Breaking: World Surf League “suspends production on the Billabong Pipe Masters presented by Hydro Flask” as positive Covid-19 test pops up amongst WSL staff including CEO Erik Logan!
"The WSL is committed to prioritizing the safety of the athletes, staff and surrounding community above all else, and is working closely and transparently with the Hawaii State Department of Health to determine the path forward."
The World Surf League just kicked off its 2020/21 season amidst much applause but a fatal shark incident and now “positive Covid-19 test result within the WSL staff, including CEO Erik Logan” has allegedly canceled the Pipe Masters.
Per the press release:
The WSL has decided to suspend the Billabong Pipe Masters presented by Hydro Flask competition as a result of positive COVID-19 tests within the WSL staff, including WSL CEO Erik Logan.
The WSL is committed to prioritizing the safety of the athletes, staff and surrounding community above all else, and is working closely and transparently with the Hawaii State Department of Health to determine the path forward.
As part of the league’s COVID Safety Plan, anyone who has returned a confirmed positive test is self-isolating until they are cleared, and contact tracing protocols have been fully implemented. The WSL does not believe that any athletes have been exposed and will continue to execute the safety protocols.
But what does this mean? Suspended for a few days? Weeks? Canceled? Very confusing and the wording in the press release does not help.
Does CEO Erik Logan have Covid?
Much worry and concern. The World Surf League press office has been contacted. More as the story develops.
Loading comments...
Daddy John and Jan Florence.
Nathan Florence teaches once-estranged daddy and author of tell-all memoir John Florence Senior to surf! “I was doomed from the start… doomed to make poor decisions, doomed to a life of pain and misery, leaving destruction and broken lives in my wake”
In the genre of feel-good family reunification films, I doubt there’s anything in cinema that captures, as beautifully as this short vlog, the joy of reconnecting with a once-lost parent.
Six years ago, John Florence senior, the fifty-one-year-old father of John John junior, Ivan and Nathan, wrote a sixty-nine page long tell-all memoir called FEAR (Face Everything and Recover), and which is available, kindle only, for $3.81 on Amazon.
It is a fascinating read and it’s clear, I think, where Nathan, the most engaging of the three brothers, gets his quirky, slightly literary side.
Let’s read.
“I am natural flirt. I enjoy making people smile, chuckle, laugh. I am very sexual by nature. I was raised that way. I have always enjoyed the whole sexual innuendo sort of suggestion in general conversation. Something that would make a person raise an eyebrow while giving a sly knowing smile back. Very sexual in every way to a fault or not, I am not sure but this is simply how I interact with everyone from passengers at my tables to coworkers, friends and girlfriends.
“Alex was attracted to me because I was the charming, funny waiter, union delegate, friend of the captain, a sort of King of the Dining Room on the ships. She was also intimidated by those qualities.
“By attacking everything that made me, she could safely keep her hold on me. But this makes me ask the question, “Am I still me without all those qualities?” Am I still a fun, comical, sexy and intriguing John? I know I didn’t feel that way with Alex. I felt stripped of me, like a John in a black and white. I felt caged and shut down. Like a bird not allowed to fly, a flower not allowed to bloom… I need to be able to be me, to attract the responses I desire – the laughs, the smiles, the sexy knowing smiles of women… ”
“I am currently awaiting arraignment for two felony DUIs. I received a DUI on October 10th of 2013 and hired a lawyer; he felt we had it beat due to no witnesses. Then, as if I’m living with doom on my shoulder, I received another DUI in January of 2014. The prosecutor offered me a plea on two misdemeanour charges but my attorney quickly refused the plea, and accepted that they would upgraded these to two felony DUIs. I do not know what the terms of the plea were, but as in the first case, there was (sic) no witnesses to put me behind the wheel at the time the vehicle was stranger on the curb… I am looking at some time behind bars. What the fuck was I thinking? … Like so many before me, alcohol is doom’s carrier pigeon… I feel now that I was doomed from the start… doomed to make poor decisions, doomed to be misled by my love of ‘good times’ to a life of pain and misery, leaving destruction and broken lives in my wake.
“Yet, I must admit, if not for the alcohol, I would not have married the two beautiful women who loved me, would not have the four beautiful sons I love with all my heart, and wouldn’t have this story to tell… ”
Loading comments...
Pip Toledo, Pipe.
Listen: “Plump Pip is the exact sprinkling of holiday magic our weary world so desperately needs!”
Yesterday, whilst David Lee Scales and I sat across from each other in Album surfboard’s upper room chatting, he asked me if I like holiday movies. Home Alone, A Christmas Story, etc. I told him I generally do not like them as they often feature depressingly dysfunctional families and unchill scenarios, exceptions being Elf and the just-released instant classic Plump Pip.
Oh when I saw Filipe Toledo waltzing Pipeline’s sand it filled my heart with such joy. Such pure, pure joy. He was like a little Christmas gnome dropped straight to us from the North Pole. Like dreidel spinning magic.
Longtom noted in his brilliant-per-the-norm wrap that, “Toledo has been parenting. And as all parents know, time in the water comes at a premium. By the time you’ve fed the kids and cleaned up half their bowl, fitness can suffer. Can Pip surf his way back to peak fitness at Pipe? It does seem a little late in the day for preparation.”
But I vehemently disagree with his analysis. Yes, Brazil’s second favorite surfer has been parenting but I would argue that the extra cheer around his middle is exactly what was missing. The secret ingredient that will take him from title challenger to title winner.
No drop will be too scary, no wave too big and he will gouge and hack and barrel his way toward the crown.
Don’t believe? But you must. That’s what the holiday season is all about.
Listen here.
Loading comments...
Entrepreneur offers “surf lifestyle coaching” in Bay Area: “A full emersion experience that will have your lips tasting salty and your hands in a permanent shaka!”
"Expert coaching topics include: Surf talk, scheduling your day around waves, etc."
(Editor’s note: The following advertisement can be found on Craigslist under the title “Live the Surf Lifestyle – $100 (Santa Cruz). It has been copied and pasted word for word without editorialization. Enjoy.)
ALL BOOKED THROUGH 2020! If you’ve emailed us, please be patient, we will get back to you soon (Shaka emoji).
*Hey all, we are getting lots of inquiries about surf lessons, just to make it clear – our specialty is the part of surfing that’s out of the water, on than land. Once you have the lifestyle down, real surfing will flow from within and translate to the waves. Thanks! #stayblessed
Offering surf lifestyle coaching. For those looking to carry the stoke from the ocean to back on land.
Surfing is a way of life and we’re here to jump start you into an full emersion experience that will have your lips tasting salty and your hands in a permanent shaka.
Expert coaching topics include: Surf talk, scheduling your day around waves, surfboard quiver selection, music, knowing surf history, influencing and vlogging(new!)
Classes and 1 on 1 sessions available, also group or party events with enough notice.
“For a surfer, it’s never-ending. There’s always some wave you want to surf.” – Kelly Slater
Loading comments...
Oregon surfer, shark expert, open up about harrowing Great White hit: “That fella has a lot to be thankful for. If a shark really wanted to consume him, it could have.”
"The shark made a decision it didn’t want to eat him and let him go."
Very tragic news out of Maui, this morning, as it has been revealed that the surfer who was hit in Honolua Bay has died from his injuries. Sharks are vicious creatures, not purposefully of course but naturally, and Tigers are some of the very worst.
Across the Pacific, in my home state of Oregon, a 20-year-old surfer named Cole Herrington was hit by a Great White the day before and it currently in the hospital recovering from a bite to the leg and described his attack to the local NBC News affiliate.
I was just sitting on my board and then the next thing I know I just got hit really hard. And I looked around for my board, and grabbed my board, and knew I got bit. I don’t really remember what happened. Some people said it came form behind me and that’s why I didn’t see it. It bit me and lifted me out of the water and dropped me back in. When it first happened, it was like “What’s going on? OK this is getting real.” Once you figure out that you’re getting attacked by a shark, you’re just calling out to God asking that it doesn’t come back to bite you again. You just want to get out on the rocks. Once you get on the rocks then it starts to hurt, you want to get this blood stopped.
Other surfers helped fashion a field tourniquet and the young electrician’s apprentice vows to surf another day. Extremely harrowing and, according to shark book author and retired University of California professor A. Peter Klimley, extremely fortunate.
That fella has a lot to be thankful for,” he told The Oregonian. “If a shark really wanted to consume him, it could have. If they don’t want to release something, they don’t have to. This surfer was small and helpless in the mouth of the shark. The shark made a decision it didn’t want to eat him and let him go.”
I’ve always held the assumption that Tigers go all in and Great Whites just take a taste but I don’t know if that is backed up by science.
