20 feet of anything is big. A 20-foot-long
submarine sandwich, 20-foot-long dining room table, 20-foot-long
beating stick, 20-foot-long pool table, 20-foot-long ancient
Phoenician scroll detailing various taxes, 20-foot-long hopscotch
court and what have you.
Big and impressive.
A 20-foot-long Great White Shark?
The stuff of nightmares but this is exactly what a small boat
filled with Western Australian fisherman stumbled upon just days
ago.
Lurking, menacing, showing off.
How did they react?
You can watch for yourself but here is also a helpful
transcript.
Look at the size of him! (undecipherable) in the
water!
Uh oh, don’t like the look of this. Go away, fuck
ya.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit I’ve never seen one that fucken
big.
That’s enough for me.
Fuck, me.
He’s just sitting down there, what the hell?
Yeah, as long as he stays down there. He’s scoping us,
mate.
FUCK ME!
Holy shit. That is fucken huge.
HOLY SHIT!
I’ve now seen my first six meter white pointer.
Poetry.
Robert Frost could not have done it any better.
Henry David Thoreau burning with jealousy from beyond the
pale.
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Watch: French surfers refuse to bend for
draconian anti-surfing laws further demolishing national
stereotype!
"Four police officers arrived and made us get out
of the water, but it didn't take us long to get back into the
water.”
The Coronavirus Apocalypse sure has exposed
many heretofore unknown truths. But two months ago who would have
ever guessed that surfers, as a whole, are spineless tattletales
just waiting to shame fellow surfers and call the police
on them for not following the rules?
Who could have imagined that the French, by and large, are a
bold, brave people who refuse retreat and will fight to the bitter
end?
Certainly not me.
Just days ago, we met Frenchman Dylan Nacass who happened to be
surfing Bells Beach when a very near relative of the mighty Great
White shark attacked. Did Dylan tuck tail and run? No. He punched
that shark twice in the face then calmly paddled to shore where he
stripped down to the national uniform (trim underpants) and threw
shakas (watch
here).
And today? Today we have an unruly pack of Cannes surfers who
mocked the law keeping them out of the water by paddling into some
very attractive Mediterranean waves. When the gendarmerie
came motoring across the sea to bark them out do you think they
quickly formed a puppet gendarmerie force, much like
collaborationist surf
mediaStab magazine, in order to enforce the
“no surfing” rules?
A group of surfers in Cannes, in southeast France, defied a
government ban to take to the waves on Monday amid a debate over
whether beaches should continue to be closed to the public to stop
the spread of Covid-19.
“It’s so much fun, we’ve got the waves, the sun,” one
surfer, named Adrien, told Reuters.
The group of around a dozen surfers were in the water for
about two hours, before local police arrived in a patrol boat to
force them to leave the beach.
“We surfed for what? Two hours? Four police officers arrived
and made us get out of the water, but it didn’t take us long to get
back into the water,” said Nicolas, a Belgian surfer living in
France.
France’s beaches, closed since March, have become a
battleground in the debate over how far government restrictions to
control the spread of the pandemic should go.
And now let us sing.
Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L’étendard sanglant est levé,
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Égorger nos fils, nos compagnes!
Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons!
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!
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Divine Maria and COVID Italo.
Yay TikTok: World champ Italo Ferreira and
divine Disney Brazil host Maria Azevedo mock the damn bug that
knocked the world off its axis!
In a blast of irony, it was on the eve of the COVID-19
disaster when BeachGrit fiddled with the WSL for pivoting
towards TikiTok, the two-year-old Chinese vid share
network adored by teenage girls.
Were they onto something?
Was surfing now beholden to phone zombie VALS?
At the time, we didn’t think so.
“As [TikTok] creates enhanced tools and more opportunities for
us to reach newer audiences, we want to make sure that we’re
focused on what’s going to drive our business and that consumer
journey that connects back to the WSL,” the WSL’s Chief
Community Officer Tim Greenberg told Front
Office Sports. “Video surfing is aspirational,
and music is aspirational in a lot of ways – therefore, we have
this very natural space to begin programming content because it is
so endemic to who we are as a sport.”
A lunatic lunge for the lowest common denominator, as the
expression goes.
But, fast forward almost two months and after weeks in our
little shelters, with runs in our stockings and pinafores stained
with cherry cola, TikTok has become an old friend.
We came to mock, but was thrilled by the dancing.
And now this.
Who can’t help but stare at this sublime twelve seconds from
world champ Italo Ferreira and the divine manifestation of his
girlfriend Maria Azevedo as they mock the damn virus that has
knocked the world off its axis.
A blessed spray of healing mist.
Difficult times etc.
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From now on I'm beautiful and noble! I'm a
mid-lengther!
Opinion: “The damn mid-length is a
legitimate cheat code! It’s the ugly duckling future!”
"It's got fucking FAA approved engines (Volume +
Thickness+ Length) making it ghost ride into just about anything
you want…"
The men behind the mid-length. Good god, can we
just end this thing right there?
If your name is not Torren Martyn and your age is not 60, hang
the damn thing up.
Or stomp it into obscurity.
Both options are highly encouraged.
Nonetheless, let’s begin where I first became aware of the
mid-lengthers, wave catchers, drawn-out turners, and swoopers of
individuals.
Trestles, the glorious meeting ground for any and all Southern
California rippers looking to hold the rail beyond the usual
Huntington hop eye sore. It is a place that So’Caler’s hold with
much regard for its “national park” feel, its beauty and
tranquility and, most significantly, its long tapered walls.
Along with the many elements of nature it exhibits, it also
plays host to something on the other end of the spectrum.
Something horrible and grave, insistent and annoying, something
formidable.
The fucking Mid-Lengthers.
Again, we should just end there.
But, we won’t.
The damn Mid-Length is a legitimate cheat code in this game of
surf we love and hate to play. It’s got fucking FAA approved
engines (volume + thickness+ length) making it ghost ride into just
about anything you want. It also has a long, drawn-out rail line
allowing it to never piddle out on mush.
And the worst thing of all?
It is owned and operated by the modern surfer.
The guy, call me sexist, who screams “Eureka” (I found it) when
he realizes this is the board he’s yearned for. All those years
suffering on a wave-starved, chiseled-out potato chip are put to
bed.
Now he can shut his eyes at night dreaming of the thousands of
waves he’s gonna catch, the hundreds of people he’s gonna out
position and the handful of fist bumps he’ll receive on the
beach.
Solution?
Very strict burns.
Drop-ins up and down the beach until every Mid-Lengther across
the globe comes to recognize that if you ride a Mid-Length you’re
gonna get burned.
It’d be stupid to sit here with my arm in chair (no pun) and
declare that “progressive, radical surfing” on shortboards is the
way forward and informally “the solution.”
Because, to be frank, it is not.
The way of the future is the Mid-Length due to the increased
amount of surfers and the decreased amount of secluded surf
spots.
This does not mean to engage with the Mid-Length right now.
It simply means to push pause on this fad and hold off until it
is absolutely necessary.
Once Erik Logan converts every living thing in this world into a
surfer, you’ll know the time has come to call your local shaper and
effectively sell your soul.
Until then, forget about trimming.
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Volleyball (in t-shirt) taking surfing
(shirtless) on a date.
Victory: USA Surfing announces former USA
Volleyball CEO, and man who has never surfed, as Chairman of the
Board!
"No, that was a Beach Boys song. We’re talking
about USA Surfing."
The Tokyo Olympic Games may be postponed for a
year but that doesn’t mean the USA Surfing, the officially
recognized governing body, is standing pat.
Following the World Surf League’s lead, which has a standup
paddleboarder leading the charge, USA Surfing just announced that
Doug Beal, longtime CEO of USA Volleyball and man who has also
never surfed, as its new Chairman of the Board.
No, that was a Beach Boys song. We’re talking about USA
Surfing.
And USA Surfing’s new chairman of the board of directors is
Doug Beal, a volleyball guy who, well, is not exactly a
surfer.
It puts a whole different spin on Surf’s Up.
“It’s likely to be a very popular, visible sport on the
Olympic calendar in Tokyo,” Beal said.
He may live in Colorado Springs, kind of far from the ocean,
but that’s not the point. Beal, the former USA great volleyball
player, 1984 Olympic gold-medal coach and longtime USA Volleyball
CEO knows how to Get Around the international sports
waters.
So when USA Surfing needed someone to guide its Surfin’
Safari, Beal was the guy.
Beal said last fall he got a call from a USA Olympic and
Paralympic Committee consultant on behalf of USA Surfing and asked
if he would help out.
“I said sure, and they happen to be located in San Clemente,
which is where most of my wife’s family is,” Beal said. “So under
normal conditions we go out there half a dozen times a year to
visit her mom, sisters, and cousins.”
Very cool.
Erik Logan and Doug Beal leading surfing out of the wilderness
and into the promised land of Oprah Winfrey respect and multiple
gold medals.
Very neat.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
