Hawaiian big-wave superstar dubbed “world’s smartest surfer” lists million-dollar North Shore loft with golf-course frontage for rent, features “incredible amenities” including TV, couch and ceiling fans!

As well, "table and chairs for dining"!

It is difficult not to ladle superlative upon superlative when describing Nathan Florence, the middle brother of that storied clan, which also includes his two-time world champion and Olympian brother John John and little bro, the skate shredder Ivan.

Nathan Florence, who is twenty-eight and named after the son of the Hebrew King David, is widely regarded as the “world’s smartest surfer”, which ain’t much, I know, a very shallow pool indeed. Like the best white linebacker in the NFL or best Jewish sprinter or wielder of the biggest sword in all of Thailand.

Still, how many pro surfers were gobbling novels when they were six and who’ll reference French author Guy Sajer’s seminal wartime novel The Forgotten Soldier?

Nathan is the the most engaging of the three brothers, and gets his quirky, literary side from his Daddy John, I think, who wrote in his tell-all memoir eight years ago.

“I am natural flirt. I enjoy making people smile, chuckle, laugh. I am very sexual by nature. I was raised that way. I have always enjoyed the whole sexual innuendo sort of suggestion in general conversation. Something that would make a person raise an eyebrow while giving a sly knowing smile back. Very sexual in every way to a fault or not, I am not sure but this is simply how I interact with everyone from passengers at my tables to coworkers, friends and girlfriends.”

Anyway, Nathan has listed his gorgeous North Shore condo at the Kuilima Estates East community, four miles east of Pipe.

The two-bedroom loft was designed “provide guests with an elevated design aesthetic with a feel-good comfortability.”

The gorgeous North Shore of Oahu! A dream come true!
Simple but luxurious loft bedroom.
Many subtle tones and textures.

The amenities, writes its famous owner, “are incredible. It features a television, large sectional couch, free Wi-Fi, ceiling fans, air conditioning, table and chairs for dining, and a day bed. The kitchen is fully equipped and features a stovetop, dishwasher, water dispenser, Keurig coffeemaker, microwave, plates, bowls, cups, and utensils. Furthermore, in the community there is a pool, charcoal BBQ area, tennis courts and gazebo.”

Book it for nine days over Christmas and it’ll cost a reasonable seven thousand American dollars.

Inspect, book, here.


Surf fans break out in spontaneous celebration as World Surf League iconoclast Jessi Miley-Dyer named Sports Business Journal’s “Game Changer” for 2022!

Party poppers!

The wins just keep on coming for the World Surf League in the glorious afterglow of Filipe Toledo and Steph Gilmore’s season finale wins there on Lower Trestles’ cobbled stone. There was, of course, the robust numbers making Final’s Day the most watched moment in professional surfing history, some 8.3 million people and counting. There was the roll out of the 2023 season, seeking to capitalize on growth and excitement by re-introducing Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch back on to tour.

And now, the League’s own Senior Vice-President of Tours, Head of Competition Jessi Miley-Dyer has been named one of the year’s “Game Changers” according to the august Sports Business Journal.

The iconoclast made a name for herself this year by kicking Joel Tudor out of longboarding and being equality.

In accepting the accolade, Miley-Dyer wrote, “The @sportsbusinessjournal list of Game changers for 2022 comes out today. Incredibly honored to be included in this group of women.”

Praise from surf fans as spontaneous as it was uproarious.

Mark Zuckerberg’s one-time BFF Kai Lenny posted, “Congrats” with raise the roof emojis.

Ultimate Surfer and Bachelor host Jesse Palmer added, “YESSSSSS” with clapping hands.

USA Surfing forwent words and only used clapping hands and mini bonfires.

Sports Business Journal, big ship in the harbor, also clapped but only twice as compared with USA Surfing’s four plus fire.

On it went, on and on and on but how did you celebrate?

Or are you still sending invitations to surf fan friends?

Party popper!


Mother of toddler bitten on face by coyote near famed Huntington Beach pier sues city for not having “hazing team” of vigilantes hunting creatures, forcing them to binge drink while jeering!

Strange days.

This past week, Huntington Beach was site of much jubilation, happy screams, as the International Surfing Association hosted its 2022 World Surfing Games with both bragging rights and extra Olympic slots up for grabs. Maybe money too. Well, as you know, Kanoa Igarashi won sending Japanese surf fans into titters and huzzah!

Last spring, though, very different screams filled the air. Shouts of terror as a menacing coyote became aggressively rude to a young child. The disturbing footage, recorded on a Surfline camera, features the aforementioned cur pouncing on the two-year-old girl and knocking her to the ground, rolling her to and fro then pouncing again while her minders stand nearby, mesmerized by Huntington’s iconic crumble.

Now, one of them, the child’s mother, is suing the city.

In a press conference, lawyer Sam Soleimany declares, “Frankly, she’s lucky to be alive at all. Unfortunately, she has developed scars on her face. She’s absolutely traumatized from all this, as is her mother.”

All very sad but how is Huntington Beach responsible for the horror?

According to Soleimany, coyotes had been known to “target pets and small children” in the area yet “there’s no coordinated effort anymore to get anything under control.”

Namely, the lack of “hazing teams.”

This is the first time I’ve ever heard “hazing” in this sort of context. Usually “hazing” is saved for college fraternities where older “brothers” force pledges to binge drink beer while wearing underwear etc.

I can imagine that his sort of behavior would be shameful to coyotes and to parents of coyotes but effective?

Hmmmm.

In any case, are you Team Sue the City or Team Stuff Happens?

More as the story develops.


Nathan Fletcher (pictured) not booking travel to Laguna any time soon.
Nathan Fletcher (pictured) not booking travel to Laguna any time soon.

In wild power play, tony Laguna Beach seeks to wrest control of local coast from Orange County in order to force draconian smoking ban!

"Get your filthy habit out of our town!"

Internecine war has broken out in the most unexpected of places, overnight, as tony Laguna Beach, hugging the most gorgeous stretch of Southern California coast, is attempting to wrest control of local beaches from ruling Orange County so it can impose a draconian smoking ban.

Ken Domer, Laguna’s assistant city manager, said the move would tax the coffers some $2.2 million a year but would be very much worthwhile because anti-smoking spies could be installed at various high towers.

“The contract lifeguards for the county are basically looking eyes on the water all the time, whereas our lifeguards are city employees,” Domer declared at last Tuesday’s city council meeting. “They’re looking at not just the water and doing an exemplary job, but also the quality of life issues that are on the beach around them.”

Laguna is, of course, famous for its art scene but it is a very different art scene from, say, New York City’s east village where cool cats used to toy with the idea of meaning, splattering canvases and hacking grits.

No, Laguna’s scene is more… Pageant of the Masters.

Have you ever seen it?

Yeah.

No word if vaping will be banned as well but it seems likely.

More, clearly, as the story develops.


Coleman, left, facing prison, Davo, right, dead, after alleged late-night fracas. | Photo: Davo photo by Ithaka Darin Pappas

Man accused of killing surfing great Chris Davison hit with second charge of “intentionally choking person without consent” as Kelly Slater writes moving tribute, “Lost another soldier yesterday. One of the most naturally talented surfers I ever knew.”

Tough minimum sentencing laws mean Grant “Grub” Coleman faces a minimum sixteen years if found guilty of killing the surf star.

The man arrested over the alleged one-punch killing of the wildly talented surf prodigy Chris Davidson has been hit with a second charge of “intentionally choking a person without consent”. 

Davidson, forty-five, was allegedly punched in the face by Grant “Grub” Coleman outside the South West Rocks Country Club at around eleven pm on Saturday, September 24. Davo fell, hit his head on the pavement, lights out. It’s such a common event in Australia, a country that has wrestled with violent booze-fuelled attacks for its modern existence, that many bars now feature sponge rubber outside their doors.

Sources close to BeachGrit allege the pair had a run-in at the bar and that Coleman was allegedly thrown out by the club’s security.

Anyway, paramedics treated Davo at the scene and he was taken to Kempsey Hospital but pronounced dead a short time later.

Coleman, a junior footy coach in the coastal hamlet five hours north of Sydney, was arrested at his nearby home thirty minutes after the attack and hit with the initial charge of “assaulting Davidson causing his death.”

Coleman, who is forty-two, was refused bail and has been remanded to Sydney’s notorious Silverwater prison. 

Last time I was at there visiting a pal another inmate was getting murdered. As I strolled out of the gates, happy to feel the sun on my face and with the freedom to jump in a car and drive thirty clicks back to the beach, an ambulance was roaring into the compound to pick up the bloodied corpse. 

Many years earlier, I visited the Surf Travel Co founder turned drug smuggler Paul King at the same prison.

Gonna be tough for Coleman. 

The charge of “assault causing death” is one of those rare offences where minimum sentences apply, the law coming into play after a series of highly publicised attacks where men were killed after being belted, all late at night, all alcohol fuelled. 

If Coleman pleads guilty or found guilty of “assault causing death” he faces a max of twenty years in prison, twenty-five, if he was intoxicated, with a minimum sixteen year total sentence, eight of ‘em in full-time custody. 

Kelly Slater, who famously lost to Davo in two consecutive heats at Bells Beach in 1996, wrote “Lost another soldier yesterday. One of the most naturally talented surfers I ever knew.”