Fantastic: Man on electric foil board rescues dog from overturned fishing kayak in crowded Gold Coast lineup!

South African e-foiler, hero.

My writing’s been in a bit of a rut of late. Inspiration lacking.

The surf industrial complex, with all its usual gossip, intrigue and scandal, hit the Coronavirus head on. Whack! I was geared up for a never ending procession of scoops, expozes, shock reveals.

But after aqua planing for a ‘lil bit, the whole whirring mess has now spun to a complete stop.

There’s no tour to complain about. The pools are shut. Few new clips are dropping. Every angle of the Chinese Cough has been covered, and covered again.

The machine sits silent.

All we’re left with is Chris Cote playing bass guitar over clips of Kai Lenny folding his laundry to an empty live feed, while podcasters interview other podcasters about their favourite podcasts in some form of infinite meta loop.

Crickets in the real world. No one knows what happens next.

(Oh, and I missed the best day in a decade at home due to family commitments. I’d make the same choice again, but jeez some of the shots sting.)

Derek writes me just this week, asking if I’ve got any stories up my sleeve. Nah mate. I’m tapped out. Flatlining. There’s absolutely fucking nothing going on.

Then this story pops up in my feed: Man on electric foil board rescues dog from overturned fishing kayak in crowded Currumbin line up.

Read that sentence. And then read it again. Pause at every step to marvel the incredulity.

A fishing kayak, avec pooch, attempting to paddle out through four foot Currumbin Alley. Regular limb-powered surfers rendered as helpless onlookers when the ‘yak flips.

A South African, on an e-foil, swoops in as hero to save the day.

An electric fucking foil.

A story so stupid, with so little meaning to be derived from it, yet simultaneously the most fantastic thing that has happened in 2020.

Facts.

You can try and pin it down, try and attach a narrative to it. Try and understand what has happened. Analyse how we got here. Understand what it all means. The electric foil. The fishing dog. The global pandemic. The collapse of the entire fucking world.

But you can’t.

It’s impossible.

At this point, all you can do is sit back and watch everything unravel. And realise that surfing, in all its gorgeous anarchy, is the gift that will never stop giving.

God bless it.

And God damn it if you don’t just wanna boop that little pooch right in the snoot.

Can we get him a content sharing contract with WSL studios, ASAP?

Watch here.