The criminalisation of surfing on gorgeous French tropical island continues…

Surfers attempting to surf St Leu a day or so ago, in what looks like absolutely firing waves at St Leu, were buzzed by a helicopter.

The three surfers scramble in and gather themselves before disappearing into the trees that line the beach at St Leu, and alongside the old campsite that used to front the break.

The chopper lands and an authoritative figure jumps out and proceeds to give chase, ducking through the tree line in a bid to capture the crims, for that’s what surfers are nowadays if they go surfing – criminals.

Now, surfing ain’t a crime in most countries, but it is on Reunion.

Some background.

On 12 April 2015, a 13-year-old surfer, Elio Canestri, was killed surfing in Reunion by an eight-foot bull shark. He was one of the best up-and-coming surfers in Reunion, a place that has been torn apart, literally, by shark attacks, while the authorities dither and refuse to make changes to the fishing reserve on the west coast as well as shark-hunting policies.

Read about it here.

Elio would have turned 18 this Easter.

The authorities have made it illegal to surf mot spots in Reunion, putting the pressure on the surfers, as opposed to cleaning up the mess they have made with the ocean. No one it seems is prepared to make any bold moves to fix a problem that is wildly out of control.

In the last eight years, there have been twenty-four attacks, and eleven of those have proved to be fatal.

So, as a surfer, you have hordes of dumb bull sharks tearing around the line-ups, wanting to eat anything in front of them, be it birds, fish, car tires or surfers.

If you go for a surf, you are running the gauntlet every time, and any session you brave might be your last might be the last time you see your family.

It’s a helluva thing.

If you do survive a surf, there is always the risk of the Gendarmerie waiting for you on the beach, to slap you with a EU37 fine, with those fines escalating each time you get caught, until one day you’re in a cell and wondering what happened to your life.

So going surfing is hard, in a place that used to be the jewel of the Indian ocean surfing scene.

St Leu used to be a stop on the WCT and was the location for Jack McCoy’s epic Pump movie. In it, a marvellously braided Occy going crazy, along with Ronnie Burns RIP.

The joint was a delight.

Surf schools used to flourish, surf backpackers, surf shops, shapers, there was a full-on industry.

All gone now.

Back in the day, La Reunion was South African surfer’s secret surf destination.

Warm and perfect, coral reefs, mechanical waves like St Leu, barrels in St Pierre, big waves at Le Port and sometimes Etang Sale, grinding reef-pass barrels at L’Hermitage and nudity at Trois Bassons.

It had everything.

Now with this bug flying around, shit just got infinitely worse on the island for anyone brave enough to surf among the sharks, or foolish enough to take a chance with COVID-19.

Reunion currently has 389 cases.

The surfers all escaped the chopper, using back alleys and secret routes, and they all got home.

Who knows, maybe they even picked up a couple of delicious Bourbon Beers – the tasty local brew – to have a quick celebration over beating all the odds, because they sure were stacked against ’em.

Local surfers on the whole, however, continue to remain indoors and don’t want people to take these chances.

A wild theory.

Rare, I would suggest, is the surfer who can forgot the warm October day in 2018 when the WSL announced it had appointed the president of Oprah Winfrey Network and “avid waterman” Erik Logan as President of Content, Media and WSL Studios, effective the following February.

Even a sceptic hardened by the revolving door of non-surfers taking up prime positions within a company owned by a non-surfing billionaire that had bought the ASP for a handful of shekels in 2012, had to concede: here was a man, finally, who knew his chops.

As was reported at the time, Logan was a media executive without peer, who had “led OWN’s turnaround from 2011 and has positioned the company today as the #1 cable network in its target demographic with 5 of the top 20 shows in scripted cable programs for women ages 25-54, more than any other cable network. Before OWN, Logan was Executive Vice President, programming and broadcast operations for XM Satellite Radio, where he helped build the subscriber base to over nine million subscribers, negotiated partnerships, and managed day-to-day relationships with major content providers including Major League Baseball, PGA Tour, CNN, Clear Channel Communications and Fox News.”

Logan’s waterman bona fides are impeccable: he is the co-founder of Shred and Speed, not sure if it’s a SUP shop or distributor but I think is big in the SUP game, SUP brand Infinity, and he owns a store for watermen in LA’s Manhattan Beach called Nikau Kai Surf Shop.

It is “Inclusive” and “welcoming” and was “Born out of the desire to expand our horizons and open new doors in surfing and what surfing means to us.”

Beautiful sentiments to complement a dazzling CV.

But, at what point did he think, I can sell pro surfing? 

What precipitated his decision to leave Ms O?

Earlier today, a reader sent an Instagram post from February 2018, eight months before the WSL’s announcement, with a telling comment from the SUP-riding, VAL-championing CEO.

It is revealing, as well as a little titillating.

On the IG account, Hotsurferguyzz, which delivers a cavalcade of muscle-studs to its one hundred and eighty-five followers, under a photograph of twenty-four-year-old Hawaii-born Jay Alvarrez holding a Wavesetorm surfboard, and beneath the hashtags #hotsurfer #hotguy #surfing #sun #beach #cutesurfer #cuteguy #sixpack #eatsurfpartysleeprepeat #surfingisfun #surfer #staysalty

Logan writes,

Wow, I love this! 🏄 🌊

https://www.instagram.com/p/Be2cuQBnFik/

Alvarrez, of course, is without peer in the surfer-hunk game, as evidenced by his six-and-a-half mill followers, more than Kelly Slater, Julian Wilson, John John Florence, Italo, Jordy Smith combined, with three million in change.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm_K5zXnPmo/

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

https://www.instagram.com/p/zGV6OfMm1X/

What did Logan see in the photo of Alvarrez?

Unlike the average man who might be tempted to linger a little long on the surface anatomy of Alvarrez’ abdomen running from the iliac crest to the pubis, Logan, in my opinion, saw the marketability of surfing to the fabled American mid-west.

What girl, what boy, could resist a sport that was able to produce seemingly endless images that emphasise the predominance of the sex instinct?

A marketer to the bone.

Am I right? Or am I right?