2 tablespoons seamoss gel.

Only those living under rocks and unaware that the World Surf League cut a good number of its professional surfers from the top tier championship tour at Margaret River will, likely, be equally unaware that the world is currently undergoing a baby formula shortage crisis. A catastrophe so dire that New York’s mayor just hours ago declared a state of emergency.

Per CNN:

The mayor signed the emergency executive order which will empower the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to prevent price gouging for formula, a Sunday statement from his office announced.

“The nationwide infant formula shortage has caused unimaginable pain and anxiety for families across New York — and we must act with urgency,” Adams said in the statement.

“This emergency executive order will help us to crack down on any retailer looking to capitalize on this crisis by jacking up prices on this essential good. Our message to struggling mothers and families is simple: Our city will do everything in its power to assist you during this challenging period.”

The ostensible reasons for this trouble stems from pandemic related issues and factory shutdowns but, thus far, there has been no quick fix.

No quick fix, that is, until the world’s most decorated surfer Kelly Slater looked under the hood.

In a pragmatic Instagram post the current Pipeline Pro wrote, “That corn syrup and additives they put in baby formula isn’t exactly healthy. Make your own.”

Not leaving fretful mothers and fathers of hungry tots hanging in the lurch, Slater included an easy-to-follow recipe.

2 quarts coconut water

12 pitted dates

1/2 cup coconut powder

1 cup hemp seeds

2 tablespoons seamoss gel

1 teaspoon kelp.

He also suggested adding more coconut powder if the baby is not gaining weight.

But I’ll admit. In a rare overreach, the above headline isn’t entirely accurate. Oh Slater certainly has solved the baby formula dilemma but the twist was not unexpected at all, as there is no public evil that the man can’t fix given the time and space to ponder.

Our gift to the world.

And if you were an elected official, would you place the 11x surfing champion on your cabinet?

Positively dumb to not.

Seamoss gel.

Simple solutions.

A topic is not officially oversaturated until the world’s greatest surfer weighs in with his thoughts, advice. Slightly more than a week ago, longboarder Sasha Jane Lowerson blitzed the competition, winning the Western Australian Longboarding women’s division with the greatest of ease. She became the first surfer to win both women’s division and men’s, as Ryan Egan, division three years’ prior.

Well, days ago, respectable surf media house Stab Magazine covered Lowerson’s victory for the first time, following the FCC’s recommended guidelines before pushing hot buttons, and drew 11x champion Kelly Slater into the mix.

Slater, sagely, commented, “Make a trans division and we don’t have this confusion.” including a fine shrug emoji at the end.

Fine advice, no doubt, but one small problem, maybe. Harper’s Index, a collection of data highlighting public perception, declares that Americans believe 21% of the population is transgender.

The reality is .6%.

And the percentage of that .6% who surf professionally, I’d have to think, lightly smaller.

So, here we are, stuck. What then to do? Should fairness, in sport, be struck down as an antiquated notion? Should sport, itself, be struck down altogether as a relic of times gone by? I very much wanted to ask Sasha Jane Lowerson, herself, but after agreeing to be interviewed proceeded to block BeachGrit across social media and go dark. When I emailed, asking for account, she responded, “People have made threats on my life. I’m taking some time out! The rules are the rules!”

But I think “the rules” is where everyone aside from Kelly Slater is confused, yes? Where society and norms have shifted under our very feet? Not that anyone needs another cis male’s opinion on the matter, especially one who doesn’t hold eleven surfing world titles, but I believe gender is, like, a thing. A biological truth. To erase, or call it a racist construct, not only defies logic but becomes dangerous as meaning would simply vanish.

So if gender is real, though alterable, should transgendered athletes be allowed to compete in women’s divisions?

No.

There’s having cake. There’s eating cake. The former doesn’t guarantee the latter.

Now drag me to the public square to be beaten black and blue with rolled up copies of Oberlin College’s summer course catalog.

Extreme vulnerability!

The Australian surfer Trent Munro, rookie of the year in 2001 and who occupied the number one position on the ASP tour for three months in 2005 before being exploded by eventual winner Kelly Slater, has told of being almost blinded in a foil-boarding accident. 

Munro, who is forty-three, was riding a foil on a river, his debut effort, when he collided with the monstrous wing-foil set-up beneath.

“First and last time you will see me on one of these,” wrote Munro. “Yes I did go head first into the fin… very lucky to have my eyes.” 

Foil-boarding, where the surfer rides atop a small board with a hydrofoil that lifts out of the water, is notorious for its stiletto slashes, something surfers are acutely aware of. 

You’ll remember the wild scenes at San Francisco’s Fort Point when a surfer used a rock to destroy a foil-boarder’s expensive craft. 

After the leashless foil-board was washed onto the shoreline, it was attacked by the angry local who jerked a rock above his head multiple times to slay the lethal craft

(One month later, in one of the feel-good stories of the year, our foil-boarder returned to Fort Point with his jet boat and foil-board and rode several waves to glory, even referencing the Mattew Wilder song Break My Stride as he braved the torrid Fort Worth surf scene.)