Iron fist comes down on Kiwi surfers!
Less than one month ago, New Zealand, a little island paradise to the east of Australia and uninhabited by humans for most of its history, used the COVID pandemic to shut down out-of-towners and kooks as part of its Level 4 lockdown restrictions.
The much-touted VAL revolution, championed by the WSL and counting Jonah Hill as its patron saint, was suddenly benched by Jacinda Arden’s leftist regime. It was a surprising move for a government whose progressive bona fides are beyond any sorta reproach, Marxist at heart if not practice.
Currently the little island nation is under tough “Alert 4 level” restrictions as it battles what is, viewed through a worldwide perspective, a minor hit of the bug.
All surfing practised by inexperienced surfers, banned, and shredders required to stay at their local wave. As well, outer-reef sessions are forbidden as restrictions remind surfers to “stay within 200 metres of the shore.”
But what is life if you can’t laugh at it, am I right?
Yesterday, BeachGrit reader Andrew Mitchell sent a heart-warming short, filmed by his pal Mark Sharrock, of a surfer at Maori Bay near Auckland, allowing an out-of-shape cop to catch him for flouting the emergency law.
The man was fined three-hundred dollars, and he ain’t alone, plenty of people have been getting stung for shredding, although, as Michell pointed out, “it’s still cheaper than a wave pool.”
