Love island!

2022 is careening to its official conclusion but not before piling another giddy shock on surf fans still reeling from the latest blast. Days ago, as you know, Lupita Nyong’o made her relationship with Selema Masekela “Instagram Official” by posting a series of cute outfit changes. The extremely talented Academy Award winning actress and the surf broadcaster had officially eclipsed the heat surrounding Gisele Bündchen and Kelly Slater thus making them surfing-adjacent’s most powerful couple.

Until, that is, days ago when it was revealed that Jody Sweetin had married Mescal Wasilewski.

Best known for playing lovable Stephanie Tanner on the hit television program Full House, Sweetin has long been considered an American darling. Wasilewski, of course, the brother of surf broadcaster Strider.

The two officially got married in the summer but surf fans are generally slow to this kind of news therefore the giddy shock.

Sweetin told People magazine, “We intertwine so well. He’s funny and smart, and he’s my biggest supporter. It’s really magical.”

Adorable.

With the marriage, Sweetin and Wasilewski’s status supersedes Nyong’o and Masekela’s simple dating and a new surfing-adjacent most powerful couple is crowned.

A dizzying game of intrigue.

With three, or such, days left in the year will there be any more surprises?

Griffin Colapinto’s uncle and Rebecca Romijn?

World Surf League chief strategy officer Dave Prodan and Heidi Klum?

I saw her at Disneyland, recently, and though she was with a boyfriend I feel Prodan could sweep her off feet.

More as the story develops.

Chaos.

Bali, or the island of the gods, is a very magical place and if you have not visited before, I would very much suggest. There are many places to stay, sights to see, waves to surf though, it must be noted, raggedy hordes of hopped up tourists have become a serious problem.

These menaces, often dressed in Bali-branded merchandise, zig and zag on scooters, vomit into the gutters after drinking mushroom milkshakes and attempt to fulfill misguided childhood dreams of “learning to surf.”

The “learning to surf” bit has become such an issue that even the South China Morning Post has taken notice.

Founded in Hong Kong in 1903, the broadsheet was the official mouthpiece of British colonial rule, then the Rupert Murdoch empire until being sold to the Alibaba Group. While these days it suffers some criticism for promoting China’s soft power abroad, its journalist Dave Smith spared no disdain for Bali’s scourge of beginner kook scum.

Describing one incident, Smith wrote:

I get a very clear picture of what they are talking about when I paddle out to Medewi’s popular “point break” at high tide. The waves break slowly and consistently and are at times more than 100 metres in length – perfect for beginners. And therein lies the problem.

A few minutes after I get into the water, I see a beginner try to stand up on her surfboard before being wiped out.
Unfortunately, she didn’t properly attach her surfboard’s leg rope to her ankle and it comes undone – a crime in the surf world because it turns any surfboard into a dangerous waterborne projectile. And sure as death and taxes, it hits someone in the head – and that someone happens to be a local.

He doesn’t hold back from voicing his discontent.

While no punches were thrown, there is a heavy suggestion that there should be as various Austrian locals are interviewed, declaring, “When conditions are right, you can ride waves for up to one-and-a-half minutes here. (Before the pandemic) there would be maybe 20 surfers out on the waves – mostly locals and a couple of blow-ins from Kuta. But today there can be up to 100 surfers on any given day. And they’re all hungry for waves. They forget the rules.”

What should be done to help them remember those rules?

You tell me and the Austrian local.

Death by a thousand turns.

And here we are near the very end of another year with all of its ups and downs wrapped in a nice bow. Did you have a favorite surf moment? Maybe champion Filipe Toledo’s brave performance at very scary Teahupo’o enjoying a front row seat while two 50-year-olds swapped kegs? What about Stephanie Gilmore climbing from basement to penthouse at Final’s Day?

But a worst moment?

Possibly the announcement that China’s Great Wall Motors had extended its relationship with the World Surf League in order to dump even more carbon spewing trucks and SUVs into landfills?

Or the re-inclusion of Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch back onto the 2023 tour?

I’d have to say that really did it for me. Now, I have been to Surf Ranch a total of five times, taking in a Surf Ranch Pro along the way, and while the wave is undeniably fun to surf, it is an absolute bore to watch being competed upon. The sections present singular canvases for our heroes and heroines to make the same turn, stall, barrel. The length absolutely sleep inducing.

Surf fans revolted as one when WSL CEO Erik Logan, and gang, disclosed that Surf Ranch would be May’s official entry and while the cries of anguish may not have pierced the patented Wall of Positive Noise, signs are pointing to Slater, himself, being affected.

In a minutes ago Instagram Story, the eleven-time world champion declared, “Imagine thinking cows farting is worse than 6 billion lbs of pesticides sprayed a year.”

As you certainly know, one of the many critiques of his Surf Ranch is the ever-lingering scent of bovine toot. I don’t know which championship tour venue features 6 billion lbs of pesticides sprayed a year but would agree with Cocoa Beach’s first son on that count. The smell becomes innocuous after a short while. What I can’t second, though, is the monotonous dull of the Surf Ranch Pro.

I’d, personally, take both cow farts and pesticides over watching Gabriel Medina ride the plow for one more year and he is as good as they come.

Death by a thousand turns.