Out of the water for at least a day. Maybe two.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, in America. Just another Manic Monday in Australia. And though surfers are not typically football fans the two do share one love. One glorious passion.

Guacamole.

The avocado-based delicacy is one of the most common foods at Super Bowl parties where men grow fat and loud, women grow loud and fat and everyone turns into comedians, riffing on the television commercials that are also supposed to be funny.

Well, as you know, I was on a historically unprecedented ironman streak, having surfed six days in a row. It ended today. With Super Bowl Sunday on the horizon I thought, “I bet Big Bear will be empty….”

Southern California’s local ski area is a complete dump but my daughter is a complete ripper and any chance I can get her on any hill I take.

So there we were driving north as the sun peeked over the horizon, illuminating the inland valleys sad and depressing, daughter playing Roblox on her phone, me listening to NPR when a story regarding “Avocado Hand Injury” came on.

I turned the volume up.

Is it your turn to make the guacamole at the Super Bowl party this year?

If so, be careful. You don’t want to join the thousands of people who’ve ended up in an emergency room for avocado-related injuries.

“These injuries are exceedingly common,” says Dr. Matt Aizpuru of the Mayo Clinic.

Aizpuru is the co-author of a 2019 study published in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine that found that as avocado comsumption has gone up in America, so too have avocado-related knife injuries.

He and his colleagues looked at emergency room data and found that between 1998 and 2017 an estimated 50,413 people paid a visit to the emergency room for an avocado-related knife mishap. Aizpuru says that in 1998, there were around 650 such injuries. By 2017, there were nearly 6,000, close to a 10-fold increase.

The most common demographic injured were 23 to 39-year old women, according to the study, and injuries were most common on the left — and likely non-dominant — hands of patients.

“Whew. 23 to 39-year old women…” I thought while turning the volume back down. “…Not us surfers.”

But then my mind flashed to my recently broken ironman streak and I swear over fifty percent of the surfing population these days is 23 – 39-year old women.

Shark attacks may be trending down in the near future, as men vacate the lineup, but will Avocado Hand Injury be trending up?

More as the story develops.

Move over Cal Ripken.

California-based surf journalist Chas Smith is currently in the midst of a historically unprecedented ironman streak having surfed for six consecutive days. The streak began, without fanfare, on Sunday, January 26th. Though his wife was out of town and he was single-parenting, his daughter’s best friend’s parents texted and offered to host a playdate.

He agreed at once and went for a surf. The next day, with his daughter in school, he surfed again and repeated it all the way until Saturday, February 1st even though his wife is out of town again but the same friend’s parents’ once more agreed to host a playdate.

“I don’t know…” he responded when reached for comment, post-surf “…I guess I’m just really in the zone. The water is a little chillier than I’d like it and one day I looked outside and saw what seemed to be onshore wind but I went out anyway.”

During the streak he has performed a handful of very slow wrapping turns and one little smash off the top that he imagined looked very cool from the beach.

Nobody on the beach told him it looked cool.

Smith has been surfing a 5’10 Album Plasmic twin fin in matte grey and alternating between a 3/2 Billabong customized Furnace Revolution and 4/3 NEED Essentials and one bootie on his front foot because he recently suffered a broken toe.

“That water…” he said “…I wish it was just a little bit warmer.

Will he be able to continue on to day seven?

Stay tuned.