Gabriel Medina, second at Pipe, second at Newcastle, first at Narrabeen.

Caroline Marks, Gabriel Medina win Rip Curl Narrabeen Classic presented by Corona, “Most beautiful peacocks and peafowls throwing tail feathers high on dreamy offshore day!”

Chas Smith

By

Australia!

Professional surfing, oh my goodness, wild and wooly etc. So much hot action, so many hot takes, all in the knee deep cool of waist-high Narrabeen.

The best, maybe, from thruster inventor Simon Anderson and door buster Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew.

That duo scared voice of professional surfing Joe Turpel more than the possibility of a shark eating 3x champion Mick Fanning live on camera.

Wisdom etc.

Longtom’s much-anticipated wrap soon, but in the meantime, your event winners are Caroline Marks, for the women, and Gabriel Medina, for the men.

Both looking positively dominant, Caroline over Tati, Gabriel over Connor.

“Most beautiful peacock…” as Mick Fanning breathlessly gushed whilst speaking of Medina earlier in the day.

“Peafowl” he would have said had he been in the booth for Caroline Marks.

Thrilling.

Medina, the mythical wizard. WSL/Miers

Open thread: Comment live, finals day, Rip Curl Narrabeen Classic!

Derek Rielly

By

Quarter finals to podium… 

Meet: Moroccan Open National Women’s Champion and future grumpy local Ninon Mattei!

Chas Smith

By

Anti-depressive!

We here luxuriate, almost always, in a grumpy local rissole. The perfect pressing, breading, baking of grievances, frustrations, love and laughs. But as participation in surfing explodes around the world what are the youngers thinking?

How are they feeling?

I had the wonderful opportunity to find out at least one opinion via the Moroccan Open National Women’s Champion, 22-year-old Ninon Mattei, and believe I am going to turn this into a series. Not concentrating on up-and-coming pros but on the grinders who are sacrificing all for this idiotic surfing life we all love.

How does surfing in Morocco feel?

It feels pretty special actually. The Surfing community is quite small in Morocco , we all know each other especially in the north where I live, we all have respect for each other whatever the level you have and that’s pretty cool. I’ve travelled a lot last year and it always feels so good to be back home. South of Morocco is definitely my favorite place in the world during winter time, we always score crazy good waves.

What is your dream?

A Mentawai boat trip with the crew scoring epic waves. That’s it. That’s the Dream

What is the best part of professional surfing?

I would say doing the thing you love the most in the world everyday and have the opportunity to live off and for your passion.

What is the best part of surfing?

For me it’s the balance of the unpredictable and freedom, surfing is always exciting, you never know what you gonna get, it can be very frustrating sometimes for sure but it also makes things really interesting. You don’t have any control on the waves or conditions but once you’re on the wave you have the freedom to do whatever you want.

Who is your favorite surfer and why?

Hard question. There are so many guys and girls I admire so much. I’m gonna say Abdel El Harim. He is quite a legend in my hometown, best Moroccan surfer so far, I’ve always looked up to him growing up and I still do, he is still ripping hard. What I admire the most about him is how he always manages to have fun in every condition and takes out the best of everything. Beside him, my favorite surfer to watch is Ryan Callinan. I’ve watched his last edit like 400 times, so smooth.

What is your goal?

In general my goal is to improve in every way I can as a person. In Surfing i would say that my main goal is always going to be to get better and scoring good waves. But I have a few goals besides that like doing a good result in couples QS ,finding a sponsor and working on my contest mindset. I really have trouble with that but I’m on it!

Can you reach the top?

It depends what you mean by “Top?” The CT? I wish haha, but I’m realistic. The QS? Besides the fact that the level is more and more high I don’t have any sponsors, doing the full QS is expensive. I’m really aware of that. But my surfing is improving everyday, I really think that I can do some results but like I was saying earlier I really need to work on my mindset to make that happen.

Assuming surfing stays Olympic, will you smash the dang Australians and Americans?

Unfortunately i can’t represent Morocco in the Olympics! I don’t have a Moroccan passport but a French one. But if it was the case i would say that as funny as it could be to see an unknown girl from Morocco smash Steph Gilmore in a Heat i don’t think it’s gonna happen, but you never know! I mean, like we say here: Inchallah!

What is your future?

No idea, I’m not a planner. I really think that the best things in life are the unexpected ones. What has to happen gonna happen but i know one thing for sure: surfing is gonna be in it.

What is our future?

The pandemic made me think about that a lot. Things are gonna change for sure. I’m really aware of negative issues that we have and will have face like the social and economic crisis the Covid is making and the big environmental crisis but i truly want to believe that we also moving toward a better future because people seem to be more and more open minded, more aware of everything that is happening in the world and willing to fight for it. There is always hope after all!

Anti-depressive, no?

Italo Ferreira takes beautiful high road, responds to egregiously heinous, thoroughly embarrassing World Surf League judging call: “This offends everyone but me!”

Chas Smith

By

We could all learn so much. Some of us more than others.

The professional surf watching community was left in various stages of stunned outrage, yesterday, when five judges sitting in a booth overlooking Narrabeen’s wobbly lefts and rights deemed World Champion Italo Ferreira’s fabulous full rotation air in the dying minutes of his heat against Connor Coffin to be incomplete.

Per the great Longtom’s assessment, “My main beef with the panel goes back earlier in the heat to a left that Italo surfed that should have been at least a point and half or two better than Connor’s scoring waves. That critical underscore fucked the correct unfolding of the back third of the heat. Italo was flayed and cooked either way. The best guy did not win. He knew it, we knew it, the whole beach knew it.”

Ferreira, in a display of passionate emotion, stomped his board in half.

Hours ago he responded in a statement, posted to Instagram.

“Isso desmotiva qualquer um, só que eu não! Eu ligo o foda-se e vou pra próxima. Obrigado pelo carinho” which translates (via the translation button) as “This offends anyone, except me! I’ll turn the fuck on and move on to the next one. Thank you for caring.”

I assume the correct translation would actually be “This offends everyone except me…” but you get the picture.

The high road.

That beautiful high road.

An object lesson for all of us, how wonderful it is to let go, move on, be gracious.

We could all learn much.

Mostly me.

Artist rendition of new campsites, Thunderdome.
Artist rendition of new campsites, Thunderdome.

Australia’s Surf Lakes submits plans to expand site with boutique accommodation, scuba pool, Thunderdome: “It’ll be the ultimate surf getaway!”

Chas Smith

By

All connected by a beautiful Fury Road.

It has been some time, now, since Surf Lakes has been in our shared consciousness. The giant plunger, which can be found in beautiful Yeppoon in northern Queensland, was instantly the most striking of the wave pool technologies with its not subtle nod to Mad Max.

But aesthetics, alone, rarely win the day and other, more functional tanks from Palm Springs to New Jersey soon took our attention.

Fickle, fickle people we are but look! Surf Lakes is back with an exciting new plan, just submitted for approval, to expand into “the ultimate surfing getaway!”

According to the proposal, the development would be split into two stages with the first including a solar farm and campground to be connected by a Fury Road. Then a hotel, aqua park including scuba center, hotel and Thunderdome would be added.

The local Seq Q Boardriders president was very thrilled, telling ABC news, “We always like to surf in the ocean but as we know the ocean doesn’t always cooperate. Having a wave pool and being able to access that on a regular basis definitely is going to help young surfers improve and keep everyone else happy when there’s no waves in the ocean.”

Surf Lakes’ ownership group expects, once fully operational, that the “ultimate surfing getaway” would plunge $260m yearly into the local economy.

The chief executive of regional tourism and development organisation Capricorn Enterprise, Mary Carroll, said, “Wave pools all around the world have attracted a new clientele or visitor market. This is absolutely what would happen in this destination, whereby this wave pool would attract visitors not just domestically but internationally.”

Just imagine how many more will be attracted when Surf Lakes hosts one of the 18 World Surf League Championship Tour Australian stops in three years.

Very cool.

Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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