Volcom has owned the “party” house since 2000 and the “Gerry” house since 2008 They are most well-known for featuring in the Christmas classic “Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell.”

They say that you can’t put a price on peace of mind but you can, apparently, on a piece of surf history and a surprisingly low price to boot.

A hot rumor has floated over the coconut wireless, flighting for airtime with the holiday classic Mele Kalikimaka, that not one but both of Volcom’s Pipe fronting homes are quietly on the block as pocket listings. The classic “party” house, featuring a dungeon and porch-front house held aloft by cinder block and the next door “Gerry” house (sometimes called the “Yago” house) where Bruce Irons once ruled from a third story penthouse.

Both come with large black and white “stones.”

Volcom has owned the “party” house since 2000 and the “Gerry” house since 2008 They are most well-known for featuring in the Christmas classic “Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell.”

Also for being “the proving grounds.”

Much to learn here.

Etc.

But doesn’t $3.5m and $2.5m respectively seem ridiculously cheap? Like, so cheap that I’m a tiny bit reticent in advertising because I could imagine being almost able to afford if I had made vastly better choices in life?

Well, BeachGrit is aiming for big things this coming year and maybe just maybe those big things include being “the proving grounds.”

You’re invited, of course, and we will paddle out to Pipe, together, and show everyone how it’s done.

Exciting.

"An abnormally high number of sharks."

A bumper season for Great Whites in Australia, to be sure. 

Just two weeks after the second-biggest Great White ever recorded in Western Australia waters forced the closure of Cottesloe, another Great White has put swimmers and surfers at the same beach back on the sand.

The White was three-hundred feet offshore when it was spotted at three forty-five, prompting the now familiar sounds of klaxons and megaphones and the scene of swimmers exiting the water, with haste. 

Forty-five minutes later, the White had disappeared and the beach was reopened although swimmers were especially tentative, few willing to venture into depths beyond their waists. 

Two weeks ago, Peter Godfrey from the Department of Fisheries had told 9News, “It’s very rare to have such a big White shark so close to the metropolitan area.” 

And, Surf Life Saving WA had warned of an “abnormally high number of sharks.”

The “mammoth” Great White swimming so close to a popular beach, it said, was “not an isolated incident.”

For generations, pretty Cottesloe Beach, seven miles (11 km) from the centre of Perth, was known for its dreamy grass terraces and even dreamier afternoons in its hotels’ beer gardens, a tangled sea of brown bodies and loose lips. 

Then, in 2000, one year after Great Whites became protected by law, a swimmer, Ken Crew, was attacked and killed by a fifteen-foot Great White in waist-deep water and in front of other swimmers, early morning joggers and cafe diners. He bled out in the arms of a Catholic priest on the beach. 

Also on Christmas Eve, Bunker Bay, an awesomely pretty crescent of white sand and green water almost at the tip of  Cape Naturaliste, a little north of Margaret River, the same joint that hosted an attack on a surfer by a “freakishly big Great White” in July, was closed due to a lingering Great White

Great White stocks appear to be abundant, at least anecdotally.

Easy to judge, hard to watch.

The new film En La Tormenta documents the last five years of WQS hopeful Jhonny Guerrero.

Here’s the short version:

Guerrero taught himself to surf on a snapped board in Lima as his dad sat in Peru’s hellish Lurigancho prison, his mom and baby brother without food and broke in Chorrillos, one of Lima’s many dangerous barrios.

Naturally, gang life seemed like a fun option for Jhonny until he was shot through the back in a drive-by.

While not explicitly prohibited in the ‘QS Rule Book, none of it is best practice.

Director Adam Brown originally set out for Peru in 2015 to shoot Projecto Sofía Mulánovich, a talent scouting and surf training academy led by Sophia herself, a former ASP World Tour Champion and current ISA World Games gold medal winner. Most of the kids invited into the Projecto came from the country’s middle and upper classes, equipped with fine quivers and supportive parents.

Jhonny had neither, showing up on the beach alone with an old board and a hole in his wetsuit.

Brown said that he “kept hearing about this kid called Jhonny Guerrero who was from a tough neighborhood. He had supposedly taught himself to surf on a piece of foam and then a broken board he had found on the beach and now he was absolutely ripping. He seemed like a bit of a myth and whenever I said to Sofia’s team that we should get him along to the trials, there was always some hesitatio. There were (unfounded) rumors at the time that Jhonny was robbing people on the beach to survive.”

Still, Sofía took a chance on the quiet kid, seeing both his drive and natural ability to read a wave right.

“Here in Peru mostly all the families that surf know each other and their love for the sports comes from generation to generation,” Sofia told me. “But Jhonny came from the city and nobody really knew about him and his family. He comes from a really unstable social background and I decided to help him because he didn’t have the means to get good equipment and coaching but he was super talented .”

And he was every bit as good as people had described: smooth and fluid, a raw talent that got Sofia and her coaches excited. Jhonny ended up being selected as part of a group of ten talented kids that would be trained by Sofia and her team.

Sofia’s interest in helping Jhonny went beyond teaching him how to get more power off his back foot. She and the others at the Projecto helped him keep distance from the gangs infesting his barrio.

“Jhonny was always in an environment that led him to street life, so we tried to help him by guiding him in the best possible way to put all his energy into his surfing. We moved him to a different house with a really nice family that surfs,” said Sofia.

In the film, we see Jhonny pick up sponsors including Hurley and others who throw him clothes and money, some of which he uses to buy a bed for his little brother and give some to his mom who says him, exhaustedly, “I’m so hungry.”

Happily ever after. Thank you, Hurley.

But the story arc of En La Tormenta isn’t that clean.

Even with the lifeline Sophia hands him, Jhonny goes back to what he knows. He’s anchored to the street. During the Peruvian under 16 finals, Jhonny was the favorite to win, but he never makes it to the sand, leaving Sofia and his support team defeated. When the camera catches his coach trying to shake some sense into him, Jhonny looks numb, indifferent at best.

Soon after, he’d be in the hospital nursing two bullet holes through his body.

It’s easy to judge him here, a raw-talented kid given a golden ticket to learn fromSofía Mulánovich with all the trimmings: boards, swag, cash then tossing it all to go back to the temptations of his barrio.

But environment everything and need has no law.

This is where the film is at its best, leaving us to wrestle with Jhonny’s decisions as we run our own eyes around our cozy, carpeted living rooms.

Fortunately for Jhonny, Sofia and his coaches didn’t let him run around the streets for long and within months of the shooting, we watch an emotional Jhonny back in the water on the ‘QS, nailing down some fine results.

En La Tormenta ends before Hurley dropped its team last year and before COVID-19 shut down Jhonny’s chances of continuing on tour.

“Cut adrift by circumstances,” as Director Adam Brown says.

Both Sofia and Brown are in frequent contact with Jhonny. Neither know if he’ll be able to get to the ‘CT.

Back in Chorrillos, Jhonny is pursuing his interest in Latin rap and has been seen lately in a few surf contests around Lima. Sofia thinks Jhonny has learned through the years that hard work pays off.

“He is a really charismatic young man that can succeed in many areas if he puts his heart and mind into it.”

Watching the movie, we’re left to wonder what’s going to happen to the kid who’s captured on film crying more than smiling, splitting his time between ocean and street.

And while beautifully shot (JJF’s filmer Erik Knutson spent some days behind the lens), En La Tormenta ain’t no promotional video.

In case you want to throw a buck or two to help poor kids from Lima’s barrios learn to surf, you can check out Alto Peru.

It just won Best Film at the 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival and will be available on BBC’s Storyville in January.

Good watching between CT contests.

WSL fans go "bad dog".

I doubt if there was a heat in pro surfing history pressed with as much tension as Sage Erickson and Tatiana Weston-Webb’s Pipe opener five days ago.

It wasn’t threatening Pipeline by any stretch, but if you’ve ever tried to ride the joint you’ll know it is a devil of a wave, unpredictable, dangerous and surprisingly difficult to find a barrel without max skills. 

God, I felt for Sage and Tati, whose heat was a curtain raiser to the first WCT women’s heat at Pipe. All those condescending and critical eyes. Given I tend to view surfing through the prism of my own abilities I was pleasantly surprised by the surfing. 

Rails held, a little vision here and there, Carissa, unsurprisingly, the stand-out, Tyler’s win an anti-climax, I suppose, although she looked comfortable enough.

Here comes the however.

BeachGrit’s tour correspondent Steve “Longtom” Shearer spoke for many fans when he wrote, “If performance at Pipe is the measure then we are way behind the standards of the previous century… In one of the more blackly comic scenes of the day Pipe pioneer Rochelle Ballard was reduced to giving real-time lessons in technique for successfully threading Pipe tubes to hapless contestants.”

And, today, in response to a WSL post celebrating Tyler’s Pipe Masters win, surfing’s “bad dogs” turned on their master, bludgeoning stroke after bludgeoning stroke, all with the casual precision of a butcher. 

vidalcordova: First person to win an event in pipeline with ZERO barrels

nathan____bishop: 12 year olds at 3 foot lowers get deeper than that

betaklein: She’s calling herself a PIPE MASTER on her last post! Check out her trophy. 😂 Delusional much? 🤣😭

grom_dad: When you go woke you win. Apparently the new judging criteria. Not actually surfing

jonwest843: That’s a two,,, just sayin

loco.lobo.loco: Stop with this stupid hype. Worst pipe win ever . Wsl should be ashamed of this posts

chatty_cathy_doll: Why would you want someone else’s trophy? Carissa won kook.

therealjayse: Shame WSL

lau_z_foto: i feel if you don’t get barreled at a pipeline comp, your score shouldn’t be higher than .05

ju_pdvn: Barrel dodge much?

dkeps808: Two turn champ! What a joke this is👎🏽hawaii and everyone knows who won. Barrels win the pipe💯

dkeps808: Two turn champ! What a joke this is👎🏽hawaii and everyone knows who won. Barrels win the pipe💯

bchsiao: Man I would hate to have a trophy where all my peers and elders say I didnt deserve it… Really not Tyler Wrights’ fault that the event format and judges gave her the wi

michael_r._hogue: Shame on the judges and the WSL.

glenndurflinger: I went over the falls and hit the reef in 2’ Pipe – does that make me a Pipe Master? 😂💩

masemonsta: Pipe not a good idea. WSL very lucky no girls got seriously hurt.

crawdady: Sick head dip !

andy_ruddock: @tylerwright I have always appreciated your level of finesse, but the digital edit to say “Pipe Master” over the top of your Maui Pro trophy is disrespectful to the pipe masters who have come before you – @gerrylopezsurfboards, Micheal and Derek, @markocchilupo, @kellyslater, Andy, @bruceirons, @whoisjob, @john_john_florence and all the other legends that put in the time and work to earn the right to that title. Can’t wait to to see the 2021 Pipe Masters with all the ladies charging! Respect to @rissmoore10 for getting out there and charging early with @whoisjob. Mick O’Brien says she won…can anyone argue with that? Thank you Jamie for helping the best to get better. I love to see you giving back. #RissGetsBarreled

And, this.

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

Tough crowd, I suppose.