Watch: The heretofore ignored upside of just discovered “one million times more microplastics” in our oceans!

Let's think rationally.

As we continue our brave sojourn into the very heart of important news, using our elevated sense of being, our surf-ness, to discuss and/or solve the world’s most pressing issues, it is important that we do not forget the environment, as dull as it sometimes seems.

The ocean is our playground, after all, and we are expected to have extra insight into what it needs and doesn’t need. Scientists rang the alarm bell, yesterday, suggesting that there is one million times more microplastics floating around and let’s turn to Gizmodo for more.

“For years we’ve been doing microplastics studies the same way (by) using a net to collect samples,” said Brandon in a press release. “But anything smaller than that net mesh has been escaping.”

Indeed, as independent research from 2015 pointed out, thousands of trawls done between 1971 and 2013—all with the same kind of net—were only able to capture plastics larger than 333 micrometers in size, or one-third of a millimeter. So while these nets were small enough to filter plankton, they were subsequently too big to capture the smallest plastic particles, known as mini-microplastics.

“I saw these published size ranges and thought, we are under-sampling this smaller range. There’s a big knowledge gap,” said Brandon.

All very bad, no?

Possibly.

We surfers, we enlightened few, are not swayed by the seemingly obvious and look for the story behind the story, as it were. Look for subtlety and nuance where dogma reigns.

So, re. microplastics, what if the ocean is merely responding to market forces? Wave tanks, from Surf Ranch to Surf Lakes to The Wave, are becoming very popular on land. Might the ocean replicating their appeal in the water?

An evolution of sorts?

Worth discussing, at the very least, alongside World Surf League data mining and the plight of Nicaragua.


Surfline Man is an expert. He knows all the swell angles and he knows all the best spots. Rincon? Yah, brah, that place won’t be good today. It needs a longer period. Like, a 310-degree swell at 18 seconds. You don’t want to go there today. You’re totally gona get skunked. Surfline Man likes to believe he’s scoring somewhere no one else would possibly think to go. Surfline Man is generally wrong in his expectations.

Surfline Man: An anthropological study!

Know before you go!

On Monday I tucked my favorite board under my arm, slung my backpack over my shoulders, and wandered down to the beach. The buoys suggested that there might be waves, which sounded damn fun to me and a break in the storm track made nasty winds unlikely.

There I was, happily scampering down the trail, blissfully ignorant of what I would find in the lineup. Oh, there seem to be a lot of people out, I thought, as I tugged my wetsuit over my hips. I shrugged. It is the first day without terrible, angry winds, of course people want to go surfing, I thought. It’ll be fine.

I did not know it was a Surfline Day, when untold hordes come crawling out from every nook and cranny. There is surf today! Everyone go surfing! Omg! And, obediently, Surfline Man and all his besties go surfing.

Surfline Man has the app and the notifications. Surfline Man gets the newsletter. Is there a newsletter? If there is, Surfline Man has it and reads every last word of every edition. Surfline Man spends many hours thinking about surfing. He scrutinizes every swell forecast meticulously. He loves all the colors and arrows. Someone once told him about a site called 17ft, but it was just a bunch of numbers. What the fuck is he supposed to do with that? Surfline Man needs his colors and arrows.

Surfline Man is an expert. He knows all the swell angles and he knows all the best spots. Rincon? Yah, brah, that place won’t be good today. It needs a longer period. Like, a 310-degree swell at 18 seconds. You don’t want to go there today. You’re totally gona get skunked. Surfline Man likes to believe he’s scoring somewhere no one else would possibly think to go. Surfline Man is generally wrong in his expectations.

Without his entourage, Surfline Man is nothing. He never surfs alone. If he went surfing alone, he would have no one to impress with his deep knowledge of surfing. Surfline Man always brings a carefully selected friend or two to surf with him. Carefully selected, because they must be worse at surfing than he is.

Surfline Man has a lot of opinions about boards. He privately thinks his friend’s board has too much volume, but he’s trying not to say anything. Eventually, though, he can’t help himself. It does have a lot of volume, bro, he says, eyeing the colorful fish that his friend is attempting to ride. His friend will play along, because after all, he got a free ride to the beach today. Anyway, he likes his board just fine. Sure, it’s got volume, but that’s how to catch more waves. Everyone knows that.

He’ll tell you all about his fins and how they work and how they’re so much better than the old fins he used to ride. He doesn’t really know why, of course. But he will go on and on for far too long about what he read on the website and what the reviewers said and what he saw on Youtube. Obviously, they’re better than your fins.

If you want to talk about boards in the lineup, Surfline Man is your guy. He’ll tell you in infinite detail all about why his board works so perfect, man. Taking ten set waves on the head is generally preferable.

You might be thinking that Surfline Man sounds like an Asshole, and it’s true that there is some overlap between the two species. When Surfline Man burns one of two women in the lineup on a decent day, he is also an Asshole with a capital A. Beneath his surface knowledge, Surfline Man is sometimes very insecure and he expresses his insecurity by acting like a sexist dickhead. Don’t be a sexist dickhead in the lineup. It is bad.

More commonly, though, Surfline Man is the golden retriever of surfers. He is stoked! So stoked! He wants everyone to know how stoked he is! Surfing is the best and he loves it so much.

He walks back to the car, reliving every single one of his waves. He’s generous, too. He’ll be just as enthusiastic about the waves his buddies rode when it’s all said and done. Dude, that one turn you did, it was so mental. Praising his buddies makes him feel good and helps him retain his feelings of superiority. He knows what a good turn looks like! He is an expert.

Surfline Man arrives at his car and carefully unfolds his changing mat. His precious wetsuit must not touch the ground, though he probably won’t get around to rinsing it out later. Life moves so fast. Check out my rinse kit, bro, it’s the best! Warm water, and I don’t even have to shower later. My girlfriend bought it for me for my birthday.

Yes, Surfline Man has the rinse kit and the changing mat and the poncho. It’s so hard to change with a towel, bro. You should totally get one of these ponchos. It’s so much easier. Surfline Man has a lot of advice.

But he had the best time! Back at the car, and he’s already checking the forecasts. Check this out, he says, showing his buddy his phone. Next Wednesday, it’s gona be firing! I bet we’re totally going to score!

With his technology, his accessories, and his perfect board, the Surfline Man is a perpetual optimist. It’s always going to be good and he’s always going to score. You just have to stay on top of the forecasts, bro. You just have to be in the know. It’s gona be so epic!


Missing: The World Surf League President of Content, Media, Studios, Storytelling etc. Erik “ELo” Logan’s robust Instagram account!

SOS!

We were introduced to our World Surf League President of Content, Media, Studios and Canned Cheese Erik “ELo” Logan on October 8, 2018 as he announced himself to the world and let us revisit the glory, the passion, the… wonder.

“Today, I’m announcing that I will be stepping down as President of OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network. Working for one of the greatest leaders in the world has truly been the most incredible opportunity in my career. I have learned and grown more over the past 10 years professionally than I did in the prior 20. The accomplishments over the last decade have been many – from ending the Oprah Winfrey Show, transitioning the company to a studio, moving to LA, and making OWN the most high-profile turnarounds in cable network history. What has made these many years of work so memorable and enjoyable are the people who I had the opportunity to work and partner with. My “Next Chapter” (as Oprah would say) is truly an opportunity of a lifetime. To marry my passion of surfing with my career is something that I never thought was possible or even imagageable 5 years ago. SUP, surfing, loving the ocean, were all things I’d never thought would be a part of my life. Now, it’s my life, my daily passion, and something that propels me into my next professional journey. Joining the World Surf League is something I never thought this kid from landlocked Oklahoma would say, but it’s happening. I’m beyond grateful tothe WSL for the chance to join the already exceptional team for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If I have learned one thing from Oprah over the past decade, it’s this: there is a “divine order” to the universe and our job is to get into that flow. We must LISTEN to what the universe is saying. So here I am. Marrying my passion with my career in this way is something only a higher power could forge for me. I’m humbled by this moment and still in a state of “I can’t believe this is happening!” But it is…. You’ll hear me say this a lot, but it’s true: #followyourpassion #liveyourpassion

Whoa.

And along we followed, always on Instagram. Thrilling at this…

…this…

…and this.

A daily barrage of the hottest SUP action this side of Hermosa Beach and you think I fun make. You think I joke but I do not. Erik Logan is a SUP clown but also “surfs” better than me. Plus also high-performance longboards better than I asymmetrical surfboard.

Ashamed?

Yes.

But also the entertainment value, the glories, the… lack of typical surf pretension was… inspiring.

Then, near 30 days ago, the robust Instagram feed ground to an absolute halt. His penultimate post was this…

As you can clearly see, CHAS is rudely misspelled but at least not misspelled as CHAD.

And the last?

 

30 days.

A social media forever ago.

I’m worried.

You should be too.

So should we sent Erik another cake?

Also, why did he stop posting?

Is it CHSA’s fault?

More as the story develops.


Balter Brewing Co, a real-life example of what can happen if you believe, if you throw everything, your labour, your cash, into a dream. Nothing, as they say, especially self-generated wealth, comes easy.

Revealed: Mick Fanning’s Balter Brewing Co sale worth “$70-to-$150 million; if targets hit main founders to earn $4 million each!”

Pay day etc.

Yesterday, the boutique beer world was abuzz with news that the Japanese-owned brewer Carlton United had bought Mick Fanning and co’s Balter Brewing Co.

(Read that here.)

It was a lovely moment for the surfer-owned-and-created brand which was driven by the skills of “brewing god” Scott Hargrave, formerly of Stone and Wood, and its distinct minimalist branding.

Balter was started three years ago by Mick, Joel Parko, Bede Durbidge, Josh Kerr, Sean Ronan, Stirling Howland, Scott Hargrave and Ant Macdonald.

Forty-six other investors threw in amounts from $A20,000 upwards to be a part of the start-up.

It’s not as if there weren’t a precedent for the little company to be quickly gobbled up by a major brewer, of course. The year before Balter started, Saint Archer, the San Diego boutique brewer of which Josh Kerr was an investor, was sold to MillerCoors for around $35 million after only a couple of years of biz.

According to BeachGrit’s sources, the Balter sale is worth a minimum of $A70 million plus earn-outs at years three and five “with solid targets to hit.”

If the targets are reached, an investor’s $20,000 will get ’em $400,000.

“The head ponies,” says our source, “had a few hundred k in there. Pay day.”

Think four-to-five million sheks.

The two-hundred million figure, said the source, would “only be if they smash the three and five-year earn-outs fully and even then it’s more like 150 mill.”

Meanwhile, the first “major scalp” of camping retailer Kathmandu’s buyout of Rip Curl is about to go down.

More, as they say, when that story comes into relief.


Watch out! Don't go! National security threat! (this photo out the front of Rancho Santana lands)
Watch out! Don't go! National security threat! (this photo out the front of Rancho Santana lands)

Breaking: Trump administration declares earthly surf paradise Nicaragua a “national security threat!”

Laugh in the face of this pure injustice while gluttonously mocking it!

We surfers, we here, are elevated. No? Yes. We belong to a special caste, an extraordinary caste. Our brains, calcified by ocean water, are able to draw parallels, find truths, reach apolitical consensuses where lesser-thans, the non-surfers, bog down in silly partisan name-calling and shrill nonsense. We are not like them and can discuss right things, left things, international things and without devolving into a Rachel Maddow-esque tragicomedy.

Yes?

But no, I meant purified. Our brains are purified by ocean water exactly like mine just was in the earthly surf paradise called Nicaragua.

Oh you followed along as I not only realized that family and surf can be joined in a perfect union but also attained enlightenment.

Nicaragua.

A beautiful land sparsely populated by a beautiful people. Fresh fruits and vegetables grown with love. Roads paved with paving stones. Rarely have I encountered such warmth and kindness in this world but the Trump administration just dubbed them all a “national security threat” and let us learn why from the pages of ZeroHedge.

A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington’s target list: “These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua,” Trump declared.

On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing Nicaragua as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring a state of “national emergency” on the Central American country.

Trump’s 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing coup attempt in Nicaragua. The US government has funded and supported many of the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.

The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In December the US Congress approved the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business with Managua.

Trump’s new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its democratically elected government — which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by Washington — as a supposedly violent and corrupt “regime.”

On it goes infuriatingly, detailing how the Trump administration will attempt to economically strangle Nicaragua, how many new sanctions will be announced in the coming weeks etc. and absolutely infuriating.

But we surfers, we here, can stick our calcified fingers right into the eye of bad policy. I mean purified fingers. We can laugh in the face of this pure injustice while gluttonously mocking it.

How?

You recall how I ascended into enlightenment at Rancho Santana, the gorgeous surf/family resort in southern Nicaragua? Well, go book a family vacation yourself. When you get to the end you can type CHAS into the promo code area and get 20% off a stay at the Inn, 15% off at any of the other accommodations and 25% off at the Spa.

Or just click here.

How you like them manzanas?

You can glare at wrong-headed foreign policy while getting a post-surf massage at a discount.

Win-win-win!