A place for "people who want to get out of their comfort zone!"
And the day has finally arrived, finally come, where Kelly Slater, 11x professional surfing champion and noted environmentalist, will put a shovel into the dry, parched land and begin digging the world’s largest wave pool for us, for The People™ (who can afford homes ranging in price from one million dollars to five million dollars or one of 800 lovely hotel rooms likely to feature curtains spun from recycled fishing nets).
But doesn’t it seem an eternity ago that Adriano de Souza’s euphoria was entirely squashed by the reveal of that Lemoore facility? That perfect man-made barrel running behind Kelly Slater, in beanie, hopping up and down like an artistic child at the zoo? Smile spread ear to ear?
It certainly does and that facility, dubbed “Surf Ranch”, has since hosted two professional surfing contests and an assortment of wealthy, famous people, also crusty and rude surf journalists, but not The People™.
Not you.
Well get ready to book your ticket to LAX, John Wayne or San Diego International, rent a car a drive east to the desert paradise near Palm Springs and let us turn to the Los Angeles Times for more.
Coral Mountain would be a master-planned “wave-based community,” the first of its kind, developer Garrett Simon of Meriwether Cos. said, with a 150-room hotel and as many as 600 homes, mostly single-family residences priced between $1 million and $5 million. There would be a private club and multiple dining venues.
In addition to the 18-million-gallon surf basin, the features might include a network of ponds that hotel guests and residents could navigate on stand-up slow-moving paddle boards or decidedly faster electric hydrofoil boards that lift riders out of the water.
Coral Mountain would be the first of a group of inland surfing venues in the West employing wave technology developed by Kelly Slater Wave Co., said Michael B. Schwab of Big Sky Wave Developments, an investor who was impressed by Slater’s existing prototype in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley.
Slater’s Surf Ranch has turned tiny Lemoore into a “surf mecca,” Schwab said, in part because machine-made waves can speed the learning process of a difficult sport. It did for him.
“I knew that if I had a repeatable, perfect wave I could get better,” he said. And what he learned “transferred into real-world surfing.”
Schwab hopes that Coral Mountain can entice expert surfers but also introduce novices daunted by the prospect of trying to catch waves they can ride in the ocean.
About 25 people could surf at a time, with five or so riding the main wave and 10 surfers on each of the two end bays of the basin, where the waves would be smaller.
With surfing and other active sports, Coral Mountain “will be for people who want to get out of their comfort zone,” Schwab said.
I can sense how excited you are but also conflicted for you too are an environmentalist and worried about the tank’s impact. Well wipe that concern away. We live in the future where cake can be had and eaten and let us turn to the Times once more.
Despite its aquatic focus, Coral Mountain would use a fraction of the amount of water required by a golf course, Simon said. Golf courses use as much as 1 million gallons a day to stay green, he said, while Coral Mountain would give up about 18 million gallons a year in evaporation.
Per the press release, Kelly Slater said:
“We’re excited to make another KSWaveCo design and I’m personally excited to create a new wave that will be a stand alone design that nowhere else in the world has. This can become the blueprint for new developments around waves and surf parks going forward and is in line with some of my original ideas from when we started this project.”
Very exciting and of course we all have many questions. What are yours? Mine mostly revolve around Michael B. Schwab and Dirk Ziff’s relationship. Do you think they fight over Kelly? Do you think Ziff feels cheated on? Does the co-Waterperson of the Year sit at home, staring mournfully at his phone and think, “I used to be the most important billionaire in Kelly Slater’s life…” while Jack Johnston’s Bubble Toes plays on repeat in the background?
Much to ponder there.
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This is already happening on the big island.
Schwab has already broken ground for the pool and houses and is drilling the well for it between Kona village four seasons resort and Kiholo bay on a swath of land owned by Bishop estates. The whole thing was kept completely under wraps from the public.
copy paste this onto kellys insta and watch him go crazy
I expect you know more about prospecting than most of us on here. I’m more than happy to concede that. So those fun facts were more for The People(TM).
PS I do think you jump the gun quite a lot by assigning correlations between (fun) facts that aren’t necessarily rooted in causality. But then I don’t think it’ll be a surprise to you that I view it that way.
Making Coral Mountain great…….
ha…..sneaking in like i do everywhere else….this’ll be child’s play✌️
haha..I was thinking of putting some pennies on the train track..Derail the mother!! Revolution!!
…and my main source of information based wholly on lies, innuendo, rumor and half truths – all of which are way more fun.
I know!!! Surf, sex, polittics…its my refuge nowadays. All Fake All the Time!!
“Slater’s Surf Ranch has turned tiny Lemoore into a “surf mecca,” Schwab said”.
WTF.
I am a marketing guy at heart, but this is a lame PR spin. There are more people surfing Del Mar beach breaks on any given Saturday than have ever surfed at Lemoore. Great wave and would surf it in half a second given a chance, but Lemoore is far from a surf mecca.
Brilliant! When LA and Orange Counties fall into the ocean it will be beach front property.
Some needs to Blackball this wave pool
lol- i laughed so hard at that video my wife came in from the next room . . . after all the water evaporates maybe slatz’ conscience will finally get to him and he’ll do the right thing and option the basin to chuck e. cheese for the world’s largest ball pit . . .
Did he say he surfs better since he built the pool?
Slater is the man to trump everyone. I expect new tech or a mix.
Hahahahaha
So are ya still trying to get an invite to his old pool ?
The bigger the noisier and more wasteful of power and resources.
I’d certainly go, Guess you wouldn’t go? I doubt you’d even drive a car yet alone jump on a plane with the amount resources being chewed up.
I’d drive and fly anywhere but where Kelly and his mates would be.
And your tiresome endless greasing of his machinery is unlikely to get you an invite anyway, especially to the newer bigger noisier one unless you can buy a place there (which only a complete dick would do)
Nothing like a Kelly story to get Volland out of the woodwork!
Poetry isn’t it?
In my opinion, he gets a pass for using the emoji cuz his comments are always so brash and tell-it-like-it-is.
You are an emoji greebs … one ugly, angry, little emoji 😨
Watch out, even if you are 5 feet away I can still projectile vomit spoiled milk all over you. Then shit my pants and make you vomit from the smell. This ugly, angry, little fucker has ways to extract revenge.
Sounds like my eldest
Wednesday’s fun fact, rare earth minerals are actually quite common. Just generally too dispersed to be extracted cost effective. Bonus fun fact, opposed to rumours floating around on BG the Mountain Pass mine in CA is currently operating.
“I realized if I had a perfect wave I could get better.”
Oh gawd!!!!!!
Except for the odd chauffeured pro. Its going to be the palmsprings of the wave pool world. Full of retired google execs kooking it on mid-length boards while starving grom shredders watch from behind the wire. What a waste!
Gotta find something for all those ex-pros to do … can’t expect ’em to get a real job
Wave-based community sounds great, but has he considered an ice-based community?
A lot cheaper to set up and once somebody’s in, they’re a user for life. Better for the environment too.
Fuck off Kelly
I take it he’s not coming to stay at yours in March?
I take it you’d move into the servants quarters to have him stay at yours in March…
Hell no! He’ll be playing the big spoon to my little spoon in the master bedroom.
You’re supposing a lot.
I doubt he’d want to have any part of your fantasies
As much of a hypocritical shit-bag that he is it’s unlikely he’ll want to take you from behind as much as you’d like for him to do it……….
Another wave Park that nobody can afford to go to because he charges outrageous prices. 1 to 5 million dollar homes? Yet he refuses to do anything for the place where he got his surfing start.
Is there not a statue for People to worship at Cocca Beach? Do you want another one or something?
So there’s gonna be 16 wave pools in Palm Springs?
HOA rules gonna be tough…”hey you kids get that longboard outa the pool or we’ll fine your parents!!!”
Fuck man, our HOA is pricey and we just got one shitty jacuzzi. Can you imagine the monthly dues when you gotta maintain the worlds biggest wave tub!?!!
No flipflops outside your door! No peeing in the tub,! All boards must be stored out of site! or you lose your house! Probably come up with a pretty crazy list, no doubt these places already hae them!!
HOA’s seem to be just evil, especially if you get crosswise with them, or your neighbors dont like your cactus garden?
….Hollister Ranch has some really strict ones (I’ve heard) that have gotten even more draconian over the years. Property owner has to be there in the water when you surf , no changing wetsuits in public without towel etc etc. Growing the herbs used to be a really big no no, altho maybe that changed with the times. Interesting times nowadays.