"Like a lot of surfers that bought houses near beaches and breaks they loved and then watched the rest of the world discover them the same has happened here."

The surf and snow media baron, Shane Peel, whose latest incarnation is as CEO of the new Martin Daly brand Indies Trader, has signalled his return to the beach by listing his epic house at Niseko for eighty-five mill yen, 750k US or thereabouts. 

“Getting the Higashiyama log house was more luck than anything,” says Peel. “We bought the place because at the time it was the closest house to the run that was for sale that we could afford … mainly because it was nearly a knockdown. Like a lot of surfers that bought houses near beaches and breaks they loved and then watched the rest of the world discover them the same has happened here. Our little Japanese hideout in the forest is now a dream location, kinda like the snow version a shack at First Point or Wategos”

The house is located so a simple left turn from Niseko Village Resorts Namara run has you riding into the back yard and shaking off the powder and is connected to the entire Niseko United Resort mountain. 

If so good, why he out?

“My days being in the mountains full time is due for change, I have ridden something like 2300 days since I came to Niseko in 99 mostly in the last ten years at the log house, dipped into the Japanese culture pretty deep and loved it, but it’s time to get back to the beach and if I want to live somewhere back home other than a tent in the Yandina caravan park the cabin has to go. I’ll always be in Niseko for January but the other times of the year I’ll be putting on sunscreen in Oz. Whoever does pick it up should leave a surfboard here ’cause there are some things down on the Pacific coast that are pretty impressive”.

He ain’t lying, it’s not the tropics but the surf pumps.

Examine, maybe buy house, here. 

(If it doesn’t sell, it’s gonna be rented. Ask ’em how much here, [email protected])

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.