Water, precious as hell, as always.

Revealed: The staggering cost to fill a wavepool with water!

Seventy-eight million litres or twenty million gallons of precious raindrops…

You ever wonder how much water goes into a wave tank ‘cause they big, yeah?

How much you think it costs to turn the hose on and fill the hole?

The Morning Bulletin, a daily newspaper that services Central Queensland, which includes Yeppoon, home of an experimental wavepool powered by a giant plunger, has reported of an imbroglio between the pool’s owners and local council over whether the pool should continue to receive a discounted rate for water.

The numbers are pretty wild.

See, from 2017 to last September, Surf Lakes and the Livingstone Shire Council had an agreement that gave Surf Lakes cheap water ($1.30 per thousand litres or 0.004 cents a gallon) because the company said it “could bring substantial future economic activity and benefit to the region”.

The pool, which takes seventy-eight million litres to fill, or “over nine times the average daily water consumption for the entire shire”, paid $102,078.60 for the initial fill, a saving of fifty-grand from the usual commercial rate

Since September, however, that rate went up to a little over two bucks.

As the Morning Bully reports,

“It would appear the reasons relied upon by Council to support the initial request are no longer relevant, or at least significantly diminished,” the April 2019 LSC council report read. 

The unlikelihood of the facility ever opening to Capricorn Coast surfers has made the project a point of community contention.

The newly formed council with new Mayor Andy Ireland confirmed the newly formed council will re-assess the agreement later this year.

The Slater pool in dusty ol Lemoore, meanwhile, takes sixty-eight mill litres to fill; the Wavegarden tanks in Bristol and Melbourne, twenty-two mill.


No one knows the etiquette, no one wants to follow rules, it’s all about the escape and don’t fucking tread on me in the process. Hit that pipe. Click that Amazon purchase. Post that comment. Bring that soft top into waist-high mush. Endorphin rush all day long – living the dream, baby.

Report from hillbilly USA: “More bigotry, meanness and narrow-mindedness towards others in the water, especially if they have no idea how to surf!”

"Hit that pipe. Click that Amazon purchase. Post that comment. Bring that soft top into waist-high mush. Endorphin rush all day long – living the dream, baby."

I live on a one-bridge on, one-bridge off barrier island that is open to the tidal ebbs and flows, and for a few months each fall the hurricanes, of the Atlantic.

There are hundreds of these islands that run from North Carolina down into Florida. Many were, and some still are, the sea islands known for being homes of Gullah Geechee peoples, descendants of enslaved Africans brought to port near where I live.

This suggests that at some point these islands used to have soul.

Today, though, it’s a chaos of white people whiting at the beach.

You see, for two months the island was accessible only to locals or workers, enforced by a checkpoint at the bridge.

No ID or papers? You’re not getting on.

It’s a local municipality, so the council and mayor can make these decisions on behalf of the safety of the taxpayers that live here.

Funny thing, though — it seems keeping people locked up for two months and then letting the beach back open because our state governor thinks it’s a good idea to spread the virus some more brings out the masses.

Two months of bliss out here — no footprints on the beach. No trash. No light pollution. No bass booming from tinted windows as wannabe white gangsters drive by.

No Pan-Asian chicken salads.

And the only surfers? Those who live on the island.

And we still need to add the secret ingredient, a result of the island selling its own soul beginning about twenty years ago. All the old hippie and biker shacks that were affordable for food and beverage and college folks and single moms and artists to rent — flipped for million-dollar mansions that house either retirees or are letted out weekly for Airbnb.

Take away this Airbnb traffic and it’s a ghost land.

Like going back 30 years. Abundant wildlife. Quiet.

No footprints on the beach. Paradise on an island.

But open it all back up, and it’s chaos.

Made worse yesterday and today because of a for these parts fun little hit of south swell. Water now up over 70 F, and the outside temp at about 85 F and sunny.

And every aspiring surfer cooped up for the past two months in the region now out in front of my house.

Cigarette butts and beer cans on the beach. Parked tourist cars jammed all up in yards. Plastic beach toys littered everywhere. Dolphins and rays and pelicans scared away.

And in the water? SUPs, boogies, soft tops, longboards, shortboards, even a fucking foil board.

The problem with gentle waist-to-stomach-high lappers in warm water is there’s no scare factor, nor requisite level of surfing skill.

Nathan Fletcher once said anyone on an 8’6” can paddle out at ten-foot Pipe and try to get a wave, because there are so few takers.

Not here. It’s the opposite.

Because it’s possible to walk into the lineup, people do.

And they’re clueless.

It’s a microcosm of the macrocosm of our world right now — no one knows the etiquette, no one wants to follow rules, it’s all about the escape and don’t fucking tread on me in the process.

Hit that pipe. Click that Amazon purchase. Post that comment. Bring that soft top into waist-high mush. Endorphin rush all day long – living the dream, baby.

For about two months, some of that old soul I remember snuck back into what’s left of my community.

Felt like the 1990s all over again, before cell phones and when there were only about 3.5 billion people on this planet, give or take.

It was even possible, if my wife and I had sex anymore, to have snuck onto the empty beach at sunset and had a thirty-second root as the pelicans flew by.

All for naught.

That great wordsmith of letters Mark Twain opined: “It liberates the vandal to travel — you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction.”

Well, Mr. Twain, you’ve never been out in the lineup with five hundred kooks packed shoulder to shoulder, all who traveled to my home during a pandemic.

After two months of a touch of soul creeping back onto this sea island, I’m all for a bit more bigotry, meanness and narrow-mindedness towards others in the water, especially if they have no idea how to surf.

For my opinionated, self-conceited sanity, please stay home, and keep your nine-foot weekend warrior board, your trash, your shit music, and your COVID germs with you.


"Back to the pub, haole. You are lower-intermediate at best."
"Back to the pub, haole. You are lower-intermediate at best."

Big Friday: “Recipe for disaster” swell headed for Cornwall; Authorities appeal experienced surfers to “keep kooks on the sand!”

The dawning of a golden new age of violent localism.

Common sense is hard to come by these days what with heroic baby whale rescuers copping fines in Australia, heroic connoisseurs of Asian fusion cuisine copping fines in America, but in the land that gifted us common law, common sense appears to be reigning supreme.

And let us hurry back to the motherland, to Jolly Olde England where a monster swell is headed straight for surfing hotspot Cornwall.

Forecasters are predicting surf in the odd 9 – 15 ft range accompanied by great weather and spring tides. A recipe for disaster as less experienced surfers may be tempted to paddle.

The solution in Australia and America, I feel, would be to close the beach and fine those sitting at home and drawing pictures of stick men in barrels.

In England, there is simply an appeal for experienced surfers to keep kooks on the sand and let us go straight the bottom of that pendulum where we read:

Carve Surfing Magazine has issued a warning to all surfers in the South West, saying that a combination between the swell, spring tides, good weather and no lifeguard cover could be a “recipe for disaster”.

They wrote: “Community groups are trying to fill gaps with observation and advisory patrols, but obviously this is not a great situation so we need the help of the surfing community to keep an eye out for potential victims of tidal surges, rips and people get out of their depths.

“The period of swell arriving is Friday afternoon combing with an incoming spring tide, lasting through Saturday.

“At present it looks like a quick blast from a fast moving bombing low which could quickly drop to 965mb. We will update warnings in due course.

“If experienced surfers or ex-lifeguards can offer advice where needed it will save lives in this challenging period.

“Coastguards and lifeboats are on standby, but as we all know prevention is best.”

Amen that prevention is best and I would very much hope that Cornwall’s experienced surfers cinch up their black shorts this Friday, paddle into the lineup and punch the teeth out of any lower-intermediate surfers mouth. To scream, “Be gone with ye!” when they try and park.

The dawning of a golden new age of violent localism.

The most silver of linings.


Screen grab of surfer (likely) being arrested due sadness, anger over lack of professional surfing.
Screen grab of surfer (likely) being arrested due sadness, anger over lack of professional surfing.

Watch: Jeep owning surf fans riot in Texas during “go topless” weekend; 200 arrested, two shot, as frustration over lack of professional surfing reaches boiling point!

"We been in quarantine, and I need to get out and party!"

But let us not forget, somewhere in the multiverse exists an earth where a Chinese man did not eat a bat, where a novel Coronavirus didn’t race around infecting and killing, where obese diabetics over 80 with underlying heart conditions are living full, complete, fear-free lives.

Where professional surfing began its 2020 World Tour on time and we have finished the thrilling Australian leg with Kolohe Andino wearing the Jeep Leaderboard Yellow Jersey heading into G-Land.

And Jeep.

Such a steady sponsor of professional surfing. Such a rock. Refusing to follow Samsung, Build-a-Bear, Barefoot Wine, Wienerschnitzel etc. out the door.

It can only mean that Jeep owners and professional surfing fans are one in the same. Tragically, the lack of professional surfing has caused many Jeep owners a deep, powerful consternation. One that is blowing right through the seams and let us travel to a Texas beach, together, where 200 professional surfing fans were arrested and two shot at a Jeep enthusiast rally.

Per NBC News:

A raucous Texas beach event known as “Go Topless Jeep Weekend” ended with two people hospitalized following a shooting and nearly 200 others arrested on various charges.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said two men were airlifted to the hospital after both of them were shot in the torso during the annual event on Bolivar Peninsula, which brings together thousands of Jeep lovers and 4-wheeler enthusiasts, many flying Italo Ferriera’s green and yellow “Stoke-ed” flag.

A group of men and women were arguing when the fight escalated and gunshots rang out, Trochesset told NBC News. The conditions of the two men who were hospitalized haven’t been released.

Authorities are looking for a third man in a Gabriel Medina singlet who fled, the sheriff said Tuesday. No arrests were made in the shooting, and the investigation is ongoing.

By the time the gathering ended, more than 180 attendees had been taken into custody on numerous unrelated charges. The sheriff said charges included assault, driving without wearing a seat belt, DWI and public intoxication. Most of those who were arrested have since bonded out.

Justin Weaver, a resident of Bolivar, told NBC affiliate KBMT of Beaumont that he was disappointed in how people acted.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard for people just to show up and have fun these days,” he said. “It disappoints me to see that kind of violence come here, because it’s usually real quiet but people need to get there man-on-man somewhere, you know? We all forgetting what the excellent range even looks like.”

“We been in quarantine, and I need to get out and party,” beachgoer Chelsey Coyer told KBMT, reminding people how to take precautions. “Wash them hands for 20 seconds, keep them clean with the Germ-X and God bless Kolohe Andino. American boy right there.”

Alas, things look to get worse, before getting better, as a specialty Lemoore event is being planned to ease some of the pressure.

Will it work?

Experts say, “No.”

More as the story develops.


Just in: Surfer who saved baby humpback whale from shark nets at Burleigh Heads to be fined $1300 for “tampering with shark nets and approaching a whale”!

"This is NOT how I planned my day...I didn't get to go for a dive or a surf."

As western democracies teeter on the knife-edge of a financial apocalypse dwarfing anything the Great Depression threw at ‘em, it sure is reassuring to know it’s biz as usual for clowns with badges and authority.

A real quick recap

Yesterday, a surfer-diver loosed a baby humpback whale from the shark nets that line the Gold Coast.

A drone pilot had alerted him to the sitch and the man, who calls himself Django, went into it.

As reported by the Brisbane Times,

“I was going for a dive off Burleigh,” Django said. “Then I saw the whale and I was like ‘that’s pretty cool’. Then I saw he was in the net and I thought ‘that’s not that cool’. So I went over and had a look, and then the adrenaline kicked in. I had a knife, but I didn’t really need to use it, he just had his left pectoral fin wrapped up. Eventually, I got him enough out of the rope so he could just break free.”

Django said he passed the Department of Fisheries team responding to the incident on his way back to shore and explained what had happened.

He said the government workers told him he would be fined for his actions.

Turns out he was hit for $1300.

As is the norm these days, a gofundme account was quickly set up and 418 doners threw in almost ten k of a fifteen k goal.

In a day.

Feeling is running high, y’might say.

A common theme emerged, give the cunt a medal not a fine.

This amazing man has acted as we all should to help other species on this planet. He should get a medal not a fine.

This guy is an Aussie Legend. Shame on you QLD Fisheries – putting Commi$$ion over the Mission to Save & Protect the Whales and Ocean Wildlife. You should be giving him a medal not a fine!

This legend saved a threatened species life…he deserves a medal

From Alison Harris, who along with Dale Harris, created the gofundme account,

“We have just spoken to Django the LEGEND whale saver! He has confirmed that he will be receiving a $1300 fine via mail. He has been told that there is further investigations underway that will determine the extent of the full fine amount. The charges he is facing are tampering with shark nets & approaching a whale. He also said “This is NOT how I planned my day…I didn’t get to go for a dive or a surf.”

All extra cash will be donated to a charity specialising in whale research, education and conservation or you can ask for a refund.