Cup of Surfing, there at Sunset Beach, North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii, USA is an undeniably wonderful event. So many storylines collide in the bowl. Championship Tour surfers angling for Triple Crown bragging rights, Qualifying Tour surfers trying to scratch their way into the big dance.

Right now, Kelly Slater is in the water, fighting for his first ever win at Sunset. Does that surprise you that he has never won here before? It does me, I suppose.

Jadson Andre is there too, attempting to win the entire Qualifying Series. Are trophies given for that? I hope so.

Stuart Kennedy is getting interviewed after advancing to the quarterfinals and seems almost happy.

Carlos Munoz, stylish surfer from Costa Rica, was in the same heat and lost thereby squashing his 2020 Championship Tour dream.

He sat alone on the beach, afterward, gazing out to sea, clearly upset. The camera lingered for a moment until Pete Mel willed it away, “There’s going to be some of those today, the agony of defeat, but there’s also going to be lots of elation. Let’s just focus on the elation.”

Long live the Wall of Positive Noise, forever defended from the turrets.

Kelly Slater is surfing very poorly, by the way. He will not win. Would you like to watch anyhow?

Here!