Ballina is fifty miles from last Tuesday’s fatal shark attack at the Superbank and thirty from June’s fatal hit at Kingscliff, heading north, and a hundred miles to Wooli, headed south, where a teenager died one month ago.

If a further reason was needed to temporarily holster your board after three fatal attacks by Great Whites in three months along a few hundred clicks of Australian coastline, this might be it.

A fifty-foot, forty-four ton dead Sperm Whale, yeah the Moby Dick sort, washed up near South Wall Ballina, a sometimes rifling lefthander protected from the prevailing summer nor’easters.

Ballina is fifty miles from last Tuesday’s fatal shark attack at the Superbank and thirty from June’s fatal hit at Kingscliff, heading north, and a hundred miles to Wooli, headed south, where a teenager died one month ago.

The sight was as grim as it was photogenic.

And, to the surprise of nobody, along came the sharks to feed.

Self-described “shark girl” Madison Stewart has been posting drone images of the dead whale, and the prowling sharks, on her Instagram feed while warning surfers to avoid surfing, at least for a week or so.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFGn22djlhD/

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

Of course, y’can’t leave a dead hunk of blubber on the beach forever.

You live anywhere tween Coolangatta and Port Macquarie?

How you feeling right now?

Magistrate denies bail, noting the distance Squire Winter had travelled to allegedly bump into Gilmore and that it “indicated fixated behaviour and some degree in planning.”

A man, previously banned from coming within even half-a-click of seven-time world champ Stephanie Gilmore, has been charged after allegedly approaching Gilmore at the Tweed Coast Pro on Sunday.

Squire Winter, a sixty-six-year-old, told police he was a surf coach who’d “briefly worked with Steph” and that his understanding of the court order was that he only to stay one hundred metres away from Gilmore in the surf.

Police allege Winter had scared hell out of Gilmore in previous incidents earlier in the year and that she had sought a personal violence order.

As part of the order, Winter wasn’t allowed to contact Gilmore, look for her or come within five hundred metres of her or her workplace.

In facts tendered to court, Winter allegedly appeared next to Gilmore as she was unloading a surfboard from her car.

Police allege Winter said, “Hi, how are you going?”

Gilmore responded, “Great, thank you,” before recognising Winter.

When he suggested “catching up later” she said, “No, no we won’t. Bye.”

Police allege Winter said, “We are going to catch up later, aren’t we?”

Gilmore said “No” and walked away.

Winter was allegedly found by police fifty metres from the carpark.

He allegedly told ‘em he was on his way to Brisbane, an hour or so north, and that he saw Gilmore on his way back from the shitter.

Appearing by video link from the Tweed Heads Police Station on Monday, Winter pleaded not guilty to contravening an apprehended violence order.

The police prosecutor opposed bail and said Winter had a “long history” of violence and breaching apprehended violence orders and that he feared for Gilmore’s wellbeing.

The magistrate denied bail, noting the distance Winter had travelled to allegedly bump into Gilmore and that it “indicated fixated behaviour and some degree in planning.”

In 2012, a homeless schizophrenic junkie, Julius Fox, was sentenced to four years in jail after bashing Gilmore with an iron bar, breaking her wrist, outside her Tweed Heads apartment in 2010.

He was released in 2014.

In March, 2020, a woman was charged with the unlawful stalking of three-time world champ Mick Fanning and breaking into his house with intent and two counts of stealing.

Sarah Foote, a thirty-eight-year-old from Ballina, same age as Mick, was accused of following Fanning between January 29 and February 4, the break-in of Mick’s pretty beachfront joint in Tugun allegedly happening on Feb 2.

Foote was accused of sending “rambling hand-written letters with accusations of pedophilia, declarations of love for Fanning and thoughts of wanting to kill him.”

The woman, who looks nice enough if you like mysterious blondes, was bailed on the condition she stayed hell out of Queensland except for court appearances.

 

Would they back an environmental protest against bulldozing floodprone wetlands to develop canal estates and power-hungry wavepools? What about Brother if he wanted to wear a MAGA hat in a heat?

Surfing has had a reactionary edge to it, at least in popular culture, since Day Dot.

The Hawaiians were hierarchical to the core, Kilgore’s napalm-loving Colonel loved dealing death cards before go-outs, Puberty Blues was full of blokes munching on chiko rolls and telling shielas they should stay on the sand.

Matt Branson used to bash queers before realising he was gay himself, never coming out as a pro.

Point Break’s Bodhi was a quasi-fascist spiritual criminal. The one truly progressive act surfing, especially pro surfing can claim is the boycott of South African apartheid by Tom’s Carroll, Curren and Cheyne Horan in ’85.

Which makes Tyler Wright’s 439 second knee and raised fist in support of BLM the most noteworthy thing by a country mile on the opening day of the Tweed Coast Pro held in head-high, join-the-dots gurgle.

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

It marks a complete transformation of the Sport from reactionary backwater to woke darling.

Worth counting the ways, I think, for the historical record.

Pro surfing has long been considered famously homophobic. Gay surfers, especially women, dare not come out without risking sponno dollars. Long-board World Champion Cori Schumacher claimed her achievements were silenced and erased due to her being openly gay.

Keala Kennely claimed sponsors deserted her after she came out.

The reaction to Tyler Wright coming out last year?

Silence.

Absolutely nothing.

Not a word written, no nasty internet comments, no censure whatsoever – not that anything overt would happen – from sponsors. Total support from WSL.

This, of course, after raising the pay of women pros to equal the men, despite a smaller field with less heats to surf.

In one fell swoop, pro surfing went from the back to the front of the pack, if you dig equality.

The BLM embrace seems a slightly more dangerous pose, with much greater chance for blowback. Not so much in Australia, where the push for indigenous recognition is not tainted by the screaming images of cities burning nor the Marxist undertones of the American movement.

How far the WSL’s support for other political statements which make claims on the humanity of the athlete, as Wright suggested, is up for debate. Would they back an environmental protest against bulldozing floodprone wetlands to develop canal estates and power hungry wavepools? What about Brother if he wanted to wear a MAGA hat in a heat?

But in America, the home of the WSL, the pushback against BLM, is real.

Andrew Stark was all over the media this morning, giving interviews where he expressed the WSL’s “total support” for Wright’s gesture which Bede Durbidge claimed was “totally remarkable”.

How far the WSL’s support for other political statements which make claims on the humanity of the athlete, as Wright suggested, is up for debate. Would they back an environmental protest against bulldozing floodprone wetlands to develop canal estates and power-hungry wavepools? What about Brother if he wanted to wear a MAGA hat in a heat?

As for the statement itself, I guess we have to take it at face value. No doubt the blackfella in Australia has been subject to terrible program of racism.

But it’s not racism that keeps black kids out of the water.

Racism is not the sin to blame when it comes time to ask why the WSL has barely featured indigenous surfers. Black kids barely surf because they can’t afford to live near the ocean. Rich whities have bought up all the coastal real estate and flipped houses and turned them into Air BnB’s.

Would Tyler look at her own real estate portfolio?

Would WSL consider letting black kids use wavepools for free, like basketball courts and truly “democratize” surfing, as Kelly promised.

If they intend to honour Tyler’s wish that “surfing is for all” then you can’t have a sich where only rich white kids can get near it.

How’s it sitting with you?

I want to honour the intent but the corporate embrace of woke culture makes me deeply queasy. Another commodified product for the corpos to package up and sell in the guise of moral purity.

It feels hard not to gag on the hypocrisy.

It obviously did Tyler no harm, not only did she suck all the oxygen out of the WSL’s return to competition, she won the event as well.

Who’ll be the first male surfer to take the knee?

I’d love to say Kelly.