Listen: “Is our World Surf League a sort of Pinocchio Pleasure Island where fun-lovin’ men and women are lured, turned into donkeys then sold?”

Very scary.

And I’m starting to become worried, to become, at the very least, concerned. The World Surf League’s President of Content, Media, Studio, Etc. Erik “ELo” Logan announced his departure from the Oprah Winfrey network, embrace of “a new journey” through the exciting universe of professional surfing almost exactly one year ago from today.

Big dreams.

A bigger smile.

Oh we mocked, chuckled, cajoled because that’s what we do. His Instagram profile featured picture after picture of bigger smiles, SUP-life, Manhattan Beach shred fun, ripping, a thorough, joyful expression of surfing’s uplifting qualities. Its unique ability to inspire and heal. Its transformative properties, as it were.

Two months ago, President Logan went missing. One month ago I became worried, sarcastically, and wrote a story.

Today I am genuinely concerned for last night I had a terrible nightmare. That the Ziffs, Co-Waterpeople of the Year Dirk and Natasha, were actually very bad slave traders who lured simple, kind folk struck blind by the glories of surfing to Santa Monica. There they met Kelly Slater, “worked” on professional surfing, told their friends, “Can you believe I get to do this for a living?” Threw shakas, drank hazelnut/kona blend coffees.

Then, when they reached peak “stoke” the Ziffs would turn them into donkeys and sell them to the highest bidder for lives of toil in the salt mines. Very much like the whole Pleasure Island, originally called “Boobyland,” scenario in the Walt Disney classic Pinocchio.

A horrible, terrible nightmare but could it actually be true?

David Lee Scales and I discussed the possibility yesterday and also many other things tangentially related to this grand surfing salt mine life. Worth a listen?

Yes, but only if you yourself would not like to be turned from wooden boy into beast of burden.


Surfer Adam Coons, with gift of stuffed Great White. | Photo: @adamcoons

Surfer attacked by Fifteen-foot Great White four days before Christmas and his rescuer talk about hit: “The shark had him in [its] mouth!”

"It felt like I just got blasted by a torpedo. I didn't feel the bite from the adrenaline and then I was immediately underwater getting thrashed."

Four days before Christmas, Californian surfer Adam Coons was hit by what he and his lifeguard buddy, Jez Howard, estimated to be a fifteen-foot Great White while surfing at Santa Rosa island, twenty-six miles off Santa Babs.

If you’ve ever been to Santa Babs, you might’ve stared at the Channel Islands out there on the horizon, these inconvenient land masses that block all the summer south swells.

Santa Rosa is the second biggest. Plenty of waves, too, if you like ’em uncrowded.

As we reported at the time, it was Jez who saved Adam’s life with his practised use of tourniquets, a simple device that can save almost anyone who’s been hit by a shark. 

Now, Adam and Jez have appeared on ABC News to talk about the attack.

“It felt like I just got blasted by a torpedo,” said Coons. “I didn’t feel the bite from the adrenaline and then I was immediately underwater getting thrashed.”

Jez saw it all from the boat.

“I looked up and the white shark was hitting at him, it took him out of the water probably I’d say about five feet, ya know the shark had him in [its] mouth. I just said ‘Come on buddy, you can make it.'”

Coons said his survival was due to the actions of his pal, the professionalism of the local Coast Guard and the miracle of Christmas.

“If any of these puzzle pieces didn’t come together, I don’t believe I would be here right now… I don’t know why it’s me and my family that get to stay together, while others have lost so much, and why I am keeping my legs and why I will have full recovery, except to hopefully inspire others to not give up on their passions and for families to hear the story of a Christmas miracle and to come together during the holidays no matter what might have been otherwise standing between them…I know that this is the plan for me and I don’t intend to squander this new lease on life.”

Coons also had his recently departed ma helping.

“My guardian angel, my mom, who was there as a lone seagull following the boat keeping a watchful eye until the chopper arrived.”

Coons says he’s unsure when he’ll surf again.

 


Watch: “Famous, irresponsible” travel blogger parents drop 5-year-old children into shark cage while hungry Great Whites circle aggressively, menacingly!

Irresponsible or... progressive?

But what is the worst thing you have forced your angelic children into? Surfing all sandy, painful and awkward? Skiing, freezing cold, also painful and even more awkward? A sedentary life on the couch playing video games and eating frozen pizza while developing diabetes?

I have forced seven-year-old daughter into tennis. I imagine her, one day, impressing the dukes and duchesses of impressive lineages with her graceful forehand. Parking another Porsche in my garage with a wink, after winning the French Open.

She hates it. I don’t care and sometimes shout back, across the net, “You’re lucky I don’t feed you to Great White sharks!” only somewhat in jest.

As it turns out, feeding children to Great White sharks is a true phenomenon and also lucrative. Don’t believe? Oh we must turn to the well-respected child monetization website Traveller for the absolute latest.

A travel blogger couple has been labelled irresponsible after posting a video of their children, one just five years old, diving in a shark cage.

The Bucket List Family, who have a popular Youtube channel, uploaded a video of their dive with great white sharks off the coast of Baja California, in western Mexico.

Parents Garrett and Jessica were happy for their daughter Dorothy, seven, and son Manilla, five, to step into the shark cage.

The children go through the requirements beforehand, taking a safety briefing and signing a waiver.

“I was a little bit scared,” Dorothy said in a post-shoot interview. “But then I was brave.”

The two children don wetsuits and breath with ‘hooker lines’ – essentially long tubes pumping air from the boat above.

Dorothy and Manilla then plunge into the submerged shark cage, their father swimming with them.

As Manilla put it later: “It felt like I was floating in space.”

Dorothy had something else to add: “You’re in the cage. But there are holes. Lots of big holes.”

Holes big enough for those blood-mad Great Whites to swim right through, no doubt, and of course the general public became very angry, calling the escapade “child abuse” and “bad” but… and bear with me here… kids say the darndest things!

Still, the horror goes on and on and on. People declaring that the regulator does not fit in a five-year-old-mouth and the children may drown. People crowing about “safety” and “responsibility” and “common sense.”

But let’s be honest. Would you toss your beatific offspring into a shark cage? If you were paid lots of money? The video has received very many views on YouTube. Over 4 million which equals well over a few thousand dollars.

Leased Porsche coming soon (I recommend the Panamera which comfortably seats two parents plus two earners)!

No?

More as the story develops.


Revealed: The highest yielding surf investment everyone is afraid to talk about!

What you can do, today, to start earning 30x!

If I’ve written it once in the past three days, I’ve written it six or seven times. Mostly in relation to sharks, Great White, Tiger and Bull, but it can and should be equally applied elsewhere too. It is the start of a new decade, a brand new start, and the perfect time to make some changes. To earn more money. To make better investments.

And on this note, do I have an opportunity for you that guarantees not 10x, not 20x but 30x return over investment.

Now, you may think the surf industry is still going through the worst economic downturn in the history of mankind. A still-reeling 20-year-plus recession with no end in sight and you’d be correct.

But…

…you know what the Warren Buffetts and Carl Ichans of the world preach and practice?

Zig when others zag and there is exciting potential right under your roof, likely, or for you to make if not.

A child, your child, and turning him or her into a professional surfer.

How?

Please watch this free-of-charge instructional video. My repayment will be seeing the look on your face when you pull into the carpark in your brand-new, leased Rolls-Royce.

Say it with me, “I can Dino Andino too!”

You’re welcome!


Jamie O on Kohl Christensen’s near-death, head-busting wipeout at Pipe: “If he wasn’t wearing his float suit it would’ve been a different scenario!”

Life and death at mean old Pipe.

On New Year’s Eve, the Eddie Aikau-invitee Kohl Christenen, as famous for his off-the-grid lifestyle as his big-wave wrangling, was belted by his surfboard while surfing twelve-to-fifteen-foot Pipe.

Fractured skull, a little bleeding on the brain, ear drum maybe blown to the heavens.

Could’ve been worse for forty-two-year old Kohl.

Jamie O’Brien, the carrot-topped vlogger who grew up at Pipe and whose house is directly behind the famous Lopez mansion, saw the whole thing from his upstairs perch.

“He was on this second reef double-up roll-in and he was trimming and the wave before had some turbulence in front of it and he went over the turbulence and then he skipped out.”

Jamie didn’t think much of it.

“Kohl’s a great surfer, he knows what he’s doing. He’s the kinda guy you don’t see until it’s bigger than ten feet.”

Pretty standard sorta wipeout at a wave given to sudden flourishes of unpredictable violence more than most.

“And then he popped up, it took a while, and I was, like, something’s wrong. He was looking the wrong way and the lip of an eight-foot wave was landing on him. His board was sideways and he was right behind the board. From my point of view it looked the lip launched the board straight into his head and knocked him out. I’m not sure if he broke his eardrum first and that was why he was out of it.”

Dressed in baggy sweat shorts, Jamie tightened up the legs, grabbed an eight-foot soft-top and ran down the beach. He thought, ‘Ok, I need to act right now.’

A life or death moment.

“I saw his board tombstoning right when I got to the beach. The jetski was already on him, Makua Rothman was already swimming out. It was super gnarly. I knew there was nothing I could do. He was in good hands. It was lucky help was there faster than I was. I was trying my best.”

Jamie in makeshift rescue outfit, sweat pants with legs secured, soft-board.

The accident gave the former Pipe Master pause.

“It was one of those days. I had to make that decision, should I go surf, is it worth or is it not? It wasn’t worth it. Twelve-to-fifteen-footers, it was as gnarly and as big as Pipe gets. I was talking to Dave Wassel briefly about it and he said that if Kohl wasn’t wearing his float suit, it would’ve been a different scenario. Apparently, that made a big difference in getting him to the beach. He was unconscious and out of it on the beach. He didn’t know what was going on. I heard he wasn’t really doing that well.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B61IhVzAAXY/

Later in the afternoon, Jamie, who wears his Buell float-suit whenever Pipe is over five-foot, decided to paddle out and, “Yeah, I got some sick ones.”

Until he copped it.

“I hit the reef really bad. I hit my leg, my hip, my elbow, my knee, my arm. The hardest slam on the reef for a couple of years.”

And then he went back for more.

“I went to the lifeguard jetski, checked to see what was going on, went out and ended up getting my best wave.”

Skip through to 10:16 for Kohl’s wipeout.

(Thanks to BeachGrit’s Superworm for the link.)

Jamie’s vlog will drop its version of the day, which may or may not include Kohl’s wipeout (“It’s pretty personal, I haven’t talked to any of the boys about it yet,” says Jamie), on Monday, US time.