Exciting days.

The long-held dream of zero people leaving Arizona to head to California beaches came one shovelful closer to reality, today, as ground was officially broken on Cannon Beach east of Phoenix.

Set to open in May of 2022, the 37-acre water park and mixed-use project has been in the works for over two years. It will feature a hotel, restaurants (including a tiki-themed bar), office space and, most excitingly, a 3.3-acre surf tank powered by a yet-to-be-experienced new wave technology dubbed SwellMFG.

According to wavepoolmag.com:

Up to this point, we’ve only seen video clips of perfect little peelers from SwellMFG with no idea of what the outline of the pool or system will look like at scale. The new renderings show a handbag-shaped facility with a wall of either air chambers or levers (SwellMFG won’t say how their tech is powered) in the deep end to pump out the surf. Within the short, a rectangle-ish outline is a peak splitting left and right. It looks like bathymetry will play a big role in how waves break in the facility, and right now a split peak will be something unique in the realm of open-to-the-public wave pools. Wavegarden’s Cove design has separate a left and a right. Kelly’s plow system only works in one direction at a time. BSR Surf Resort alternates between running lefts and rights during a single session. Only American Wave Machine’s indoor New Jersey facility, Whitewater’s new Endless Surf system and Surf Lakes, offer a split peak.

But are you intrigued by this fresh take on artificial waves? Would you like to try or have you burned out on the idea of freshwater surfing altogether?

I’ll admit, I’m itching to give it a go as I’ve recently grown very fond of the Grand Canyon State (daughter is star freshman on U of A’s soccer team).

Also, I love a good tiki bar. Do you think world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater is reconsidering his choice to build Surf Ranch in Lemoore?

Do you think he is jealous of Cannon Beach and its tiki bar and its direct tie to the historical root of inland surfing (see: North Shore)?

How could he not be.

Impress nana.

It seems like many decades ago when Carver, Sector 9 and other companies made a hard push to bring that surfing feeling to land because it was. Innovative truck design, boards that dipped and carved as if they were on water, not nana’s driveway, professional surfers advertising.

Whoosh, slash, yeah.

Very wonderful but I don’t know if the market ever reached its full potential as I rarely saw anyone hitting nana’s driveway’s lip, though that all may be about to change for Prestige Magazine out of Hong Kong has luxury surf skates are the must have accessory for the posh cool kids.

“In terms of extreme sports, there’s probably nothing hotter than surf skating at the moment,” the piece begins. “Just like how skateboards had their share of the spotlight back in the ’90s, surf skating is the new cool kids’ sport of 2021. While they may look similar to skateboards, surf skates come with a pointed front—similar to how surfboards would usually look. Simply put, they’re like smaller-sized, in-land surfboards designed to simulate the movements of surfing. Unlike skateboards, surf skates are designed for techniques like turning and ‘snapping’ that allow surfers to hone their skills during their time off from the beaches when it’s low season for surfing.”

Is Z-Flex set to see a sales boom?

Unfortunately not. The market is so hot that all the luxury houses are now in the game. To be counted amongst the posh cool kids you must either shred Hermès…

…Fendi…

…Chanel…

…Or Versace.

Nana will be impressed.

To dang hell with sport.

I am not, and never have been, an “I-told-you-so” bro, but dang hell, if I have not been telling anyone who will listen, anyone who would grace me with a bent ear (buy here), over my entire run that surfing is not a sport than I am not a surf journalist.

Again, for the difficult of hearing, SURFING IS NOT A SPORT!

It is the Pastime of Kings, the Iconic Waste of Time, Ultra Hard Candy, Anti-Depressive.

Etc.

It is, utterly, beautifully, meaningless. A perpetual revolt against structure, jock culture, and thereby the monolithic state, but not a sport much less organized.

Or as famous surf historian Matt Warshaw puts it even better, in the introduction to the best-selling nominated book Cocaine + Surfing:

Surfing is pointless. It is joyful and gorgeous and exciting and more, absolutely, in spades, and not pointless in the nihilistic way that drugs are pointless. But pointless enough.

i.e. not organizable material and, gorgeously, antithetical to it.

But here we have professional surfing’s owner and co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff purchasing the Association of Surfing Professionals then transitioning it to the World Surf League in order to create a recognizable sport on par with the National Football League and here we have the International Surfing Association’s Fernando Aguerre driving surfing into the Olympics as an understandable, governed, well-ordered body on par with gymnastics but what has gymnastics gifted us?

Larry Nasser.

The sex-offending U.S. National Team’s doctor.

And so many more disgraced creeps intent on cementing, then using, institutional power to further abuse.

Organized sport forever a problem just like it is, today, in the very middle of giant mess over its “attack on trans rights,” epic soccer star Megan Rapinoe recently lighting into United States lawmakers seeking to bar young transgendered individuals from participating in sports and team sports that match their gender identity.

Many issues, more potential disagreements, but also much nuance disappeared because the individual, and the individual’s opinion on such matters, no longer matters when rolled into the institution.

That damned thing rules by fiat and now more than ever. There is no discussion, no debate, no personal decision-making, personal decision-having.

Just rule and concede.

As much flak as surfing catches for not being inclusive, we are a rat pack of individuals done wrong by being rolled into a decided upon narrative.

We are anti-depressive, each of us, just waiting for a chance to hash it out one-on-one in lineups from Malibu to Newcastle.

WE ARE NOT A SPORT!

To dang hell with sport.

Blame Victoria.

In news that sent shivers up the spines of residents living in Australia’s seventh largest city, red barrels marked “Hydrochloric Acid” washed up on the beaches Sunday, exactly one week ahead of the upcoming Rip Curl Newcastle Cup.

Fire and Rescue New South Wales was immediately called to the scene and ordered terrified beachgoers out of the water.

Hazardous materials crews, dressed in neon orange, rushed in once the beach was cleared and carefully cracked it, discovering that it was likely filled with oil, not hydrochloric acid.

Hydrochloric acid is highly irritating much like the voice of Joe Turpel.

Fire and Rescue NSW released a statement reading:

As a precautionary measure, crews closed Shortland Esplanade temporarily while hazardous materials crews could work to safely contain and remove the contents of the drum. While the origin of the drum remains unknown, the area has now been made safe.

Public suspicion immediately turned south, toward Torquay, which has hosted the Rip Curl Pro at its Bells Beach every easter since 1961.

“Doesn’t it just seem too coincidental that the contest was brutally stolen and now this?” someone certainly thought.

It is unclear how the World Surf League plans to secure the area during the running window or if Torquay has anything else planned.

More as the story develops.