Kelly Slater (pictured) receiving head massage in Cocoa Beach.
Kelly Slater (pictured) receiving head massage in Cocoa Beach.

Surfrider Foundation releases damning list of America’s “most threatened surf areas” including Oahu’s fabled North Shore, champion-crowning Trestles and Kelly Slater’s Cocoa Beach!

But silver lining?

Climate change is, apparently, here to stay and really throwing wrenches into the works, or spanners, depending on whether your climate speaks the Queen’s English or in American vernacular. While violent wave-causing storms are said to be on the increase, iconic surf breaks will also be threatened due sea level rise and Surfrider Foundation just released a troubling list of the ten most vulnerable in the United States or United States-ish.

In order from worst to bad:

HAWAIʻI—THE NORTH SHORE, OʻAHU

CALIFORNIA—SURFERS POINT

CALIFORNIA—TRESTLES

FLORIDA—COCOA BEACH

NORTH CAROLINA—CAROLINA BEACH

PUERTO RICO—TRES PALMAS

NEW YORK—THE ROCKAWAYS

TEXAS—CORPUS CHRISTI

MAINE–HIGGINS BEACH

WASHINGTON–WESTPORT

As it happens, the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater makes his home in three of the top four (North Shore, San Clemente and Cocoa Beach) though has released a luxury watch with Swiss manufacturer Breitling that may help stem the tide, as it were, or at least take some plastics out of the hurting oceans and transforming them into sleek bands.

Every thorn has its rose, though, and forward-thinking surfers may be thinking about which breaks might benefit from a little extra water. I’d like to think my childhood hometown of Coos Bay, Oregon might benefit. There was a cove, there, that had a nice setup with shallow rock reef tapering impressively from point to sand. It was often too shallow but maybe in a decade could host the World Surf League’s championship day.

There is currently an oceanfront home on the market for $599,000.

A new next gen Volcom House all your own?

Fortune favors the bold.

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Brolin (pictured) pre-prime.
Brolin (pictured) pre-prime.

Amityville Horror star James Brolin credits surf great Laird Hamilton with keeping him spry and sexy at 82-years young: “Laird said, ‘Why don’t you come on up to the pool and work out with us on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday?'”

Like fine sourdough.

James Brolin, father of Josh, star of The Amityville Horror, longtime husband of Barbara Streisand would seem, from the outside, to have it all. Rugged good looks, financial security, Josh, Amityville, Babs but something just wasn’t right. The 82-year-old was feeling his age, unhappy, cranky. As fate would have it, one night, he was dragged to a dinner party where the world’s greatest surfer Laird Hamilton and his wife Gabby Reese also happened to be.

Hamilton took one look at Brolin and, according to the actor, said, “Why don’t you come on up to the pool and work out with us on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday?”

Well, rolled over the creepy offer until one day deciding to give in to love and go hop in Hamilton’s pool.

“His deal is, ‘Oh, do you want to breathe?'” he told People Magazine. ‘”You have to get to the top.’ I said, ‘But I got the weights. I can’t.’ He said, ‘Yeah, no, you have to take the weights with you.'”

“Once you get used to 10 lbs., then we move you to 15 lbs. Then we move you to 20 lbs. and it’s a jumping exercise to start. Then next, they’ve got you swimming the length of the pool with a weight.”

“I started to change. Everything started to change. I just started to look better. Body, face, eyes, thinking and therefore proving the old, boring thing that exercise really works.”

Sexy.

Brolin later tells the magazine that he eats a whole loaf of sourdough bread, from time to time, when Streisand tells him he deserves a little treat.

That bit turned my stomach for some reason. Oh, it’s not that I dislike sourdough, just, I don’t know, a whole loaf seems excessive.

Read the rest here.

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Great White attack on teenage surfer forces authorities to close stretch of NSW coastline as state government redeploys hundreds of miles of shark nets!

The mystical communion between Great Whites and surfers continues!

A couple of mornings ago, a teen surfer was hit by a Great White at Avoca Beach, the very same stretch of sand where former world number seven Ace Buchan is trying to offload his beloved beach house for three-mill plus. 

(The selling agent wasn’t wrong when he described the joint as, “The perfect example of a gorgeous family home situated on one of the finest streets and sought-after neighbourhoods in Avoca Beach.”)

Anyway, the kid, no name or age given, was bitten on the hand, went home and called the ambos who took him to the local hozzy where he was discharged shortly after. 

The sharks was quickly identified by as a Great White.

“NSW DPI shark biologists have assessed photographs of the teenager’s injuries and surfboard and have determined the bite indentations are indicative of a white shark,” a spokesperson for The NSW Department of Primary Industries said. 

As you’d expect, Avoca Beach and surrounds were automatically shuttered as drones flew overhead, looking for the black stain of a Great White swaying feverishly in its waters. 

The attack, real minor, although I ain’t in a rush to have a Great White attached to the end of my arm, came one day before the NSW government decided, against a groundswell of opinion, to redeploy shark nets across 51 beaches from Newcastle to Wollongong. 

A lot of people ain’t into nets ‘cause they’re a dumb, blunt instrument, killing Whites, sure, but also mowing through plenty of happy mammals,  turtles, dolphins and so on. 

In 2021-22, 376 marine animals got ‘emselves tangled in the nets, most of ‘em what they call “non-target” creatures like rays and turtles, even a humpback whale.

Roughly, a third of ‘em survived the experience. 

The Department of Primary Industries reported 28 Whites, 12 Bulls and 11 Tigers were put out of commission by the nets.

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Italo (pictured) skating through museum.
Italo (pictured) skating through museum.

Surfing’s first gold medal winner Italo Ferreira inspires masses by erecting museum to self featuring World Surf League trophies, singlets and large scale photographs of iconic glories!

Stoke-ed for the win.

When you finally come into your own, riches flowing, public adequately appreciating what you have long known (i.e. that you are great) what is the very first thing that you will do? Buy mother a home? Boring. Buy girlfriend a fancy car? Environmentally unchill. Children a future? The world is officially ending in 2033.

Self a museum?

Well here we go.

And Italo Ferreira, world’s first Olympic surfing gold medalist, World Surf League champion, inspiration for the just-around-the-corner Final’s Day has, once again, shown the way. Examine a recent clip of the Brazilian star skateboarding around the Museu de Italo Ferriera.

Here you can find Ferreira contest trophies, Ferreira contest singles, photographs blown large of Ferreira in various states of iconic victory.

And nothing else because there is, also, nothing else at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona except Picasso. Nothing else at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh except Andy Warhol.

Progressive.

Now.

The future (ending 2033).

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Kai Lenny (pictured) in Surfline twenty foot plus barrel.
Kai Lenny (pictured) in Surfline twenty foot plus barrel.

Surfline launches revolutionary big-wave surfing event series titled “Twenty Foot Plus” greatly confusing World Surf League Fans: “Wait… aren’t all Championship Tour events already 20 foot plus?”

Lower Trestles.

Fans of professional surfing at its very highest level were thrown into great confusion, yesterday, with the announcement of a new big-wave event “activated” by Surfline. Titled “Twenty Foot Plus,” promises to “chronicle the world’s best big-wave surfers in the heaviest waves on Earth. And on the very best days, Surfline will broadcast the action live, from multiple angles, in ways guaranteed to take it all next level.”

Exciting, but, World Surf League enthusiasts immediately began scratching their heads, wondering if they had somehow already missed the show. Surfline, as you know, is the official forecasting partner for the aforementioned League and, regularly, declares that swells for the events are certain to reach at least twenty feet.

“We wanted to put our careers in our own hands,” notable big wave stud Jamie Mitchell told the website. “We’ve got a bunch of surfers and we’re heading in the right direction. We want to write our own path for big-wave surfing. I would expect big, different, more creative things that maybe haven’t been seen before. I want to see a young guy like Luca Padua, for example, have a gateway to a professional career in big-wave surfing. I want these young girls coming up to see a career path as well — that’s what we’re setting out to do.”

Might Mitchell, Padua, Koa Rothman, Kai Lenny et. al. have already surfed a stunning heat at the Oi Rio Pro or Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach that was simply missed?

Is Filipe Toledo a big-wave surfer?

As die-hard professional surfing aficionados go back into the 2022 contest vault looking for signs of Mark Healy there are, currently, more questions than answers.

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