Extremely troubling.

The end of humanity is just over the horizon, without a doubt, what with pandemic, climate change, an increasingly belligerent China, a looming Joe Biden and/or Donald Trump presidency etc. but I feel we have our eyes on these threats and will handle by hook or crook.

It is the sneaky terrors that will undo us. Tik Tok, for example, or pods of Killer Whales carrying out orchestrated attacks on our boats.

But let us travel to the Spanish/Portuguese coast where nine orcas are wreaking, reeking, wrecking havoc and causing very much alarm.

Sailors in those waters have made multiple distress calls in the past two months and let us read Victoria Morris’s account. She happened to be on a 46-foot delivery boat and says that the whales continuously rammed it for over an hour, spinning it around and breaking the engine.

“The noise was really scary. They were ramming the keel, there was this horrible echo, I thought they could capsize the boat. And this deafening noise as they communicated, whistling to each other. It was so loud that we had to shout.”

Days earlier, Nick Giles was out sailing his 34-foot yacht when the wheel suddenly jerked and he heard what sounded like a sledgehammer.

“The boat lifted up half a foot and I was pushed by a second whale from behind.” While he was resetting the cables an orca hit again, “nearly chopping off my fingers in the mechanism.”

On yet another delivery boat, a crewman’s shoulder was nearly dislocated after an attack.

Researchers are very confused as this behavior is not common. Ruth Esteban, who has also studied the region’s orcas extensively, told a local newspaper that it was unlikely multiple orca groups would display such unusual behavior and that a single group was therefore most likely responsible.

A gang.

A gang of toughs.

Street Killer Whales with devil may care attitudes, smoking cigarettes etc. Making lewd comments at passing Killer Whale dames.

And you are certainly aware of T.S. Eliot’s famous phrase from The Hollow Men:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Wrong, I suppose, and should be re-written:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a horrible echo.
I thought they could capsize the boat.
And this deafening noise as they communicated,
whistling to each other.
It was so loud that we had to shout.

Blood in the water.

Central Florida, best known for the NBA bubble, Kirsten Dunst, The Backstreet Boys, Wesley Snipes and tutti-frutti ice-cream, is not very well known for waves. Certainly they appear on the ocean there, mainly around New Smyrna, but are rarely large or powerful save hurricane season when robust storms whip delightful nuggets toward shore.

Yesterday, a “red flag” day across Volusia County featuring those delightful nuggets, thrilled surfers from Daytona to Melbourne Beach, also Denver, and saw many surfers in the water.

The region’s sharks, notoriously incorrigible, took advantage of the influx and bit not one but two surfers within a short few hour period.

The first was a mostly innocent 15-year-old boy who happened to be paddling out at Ponce Inlet at 10:45 in the morning. The shark bit his hand as hard as it could and left many ouchies though the boy refused medical attention.

The second occurred in Melbourne Beach where an adult male had his arm bitten so severely that it caused much bleeding and a hospital visit was required.

Sharks don’t generally kill people in Central Florida but two hits in one day that featured waves is… not cool at all and should be looked into by the authorities.

What I really wonder, though, is what happened to Wesley Snipes? He starred in so many important movies in the late 1980s through the 1990s but then disappeared, more or less. What was your favorite Snipes vehicle? I saw Demolition Man in the theater and enjoyed it very much. I also thought the actor carried Michael Jackson’s music video “Bad.”

Did you know “Bad” was directed by Martin Scorsese?

Weird.

Introducing Surf Theater.

The biggest investment co-Waterperson of the Year and billionaire Dirk Ziff made, when he purchased professional surfing for free back in 2013, was the acquisition of Kelly Slater’s eponymous Wave Company.

Surf Ranch, unveiled hours after Adriano de Souza claimed Brazil’s first world title in 2015 with the express intent of crushing his joy, was a marvel. An engineering wonder and certainly the future of surfing altogether.

Things have not quite gone according to plan.

New, more interesting, cost-efficient, scaleable technologies popped up in Surf Ranch’s wake, the facility has hosted the two most boring contests in surfing history and also the most boring specialty events, the only being built outside Lemoore, California is killing koalas by the truckload, or whichever cuddly Australian marsupials lives in wetlands, the U.S. Olympic team is shunning Surf Ranch for Waco and U.S.A. Today has no idea where it is.

Per the most widely read newspaper in America:

Surfer Carissa Moore, ranked No. 1 in the world, is no stranger to wave pools, training in Waco and competing at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in La Cienega, California, over the past three years.

“The biggest difference is Kelly Slater’s pool, or the surf range, is about 45 seconds long, and the Waco pool is probably top five seconds,” Moore said. “Kelly’s wave is pretty much kind of the same every time, and Waco has a lot of different settings, different waves that they can produce.”

Coach Brett Simpson went on to add:

“We’re not really expecting big waves. I mean, there is a chance for that, but we are expecting more high-performance, shorter rides, and that’s what Waco really allows us to do; really kind of fine-tune equipment and maneuver in the Japanese-style waves.”

Surf Ranch sure wishes it was in La Cienega, California, which isn’t actually a town but rather a boulevard that runs north/south through the west side of Los Angeles from very near Los Angeles International Airport to Sunset Boulevard hugging the Hollywood Hills.

Ideally, where could it be placed?

I’d say West Hollywood and could be themed very flamboyantly. Pulsing neon lights, staged productions, house music pumping at full volume, surprise appearances by Cher etc. and not called Surf Ranch at all but rather Surf Theater.

Very progressive. Very now and oh what might have been.