"Thanks a lot, Pinetrees."
"Thanks a lot, Pinetrees."

Hawaiian officials consider offering inland property swaps to those currently living in beachfront homes as fear of sea-level rise reaches critical mass: “People just don’t realize that they’re doomed.”

Time for managed retreat?

If Bob Dylan sang it once, he sang it 1000 times and those times are certainly a-changin. Emmanuel Macron has just been elected president of France, professional surfer Kelly Slater is 4th in the world and the environment is threatening to eat people alive.

But what to do when the ocean’s waters rise and rise and rise and disappear whole properties? Well, Kauai County, part of the island state of Hawaii, is considering offering inland turf swaps for those who currently dwell in beachside homes.

According to Honolulu Civil Beat:

“Every beachfront house will eventually fall into the ocean,” said Chip Fletcher, associate dean for academic affairs at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at UH Manoa. “People just don’t realize that they’re doomed.”

Homeowners in this newly designated danger zone did not ask the county to bail them out, and several of those interviewed for this story said they’re against it. But property swapping is a concept that county planners are exploring as they consider the costs of doing nothing — namely, the loss of beaches that are a public trust asset and the displacement of local families.

“The plan would be to clear these properties and structures out of the way so that the natural erosion process can happen and we can have a beach there in perpetuity,” said Kauai County Planning Director Kaaina Hull. “If the houses are collapsing in the water, then it’s another big question of who’s going to clean this up?”

As the surf eats away at the island’s contours, one way of adapting involves demolishing oceanfront homes, businesses, hotels and roads and rebuilding them inland.

But managed retreat, as it’s called, is logistically complicated. It would require tremendous amounts of political will, community buy-in and money. And there’s no blueprint in Hawaii for implementing it on a large scale.

If you happened to live beachfront in Kauai would you trade out for a nice valley home?

Maybe a Honolulu penthouse?

Or would you do what the world’s 4th best surfer does and lay illegal tacos out front in order to stop nature in its ugly tracks?


Kolohe (right) to become disowned by legendary father (left) for denigrating the family name?
Kolohe (right) to become disowned by legendary father (left) for denigrating the family name?

The Golden State’s favorite surfer Kolohe Andino drops bomb on hometown San Clemente by declaring Santa Cruz his favorite wave in Southern California: “I love it up there!”

Heavy.

There was once a time, or at least I dreamed there was once a time, that California’s various beachside hamlets were locked into a vicious, dirty war as to which was superior. San Diego vs. San Clemente vs. Huntington Beach vs. Oxnard vs. Santa Cruz with no love lost between and no tactic too low when it came to publicly denigrating an enemy.

The fever grew so hot that Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz dragged each other into the legal system to punch up over the moniker “Surf City, USA” with Huntington eventually winning and Santa Cruz plotting revenge.

And I thought, or dreamed, that this enmity still bubbled beneath the surface so you can imagine my shock, this morning, when I learned that The Golden State’s favorite surfer, Kolohe Andino, has a favorite wave in Southern California and that is not in his hometown San Clemente.

In a wide-ranging interview with Inside Hook, the Olympian is asked, “Favorite place to surf in Southern California?” And responds “Maybe Santa Cruz? Is that Southern California? I love it up there. Or just home, in San Clemente. Wherever the waves are good!”

Heavy.

Geography aside, how do you think T-Streeters and Trestleers will respond to this bomb? Will he be muscled out of the choicest nuggets by an aggrieved Matt Biolos? Have windshield waxed by Griffin Colapinto’s dad?

Will he be forced to move to Santa Cruz?

How will Nat Young take it?

More questions than answers.


Open thread, comment live, day one, Margaret River Pro, “The heat’s on! Find out what’s cooking besides the waves!”

Like a brief but hard kiss!


Slater (pictured right) being rude. @ucf.baseball Instagram
Slater (pictured right) being rude. @ucf.baseball Instagram

11x world champion Kelly Slater revives age old “surfers vs. jocks” blood feud by making a mockery of throwing out first pitch at University of Central Florida baseball game!

Retribution coming.

Before e-bikes, serious training regimes, Mike Parsons and ice baths surfers had one sworn enemy and it was the malignant jock. Brawny boys to men who played organized stick and ball sports under the watchful eye of “coaches” and “umpires” or “referees.” Their way of life, all rules-based and rigid, was not ours with its radicalized “freedom” and home cut mohawks and hot war festered.

The salad years.

But leave it to our great champion, 11x, Kelly Slater to bring the enmity back for footage has just emerged of our hero taking the mound, before heading to Bells, at his hometown University of Central Florida and purposefully spiking a ball into the ground.

Mike Parsons, I’m certain, rolling over in his grave.

The vengeance with which Slater bounces his pitch also certain to roil long dormant angst.

Will retribution be sought by jocks at an upcoming professional surfing event, maybe Margaret River?

Trestles?

Filipe Toledo duct taped to a light pole?

Morgan Ciblic given a swirly?

World Surf League CEO Erik Logan short sheeted?

Let’s hope.


@tylerwright Instagram
@tylerwright Instagram

Enigmatic surf champion, current world number 2, Tyler Wright announces exciting new partnership with a canned spice rum distiller!

Time to party.

The Margaret River Pro began yesterday, though did not run, and all eyes are on Western Australia. Blood will soon stain that hearty earth, the claret of those professional surfers who happen to be below the cut line, included but not limited to Owen Wright. Wright’s brother, Mikey, is safe via all the wildcards he shall receive and sister, Tyler, shall not dealt the indignity of challenger serieses as she is currently number two in the world after an impressive Bells victory.

The enigmatic former world champion was ecstatic post-triumph, telling The Guardian, “I cannot put into words what this means. It’s more than a win. It’s the only event I’ve ever wanted to win. I’m over the moon, I’m stoked. Two years being out is a long time. That fire that kind of got snuffed out by illness has been re-lit. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like I’ve surfed like myself.”

The illness a reference to the post-viral syndrome she was diagnosed with nearly two years ago. In an interview with ESPN she said, “Overnight, I lost everything, what made me Tyler Wright. I lost my personality, my physicality. I’m used to excruciating amounts of pain, but the physical pain got so bad that it would mentally break me. And it broke me every day. I didn’t get a minute where I was unbroken.”

A sports and exercise chiropractor with expertise in neuroscience, Dr. Brett Jarosz, anyhow, miraculously stitched Wright back up and now she is winning, again, and debuting exciting new partnerships with canned spice rum distilleries.

“Lots to celebrate lately,” she announced on Instagram. “Excited to partner with @reeftip as their ambassador. Celebrating feels even better when I can give back to the reef while also learning about it. 10% of @reeftip profits go to reef regeneration through the work of the @coralnurtureprogram.”

Sailors of old used rum as a medicinal to cure aches and pains and also enhance vibrato whilst singing sea shanties. It became associated with British naval might in the mid-1600s and spirits bottled above 57% alcohol by volume are still marked “Naval Strength” in that country. It is also synonymous with piracy and featured in such classics as Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Treasure Island which I just so happened to read and is very fine.

Spiced rum traces its origins back to 1879 when Myers’s, in Jamaica, produced a sweeter, spicier, darker version of the drink made from pure Jamaican molasses.

Captain Morgan became the most recognized spiced rum brand in the mid-1980s and uses a character and general tone that might be described as “toxically male” in many of its advertisements.

Reeftip, Wright’s choice, donates 10% of of profits to saving reefs and comes in at 4.5% abv.

Not “Naval Strength” but also not blatantly sexist.

A good fit, me thinks.