America's most famous beaches next?

What a wild wild rollercoaster the hydrofoil has been riding these last few years, rising from relative obscurity to the water tool of choice for the world’s sixth richest man Mark Zuckerberg. “Do you foil, bro?” heard in beach adjacent parking lots the world over. Foil self videos posted to Instagram with increasing regularity.

“Look mom, I’m flying.”

But with wild popularity comes increased scrutiny, anger even, and now the council’s governing Sydney’s most famous beaches are considering permanently banning them from the water.

Randwick and Waverly, covering Maroubra, Bondi and Tamarama, are currently gathering feedback from the population and will deliver a verdict next month.

“For safety reasons, hydrofoil surfboards are not permitted at our beaches,” a spokesperson told The Guardian. “This is due to the safety risks posed by their high speed [compared to that of a surfboard], the metal-like keel that raises the board out of the water and the usually crowded conditions in the water. We do not have any reported instances of injuries involving these boards due to the low volume of foil boarders visiting our beaches and the proactive approach by the lifeguards. Council is aware of injuries at other beaches/waterways caused by foil boards that have resulted in significant trauma to the casualty.”

Andrew Crawford, who owns H2O foils, might almost agree with the potential ban.

“In reality, there’s an element of danger, the same as there is with a conventional surfboard,” he said. “There’s a danger of the boards and the fins making contacts with people’s heads. Because there’s an extended mast, which is like a knife in the water, and the wing which is attached to the bottom of the mast, if it does come in contact with people, it could cause quite an injury. From that perspective, I can see the council’s wariness.”

He also likened foils to cars and said, “If handled sensibly, I don’t see a major issue, as long as they keep well clear of designated swimming areas and other surfers.”

So, is foiling a buy or a sell? If Sydney bans will the dominos topple or will Mark Zuckerberg bury the news?

Much to ponder.

“I felt people grabbing me, I heard voices. My head was so hot. I couldn’t use my arms or legs…"

The Angourie-based surfboard shaper Will Webber, brother of concave pioneer Greg Webber, has revealed he nearly drowned two weeks ago and only minutes after successfully rescuing a drowning child in wild cyclone surf. 

Will says he was watching the surf with a couple of pals, as he does every day, when he saw a dad and his daughter caught in a rip at Spookies, a dramatic righthand ledge just north of the more famous Angourie Point. 

Fifty-two-year-old Will says he ran the 250 metres to the water’s edge, saw the kid going under, dived in and swam into the zone. 

“I knew she didn’t have oxygen and she could get brain damage,” he says. 

By this time, another shaper, Luke Short, had paddled into the lineup on a mini-mal.

The pair got the father-daughter combo onto the rocks. 

“Then I turned around to Luke and said, ‘Now I’ll show ‘em how it’s done’ and went to swim over the bank,” says Will. “I forgot it was an east swell and how much water was in the bay. I’d been fasting and I’d lost a lot of weight and was starting to get cold quickly. I was getting pounded by these relentless sets. I’d come up and there was only two seconds before another wave. And I was in a hell rip going out to China and getting belted and belted. And then I started worrying about sharks ‘cause it was so murky and yucky. I was going out to sea and I thought, I can’t beat this. I started to get weaker and weaker and, finally, I went, fuck it, I’m going to have to do it, I need help. I figured as soon as someone saw me waving, I could lie on my back and go out to sea and wait for the coastguard, that’s if they could get out. Trouble was, it was too choppy to lie on my back and I started to get heavy. Later, I’d look at my board shorts and see that the pocket was open, this big pocket. 

“Then I looked over and saw Luke Short two hundred metres away. I was thinking, fuck, hurry man. He didn’t look to be getting anywhere. He knew he had one shot at getting me. If he got stuck, or if he duck dived and lost the board, which he’d grabbed without a leash, we’d both be stuck. Right then, the biggest sets of the arvo came in. Got two six-footers on the head. Oh, man, I was thinking, get in here quick. I couldn’t get near the rocks. It was bloody close. I don’t think I could’ve made one more set. My last two breaths were like gulps into my cheeks, not even into my lungs. 

“Finally, Luke got me and I grabbed him around the neck like a vice. When the wave picked us up I started strangling him, then the wave overtakes us and I’m drowning and Luke feels me starting to faint and then he does this reverse jiujitsu double leg lock around me. We wash up on the beach with this massive surge. 

“I felt people grabbing me, I heard voices. My head was so hot. I couldn’t use my arms or legs. I was spewing so they put me in the coma position. After a while the police turned up and they had to lift me up like a dead body and carry me to the ambulance.

“The ambo’s came, shot me full of stuff and put me on 100 percent oxygen. Spent four hours in hospital, lungs x-rayed, had to wait for the lactic acid to come down.” 

At nine pm, Will was released from Maclean hospital, “Oh, man, nine o’clock and I’m standing in the streets of Maclean, in boards, freezing cold. I went from the penthouse to the shithouse.”

That night, sleep didn’t come easy.

“I was laying there with a god’s-eye view of it, trying to work out what went wrong. I go to that beach every day. My Mum’s memorial chair looks straight out there. I was saying to Dad, it was like being a heavyweight fight you knew you shouldn’t be in but you know you can get through it somehow. I was holding on for that, keeping enough oxygen to work with. I definitely didn’t give up, but the lights were getting dim. It was fucking… it was really bloody close.”

Check out Will’s boards, here, and buy his debut novel CHUD (“Thirty-three pages of addiction and debauchery!”), here. 

Happy pelican gets disappeared at Rob Machado's home break!

Four months ago, Southern California’s exploding Great White population forced the temporary suspension of Finals Day at Lower Trestles, a popular wave a little out of San Clemente. 

Great Whites, once synonymous with Central and Northern California, now make regular appearances at popular surf spots from San Clemente to San Diego. 

The Encinitas filmer Bryan Johnson who posted this footage from four days ago (watch his latest work The Lockdown filmed during sixty-five days straight of swell during the heat of the pandemic last year) says he sees Great Whites all the time. 

“I saw two yesterday, a ten-footer and what was probably a twelve-footer jump out of the water, oh yeah,” he says. “There were two divers’ buoys right next to ‘em, too. Oh gosh, every day I see ‘em. It’s like Reunion around here.” 

Johnson says he sees most of the Whites at Seaside Reef, a surf spot popular with local pro’s including Ryan Birch and Rob Machado, and at Del Mar, a little further south. 

“I went fishing on my longboard there and three surrounded me in six to seven feet of water,” he says. “One popped up, six foot, real small ones, really small Whites. Seaside has the biggest ones… I’ve lost count of how many I’ve seen, literally hundreds. I’ve seen them in four feet of water. I was taking a mother of four for a surf lessons and she almost shit her pants, she thought it was a dolphin. I said, no ma’am, that isn’t a dolphin. I had to take her in real quick.” 

Johnson ain’t entirely concerned, there hasn’t been a fatal hit since his doctor was killed by a Great White while swimming near the surf spot Tabletops in 2008. 

“They’re eating pelicans, they’re not biting us yet,” he says. 

Still, 

“I just hope they move. They’re out there and they’re the real deal. It’s not like we’re putting inflatable Great Whites out there. Don’t make yourself look like a bird and stay close to your friends.” 

You can help!

Most surfers, when they close their eyes at night or keep them open whilst at word desks, dream in rainbows. In swaying palms, warm water, plentiful waves, limes in coconuts, Spam musubi, cracks and false cracks. Of Hawaii. Oh those islands, the most isolated in the entire world, floating free, pounded by waves and legend are where we all want to be, all things equal.

Hawaii.

An earthly paradise.

Except the State of Hawaii is currently staggering as its population shrinks yet again, residents fleeing for the mainland in droves. According to Honolulu Civil Beat, one of the finest news organizations on earth, this “drain” is leading to all sorts of un-chill problems. Per the story, and according to Peter Ho, chairman and chief executive of Bank of Hawaii, Hawaii’s population decline reflects a hollowing out of the state’s middle class, which he calls “an existential economic issue for the state.”

What’s even harsher, the problems driving people out of the state “involve a broad range of things, none of which is easy to solve, says Carl Bonham, executive director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization.”

“There isn’t one solution,” he said. “Or we would have already tackled it.”

Well, what is one of the problems?

Brain drain.

According to research, “almost 15% of Hawaii-born people living on the mainland are between the ages of 18 and 44 and have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 7.7% of those remaining in Hawaii. Another finding: in sheer numbers, there are more Hawaii-born people with a bachelor’s degree or higher living on the mainland than there are who stayed in the state.”

There are organizations now in place trying to remedy by keeping smart ‘uns home but I think we, here, can help. Do you have a college degree?

Move to Hawaii!

Boom.