Surfing’s surging popularity shows no sign of waning as Maine shop owners run out of wetsuits: “There’s a crazy rubber shortage!”

"I was an extreme boogie border, so this was the next step up."

Hello, 2021 and how did you ring in the brand-new year? Socially distancing with loved ones while air clinking champagne flutes? Boldly ignoring stay-at-home orders to get punk in drublic? Sitting in your once lightly crowded lineup shoulder to shoulder with hundreds, thousands, of new faces?

Oh boy.

If 2020 brought us one thing it is many, many, many new surfers. So many that California surf shops cannot keep boards on the racks. So many that Maine surf shops cannot keep 7mm wetsuits on the hangers.

Crystal Ouimette, co-owner of Black Point Surf Shop in Scarborough, Maine told News Center Maine:

“We got a lot more surfers now. But the issue that we’re having is there’s nothing. I can’t order winter boots if I sell out of them. Winter suits I literally don’t have any. I have two women’s suits hanging left. That’s it. Normally we stay super stocked all winter we have access to reorder if we had to, but there’s no neoprene there’s a crazy rubber shortage just due to production delays more or less. It’s like southern California,” she said. “You’re like, ‘what are these people doing for work? It’s like Wednesday at noon what are you doing?'”

Great question. Another question, the writer, Lindsey Mills, opens the expose thusly:

The pandemic and the relative isolation that comes with it is prompting a lot of people to try something new. Something they never had the time to do before. For example, a lot of people appear to be bundling up and grabbing their boards. Did you think we meant snowboards? Nope. “I was an extreme boogie border, so this was the next step up.”

The “extreme boogie boarder” is not revisited nor explained. I have no idea who he or she is or anything about him or her.

Or they.

The more I ponder, the more fascinated I am.

Extreme boogie boarder? If you are reading can you please email [email protected]?

I have many questions.

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Harrowing footage: Australian surfer Mikey Wright risks life in Hawaiian rescue, “He’s gonna need to get saved!”

"Wright place, Wright time."

There is little doubt that the Wright family, with its troupe of world-class surfers, including Tyler, Owen and Mikey, know the ocean and the havoc it can wreak.

Owen, of course, suffered a mysterious brain damage after a terrific wipeout at Pipeline in 2016.

In a dramatic post on Instagram from world champion and Pipe Master Tyler, we see Tyler and WSL women’s commissioner Jessi Miley-Dyer enjoying their end-of-year break in an oceanfront compound on Oahu’s North Shore.

Suddenly, a set cleans up the beach. A beachgoer is swept away.

A man’s voice.

“He’s gonna need to get saved.”

Mikey Wright.

A woman.

“You can’t save him.”

And, then, like that, Mikey is gone.

No hesitation.

Click the arrow to the second clip and Mikey negotiates the ledge to grab the drownee, at one point rolling onto his back to shield the person from the rocks.

Mikey protects drownee from rocks.

Harrowing and exciting.

“Closing out 2020 with some hero shit by @mikeywright69,” writes Tyler.

A life saved.

“What a bloke!!!  Wish we had the footage of him scaling the fence. Her lucky day,” writes Jessi.

“That’s Wright place, Wright time,” wrote one wag.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJfUY2hLydY/

 

 

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Breaking: Light-skinned male of medium build breaks into surf shop, steals three boards then leads cops on wild chase smashing two of their cars in the process!

Love is love.

How much do you love this surf life? Enough to paddle out on less than appealing days just to feel? Enough to break up with your guy or gal because they just don’t understand you paddling out on less than appealing days instead of snuggling up and watching Titanic? Enough to steal a car, break into a surf shop, steal three surfboards, two leashes then leading the police on a wild chase before fleeing your vehicle though getting caught eventually?

I didn’t think so.

And so let us meet our new icon Nathaniel K. Jacques of Massachusetts who was arrested by Salem police after a wild chase during which he allegedly nearly struck an officer and crashed into two cars after running over a spike strip.

The police found three surfboards in his car that matched ones stolen from Cinnamon Rainbows Surf Shop.

According to court documents, the surf shop on Ocean Boulevard was broken into at 1:53 a.m. Surveillance footage showed a light-skinned male of medium build breach the rear door with a pry bar. Footage showed the man dressed in a long-sleeve hooded sweater, baseball cap with a surgical dust mask on, remove two surf leashes from behind the front counter. Another camera showed him leaving the store with three surfboards.

It must be assumed that one of the boards was a retro fish and would have looked/been silly with a leash.

But wow.

We don’t love this surf life so much, at the end of the day.

Wanna plan a heist?

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Not actual incident pictured. | Photo: Jaws 2 (or maybe 3)

Chilling: Noted Californian swimmer circled by Great White at “quintessential” San Diego beach, “I turned and saw the head of a White shark. I could see the eye which looked very black and the dorsal surface which looked very dark gray to black and wet!”

"When I got home I told my wife and she told me not to come into the house as I was all sandy and would be bleeding all over the place."

Hot off the wire is the wild story of a swimmer coming face-to-snout with a Great White shark at Coronado Beach in San Diego, forcing authorities to close the joint for two days.

In an eloquent statement about the incident, Phil Garn, a man who has swum the English channel, soloed Catalina Island and who still holds the relay record for swimming around Catalina, writes,

On December 30, 2020, at approximately a little after 1600 hours, I headed out through the surf just a little west (what locals refer to as North) of G Avenue in front of the Maintenance Shed in Coronado, California. I was wearing cap goggles, ear plugs, speedo swimsuit and black super extra large duck feet swim fins.

There was a group of several surfers out front (south).

I swam freestyle through the surf and once outside I turned on my side and began kicking west up the beach (what locals refer to as North.) I went about twenty yards paralleling the shore when I felt a strong tug on my fin. I turned and saw the head of a white shark. I could see the eye which looked very black and the dorsal surface which looked very dark gray to black and wet as well as a bit of the ventral side which was white.

I made a 90 degree turn and swam freestyle kicking as hard as I could toward shore. I knew the shark would likely be circling back. I felt the adrenaline dump and of course things felt like they slowed down a bit but headed to shallow water.

In about 12 inches of surf, I rolled and took off my fins and got up. I was just a little east (South) of the portable lifeguard tower and west (North) of the berm channel.  I then went over to the lifeguard pick-up truck  which was further east (South) and reported the incident to Lifeguard Garrison Covel.  

Lifeguard Covel took my name and contact information as well as photos of the fin. He commented that he saw me go out then come back in to shore very fast. The bite mark is fairly obvious. He radioed the information in and called Captain Carey. He then warned the surfers who came in.

As I was walking back to my towel and backpack, I spoke briefly to the young surfers (appeared to me to be about high school aged) and asked them if they had seen the shark. They said they had seen the shark’s fin, but that was all.

I walked home, and when I got home I spoke with Captain Carey at approximately 1636 hours. He asked me if I was ok, I said I was. Then Captain Carey asked me to describe what happened (see above). He said he would be calling Chief Lyden directly. My wife later received a call from Lifeguard Damon Bassett when I was in the shower, and I spoke with him at approximately 1723 hours and related what had transpired. Lifeguard asked me to send him a statement for his report.

When I got home I told my wife and she told me not to come into the house as I was all sandy and would be bleeding all over the place.

If you live around San Diego, you’ll know of the sudden increase in juvie White sightings.

Exciting for some, not so thrilling, perhaps, for others. 

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

 

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e-bike (pictured) left.
e-bike (pictured) left.

Rumor: In yet another sign of apocalypse, local electric bike maker attempting to persuade San Clemente City Council to install charging stations at Lower Trestles!

Lazy.

For certain you have seen the Disney Pixar masterpiece Wall-E wherein a plucky robot who was left behind on earth after it was abandoned by humans for being too trash-filled, falls in love with a different robot and followers her up to the space station where humans now live in a futuristic paradise.

All needs are instantly met, convenience and ease the priority. Humans spend their days gliding here and there on powered La-z-boys having solved the problem of exerting energy. Very much like humans on today’s e-bikes.

But oh is the e-bike a pestilence in your town? It is in mine with Wall-E-adjacent chunks speeding here and there, ripping down paths, barely moving their legs. Carrying the same rotten attitude as road bikers without even beginning to earn it.

Very gauche.

And rumor has it that in San Clemente a local Orange County e-bike maker is petitioning the city council to install charging stations down at the bottom of the path leading to Lowers.

Imagine the horror. Rich children, Mayhems affixed, flying at 20mph on mommy’s latest gift. Spoiled adults, feeling like environmentalists, Mayhems affixed, running over those fated to amble. The Lowers path becoming a choked freeway of gross incompetence and entitlement.

Extremely gauche and I can’t really imagine anything worse.

Can you?

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