“He was back-pedalling as soon as he came up, saying, ‘I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!’ I was still stoked to make it as far as I did, I wasn’t all that angry. I was kinda just shocked that I made it out next to him. I told him to fuck off and that was it. I almost felt bad for being angry at him, he was so rattled.” | Photo: @liquidstorm

Blood Feud: Gold Coast photographer squares up to local surfing legend after Kirra imbroglio!

"KARMA got you and you totally deserved it…"

Kirra Point, once the greatest wave in the world but now languishing in the lower teens after losing its sand to Snapper Rocks a couple of decades back, turned on its best waves since 1994 yesterday.

Lucky Gold Coast surfers, of which there are many, thrilled to four-to-six feet of east swell, Kirra organising the lines into these wonderful green funnels.

And Mitch Parkinson, cuz to Joel, son of hotshot eighties shredder Darryl, star of BeachGrit’s surfboard test series, rode the wave of the day, a tube filmmaker Justin Gane said had the potential to be one of the greatest rides ever ridden at Kirra – at least twenty-five seconds in the hole.

Of course, as vision shows, Mitch’s adventure was abbreviated when a man fell out of the air and into Mitch’s trajectory. Opinion was unanimous online, the drop-in a piece of cutthroat savagery etc.

Now, photographer Aaron Pierce has squared up to Mitch by claiming the act was karmic rebuttal.

Mitch getting drooped in on is KARMA as he himself dropped in on a guy about to get barrelled at the start of the wave before all the videos show! Even worse is a few frames before the shot above I zoomed in and Mitch is looking straight at the poor guy so he did see him, that’s poor sportsmanship and feckn selfish. Sure Mitch’s barrel was impressive and the other guy shouldn’t have dropped in on him as there was probably another 5 seconds at least left in that barrel but it wasn’t Mitch’s wave to have. I have a policy no matter who it is if someone drops in their photos of them getting barrelled will never see the light of day and most likely get deleted, it’s unfortunate as there’s some cracking shots especially a few frames after the shot above is such a heavy line up shot with Mitch pulling in. Too much of this is going on and surfers need to sort this out somehow but how can it be sorted when surfers like Mitch that kids look up to keep doing it and getting away with it, this time though KARMA got you and you totally deserved it, it’s not as though there’s no waves after this one!
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And the way that guy was surfing he would’ve had a good chance making those barrels too, Mitch stole possibly the best wave of his life off him!

When I call Mitch, who is twenty-five, he is watching Kirra from his car alongside girlfriend Bonnie-Lou Coffey, the youngest sister in the four-pack of girls and one boy.

Mitch says he has no idea who the photographer is and dismisses Pierce as “another keyboard warrior.”

Did you look at man inside tube, destined for greatness, perhaps, and take-off regardless?

“Did I see him? Yeah, he was way too deep. He was on a seven-foot board and old mate didn’t have buckleys of making it. He didn’t make it around the first section and he straightened out.”

Mitch says the wave was the best wave he’s ever had at Kirra, “one of those proper long, crazy lines. I’ll probably have to wait another ten years for one of those.”

To the drop-in that ended his ride, Mitch says he was screaming at the interloper while in the tube and that “it was such a fucking good wave. It was heartbreaking for me to watch the clip after.”

The man, he says, was apologetic, knew he’d fucked up.

“He was back-pedalling as soon as he came up, saying, ‘I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!’ I was still stoked to make it as far as I did, I wasn’t all that angry. I was kinda just shocked that I made it out next to him. I told him to fuck off and that was it. I almost felt bad for being angry at him, he was so rattled.”

Did he hunt man down, beat hell out of?

“It’s all good, fuck, life goes on,” he says.


Open Thread: Comment live on Day 3 of Rip Curl Newcastle Cup presented by Corona!

Ultimate Surfers!

I think we are now, officially, into the round of 32 for men and 16 for the women. Many days on and where each professional surfing contest should start take or take a handful of men and women.

Exciting.

Gabriel Medina vs. Connor O’Leary will kick off the action.

Connor O’Leary is sporting both Japanese and Australian patches on his singlet.

Heat 12 will be the best, featuring The People’s™ surfer Caio Ibelli.

He has won our hearts but will he win D. Silva’s scalp?

Come for the chit.

Stay for the chat.

Comment live here.


Breaking: World Surf League’s much anticipated ABC reality show “Kelly Slater’s Ultimate Surfer” to air Monday, August 16th!

Hot Summer Nights.

And it is as if I willed Kelly Slater television news into existence, for the very second I pressed publish on a shocking revelation regarding his 30-year ago turn on the hit show Baywatch, the World Surf League just announced that its much anticipated ABC reality show “Ultimate Surfer” will air Monday, August 18 2021!

Whoa!

Per the Instagram press release:

‘The Ultimate Surfer’ series will make its debut on ABC Monday, August 16 at 10 p.m. EST/PST.
The series will gather some of the world’s greatest up-and-coming surfers to train and live together as they battle it out at the @kswaveco in the hope of competing amongst the best athletes on the Championship Tour. @kellyslater will serve as on-air talent and special correspondent for the show. Read more, link in bio. @ultimatesurferabc

At time of writing, @ultimatesurferabc has no pictures.

But again, whoa!

The show will air right on the heels of the Olympic Games. I’d imagine the assumption being that all the new fans who thrilled at 1 ft beachbreak will be craving more hot surf action.

Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch.

There will be more as the story develops, obviously, like the announcement of which WQS surfers are participating etc. but do you have any quick takes?

I’d like to hear them.


Behind-the-Scenes: David Hasselhoff reveals shocking secret behind excessive slow-motion clips of world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater on hit show Baywatch!

Must read to believe.

It sometimes feels our VAL-pocalyse Now is unique. Surfing being everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Everyone, absolutely everyone, deciding that surfing is the thing to do later in life, paddling out on foam surfboards, turtle rolling them much.

Duke Kahanamoku reincarnated and spruiking Olympic surfing to everyone.

Everyone very excited.

But let us not forget thirty-odd years ago when surfing was lots of places too, including the hit primetime show Baywatch and let us not forget that the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater starred, appeared in 27 episodes, more episodes than all seasons of True Detective combined.

A robust run.

Running was, in fact, a hallmark of the show. Running in slow-motion, paddling in slow-motion, surfing in slow-motion.

Obviously sexy but that was not the reason for so much slow-motion as just revealed by Baywatch’s David Hasselhoff.

In an explosive new interview, Hasselhoff let slip, “[The slow-motion] came about organically because we had no money. We didn’t have enough financing to finish the show. So we found a way to fill the hour by shooting people in slow motion. We said, ‘Well, girls in bathing suits look good running in slow motion, let’s just shoot that.’ And we found out that the audience kinda liked it.”

Cost-savings.

Very cool.


Court upholds hefty $4.2 million fine for Malibu plastic surgeon, wife, blocking beach access; plastic surgeon extremely agitated: “This is unconstitutional and excessive!”

Eat the rich.

The public’s right to beach access in California is as Californian as the Kardashians. As state funded plastic surgery. That golden sand, those cool blue waves belong to us all, not the wealthy few, and this California fact is regularly challenged but also regularly upheld.

Take the most recent case featuring wealthy Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Warren Lent and his lovely wife Henny. The Lents purchased a beachfront Malibu home in 2002 that had been built in the 1980s under a permit that required a five-foot public easement. The first owner didn’t care and built a deck over the space and a gate blocking it.

California’s Costal Commission warned the Lents that the gate must be removed or they would face fines upwards of $11,000 per day.

The Lents didn’t care and said their gate was necessary for “safety” maybe guarding against their new homeless neighbors. They also rented the house out for $9,000 a week and advertised it as having a “private beach.”

California’s Costal Commission became angry and levied a fine of $4.185 million, an amount that the Lents decried as “unconstitutional” and “excessive.”

The case wound its way up and down the courts until, yesterday, the appeals court concluded that “substantial evidence supported the Commission’s decision to issue the cease-and-desist order. We also conclude the Commission did not violate the Lents’ due process rights by imposing a $4,185,000 penalty.”

Boom.

The heftiness is seen as a shot across other wealthy homeowners’ bows, particularly co-founder of Sun Microsystems Vinod Kholsa and his blocking of a beach south of Half Moon Bay.

Very un-Mavericks of him.