The joy of naivety.

Oh the ignorance of youth, that grace-filled dance of naivety, where boys and girls get themselves into very bad spots and are only saved thanks to pure luck or a mother’s banshee-like shriek. But have you been keeping abreast on the extraordinarily barbarous surf pounding southern Oregon right now? King tides and a massive swell, courtesy of some Pacific storm or another, is bashing the coastline from Florence down to Brookings. Throwing up huge plumes of whitewash and very tragically stealing young lives.

I grew up there, as you well know, in Coos Bay a depressed town where hard-luck was a way of life. Any time “swell events” would occur folk from as far away as Eugene and Portland would rush down not to surf, of course, but to watch waves hit rocks and explode into the air.

And there was always the “brave” boy or girl who would get as close to the edge as possible, taking for granted that the ocean is benevolent. But Oregon’s ocean is not benevolent, it is vicious and mean and another young boy almost got swept into it, only saved thanks to both pure luck and his mother’s banshee-like shriek but let us turn to eyewitnesses there on the beach in Bandon just thirty minutes south of Coos Bay and home to a fine clam chowder restaurant.

The lure of storm watching during some of the highest tides of the winter – known as “king tides” – brought people out to the Oregon Coast.

Jill Stockford shared video from the south jetty in Bandon, Oregon, on Saturday that showed one close call.

“A large crowd gathered at the south jetty in Bandon to watch the big waves at high tide during the high surf warning, Saturday January 11, 2020,” Stockford wrote via Chime In. “A young boy decided to jump down onto the beach, ignoring his mother’s yells for him to get off the beach immediately. When her tone changed, the boy finally got off the beach, literally within seconds of a fast moving sneaker wave narrowly missing him and dragging him out to sea. You can hear him laughing in the background unaware of how serious that sneaker wave was.”

Youth… amiright?

And here’s another naughty sneaker from what was once called Marshfield.

Don't look now...

Though do you remember when you were a young child and imagined monsters hiding under the bed, waiting to reach out and grab your tender ankles? Wanting for your parents to turn out the lights then for you to have to use the toilet so badly, so painfully, that further delay was simply out of the question then…

…ARGH!

Snag your dainty astragalus and pull you down to Helm’s Deep?

It turns out they were true, real, for it was revealed, just today, that for every shark we see in the water there are up to 100 more circling hungrily, viciously, menacingly below.

Is your blood running cold?

It should be but here, let us turn down the temperature even more by reading from Australia’s esteemed 7News. Let us look helm right in the face.

A drone has captured the moment a shark came within metres of two oblivious swimmers off Main Beach at Forster in New South Wales.

Bystanders rushed to alert the pair of the close encounter – with what is believed to be a 2.5m Great White Shark – but experts say encounters like this are more common than you might think.

“For every one shark that you see, there might be 10 or 100 sharks that see you,” Rob Townsend from SeaLife Sydney told 7NEWS.

“You just don’t realise because they’re not mindless killers.

Which makes matters that very much worse. Sharks, especially Great Whites, are mindful killers brimming with knowledge, tactics, intelligence and savvy. They are maniacal, sociopathic…

…there and in greater numbers than we ever supposed, ever even imagined.

But let us also learn more about this brave drone operator, this true guardian angel.

Cameron Grace, 17, was flying his drone while holidaying with family in the area when he spotted the beast on his camera.

The teenager was horrified at seeing the eerie footage and sent his aunt Rachel Walter sprinting to the beach to warn the swimmers of the imminent danger.

‘I got into the water and I waved for the two boys to get out. They were completely oblivious.’

Oh it is wonderful that this story had a happy ending but shall we gaze upon the savior? Upon the boy named so poetically Cameron Grace?

The spitting image of McLovin from Superbad no?

More as the story develops.

Deals like this don't last long!

The early bird gets the worm, so they say, and that aphorism has never been more true than it is in our digital age. But how many times have you seen something incredible on Ebay, say, or Barney’s Warehouse (RIP) that you just had to have… but the price… but the hmmmmm… and do I really want it… and while you paused off it flew to someone with a quicker trigger finger? A more thoroughly robust spirit?

Very many times and heartbreaking each.

Well, with surfing’s Olympic debut in the 2020 Tokyo Games just months away it is best we not sleep on tickets for today they have gone on sale and by sale I mean $4500 per for the medal rounds, $2250 for the quarters and semis. $2250 also for the first rounds.

The hot tip was sent through by Jack English, surf photographer most famous for our Cryin’ Jordy who owns the fine brand Sea of Seven, and he must have purchased his own Olympic surfing tickets already to be so brazen with this sharing but whatever the case we all now stand to win.

Except, quick question, what is the over/under on how much tickets will be available for day of?

An even $5000?

More?

Very exciting. Possibly an investment opportunity.

Buy here. 

Take it off (and replace with something appropriate)!

But can you recall the very first time you saw a g-string, or Brazilian cut, bikini bottom in the wild? Oh it must have been at least two decades ago, maybe even three, but the shock, the pure unadulterated shock certainly still pounds through your veins.

No?

Of course it does. A virtually naked bottom, nothing left to the imagination, outside, under the sun, becoming brown just like legs, arms and stomachs were only previously allowed.

Well, as fashion do, the g-string has waxed and waned in popularity over the years though is currently experiencing a bull market, mostly thanks to Instagram where professional surfers such as Ellie-Jean Coffey augments radical cutbacks with radically cut backs.

In any case, not everyone is so smitten with these pérolas de sabedoria and let us fly directly to New Zealand where summer is in full swing and the days are almost as hot as the outrage gushing from a mother made furious. Let us not delay.

A mother who is fed up with seeing women in G-string bikinis at a local swimming spot where she often takes her kids has been ridiculed online for her ‘prudish’ views.

Kayla Edwards reached out to her social media network to suggest a sign at Spa Thermal Park in Taupō, New Zealand to ban ‘inappropriate swimwear’.

The mother-of-three said she and her family felt uncomfortable swimming there now because of a spike in women wearing barely-there bikinis.

Another woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, agreed with Ms Edwards complaints.

She said the experience often made her children uncomfortable, and that her husband ‘hated’ seeing it.

‘I’ve seen men in mankinis, women walking around in G-string bikinis and even the odd naked person getting changed in public. It’s disgusting and it has to stop,’ she said.

Ms. Edwards imagined that her Facebook plea would garner much support and that her proposed sign was a fait accompli. Instead she was made much fun of and even the local spa declared that “no one has complained…” completely derailing the movement.

Except do you agree?

Will you join the fight against the vile and disgusting g-string, wherever and whenever it appears? Will you stand up and be counted?

More as the story develops.