Welcome to the rest of your life.

Australia has had seven fatal shark attacks this year, the most since 1934, spreading an eerie chill across the proud and once-happy land. There were zero fatalities last year and only one or two annually for a long, long stretch before that.

In a recent interview with CNN, Culum Brown, a professor at Macquarie University’s Department of Biological Sciences in Sydney, said, “In Australia, (this year is) a bit of a blip. And in fact the long-term average is one — one fatality per year. So seven is a long way above that, there’s no doubt.”

But what is causing such a statistical anomaly?

According to The Most Trusted Name in News™, climate change and bad luck should, likely, be held responsible.

Drastic changes in water temperature have altered typical fish migration patterns which, have in turn, altered where the Tigers, Bulls and Great Whites, the three species responsible for most deaths, do their feeding and general malingering.

Bull sharks enjoy warm water and are spending more time in the south. Great Whites prefer cooler water and are pulled closer to shore where pockets of chill can be found. Tigers used to enjoy the wild north but have developed a taste for city livin’ and are now common around Sydney.

Robert Harcourt, a researcher of shark ecology and director of Macquarie’s marine predator research group, said, “I would foresee that there’s going to be greater movement, an increase in geographic range, in a lot of these species. That’s because the dynamics of climate change mean their suitable habitat in terms of water temperature and prey distribution is changing as well. And these animals are large, far-ranging apex predators. They will potentially come more in contact with people, and at the same time, human use of the ocean is increasing all the time.”

Dang VALs.

Climate change is certainly tough enough but coupled with bad luck? Well, a nasty combination that is basically impossible to shirk.

“We managed to save several people over the last couple of years, just by the fortune of having somebody qualified on site to deal with the trauma immediately, and that makes a massive difference. It also depends where the victim is bitten.” Brown said.

“One centimeter to the left, if you get bitten on the leg, and you can die in seconds or minutes at least,” Harcourt interjected. “You know, one centimeter to the right, you get a terrible scar and a lot of pain but if you don’t go into shock you’ve got a good chance of survival.”

Climate change and bad luck.

Welcome to the rest of your life.

But this is BeachGrit where lemons are turned into lemonade, daily, so… welcome to the rest of your life!

We need The Club.

And the center has not held. Remember, six months ago, there were VALs and there was us and the twain only met at World Surf League events when Chief-Executive-Officer Erik Logan said various things?

Well, times have changed.

According to a just-released TMZ story, “surfing (is) exploding during pandemic SHOPS CAN’T KEEP BOARDS IN STOCK!!!

JS Industries — “More beginners entered the market than almost ever before due to surfing being one of the few activities deemed safe and accessible during COVID.”

Channel Island Surfboards in CA — “Surfing has doubled this year because it’s a social distancing activity and it’s free.”

Surf Station in FL — “There has been a definite increase. I can’t even put a timeframe for board requests.”

And I must preface by saying that I hope Peter Schroff, Matt Parker, Dane Hantz and every other wonderful shaper I know are each buying mansions in the hills next to Matt Biolos’s and/or San Pedro.

Then I will say, “Shit.”

The core is peanut-sized, the Wavestorm horde is already massive and now we can add VALs on JSs bogging turns and being lame in the impact zone.

Can we form up our own Da Hui but have it be international and also not culturally appropriated and, I guess, socially distanced?

What can we name it and what sort of thing can we do besides punching teeth out of heads?

Help!

Or wait...

Last night I climbed into bed after a long day of surf journalism and began browsing the news. Stories about Covid-19 spikes, economists warning of imminent market collapse and then a headline from The Atlantic that read, “The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League-Obsessed Parents.”

“Time for more surf journalism,” I thought to myself, somewhat exhausted but, as a true professional, got down to reading.

The piece begins with a profile of Sloane, a “buoyant, chatty, stay-at-home mom from Fairfield County, Connecticut” who is shepherding her three daughters through school with dreams, like all stay-at-home mom’s named Sloane, of having them placed in Ivy League colleges/universities.

Harvard, Yale, etc.

Fairfield County is called the “Gold Coast” as it sends more children to the Ivy League than any other place.

The daughters need grades, advanced placement classes, social service activities and, of course as the title suggests, niche sports.

I wondered which east coast surf club the girls belonged to as I skimmed slightly ahead. Wondered if they were hitting one-star QSes or focusing solely on the pro junior events.

Then I was stopped dead in my tracks. One daughter fenced. The other played squash. I read again. Fencing and squash then raced ahead realizing the whole piece was about fencing, squash, lacrosse, rowing, water polo etc. with surfing nowhere to be seen. Nowhere to be even sniffed.

I continued reading, anyhow, and realized that too many rich parents put too many kids with too many coaches etc. into these niche sports and now it’s all a big disaster.

Per The Atlantic:

The stampede of the affluent into grim-faced, highly competitive sports has been a tragicomedy of perverse incentives and social evolution in unequal times: a Darwinian parable of the mayhem that can ensue following the discovery of even a minor advantage. Like a peacock rendered nearly flightless by gaudy tail feathers, the overserved athlete is the product of a process that has become maladaptive, and is now harming the very blue-chip demographic it was supposed to help.

But wait.

Is there an opportunity to bilk rich parents with dreams of Ivy League placement due the entirely recherché activity called surfing?

An ancient Peruvian pastime with roots stretching to Polynesia?

Turning Connecticut’s Gold Coast into Queensland’s and getting wealthy in the process?

Much to ponder.