Insane scenes in California as vulnerable adult learners on Costco Wavestorms attempt to tackle biggest swell in fifty years, “A red search-and-rescue helicopter hovers overhead. A surfer is missing. I think about the Wavestorms from earlier in the day”

“We are all the idiots,” my friend writes in a text. “We just don’t know it until our luck runs out.”

There’s a sound the big waves make. Sometimes it seems like something we feel as much as we hear.

If you live in Hawaii or an exposed coastline, you hear it so often, it must become so much aural wallpaper.

But here in Santa Barbara tucked under the curve of Point Conception, it’s more of a rarity to hear that deep pounding of waves slamming into sand or the sharp crack of a reef exploding.

Big is relative, of course.

And here, the big swells are often more interesting for the unique places they light up than for the sheer size of the waves.

But this time, the forecasts look completely unhinged. We watch as an outer buoy hits 41 feet, the biggest we’ve ever seen it. Something wicked this way comes.

Thursday, I ride out around lunchtime to have a look around.

The Sprinter vans are few and far between. Instead an armada of pickup trucks, shells over the bed, two guys in the cab, swarm the nearby streets.

Out on the pier, the parking lot is full. I overhear a guy on the phone through an open window.

“We’ve been driving around all day like idiots looking for a place to surf. We’re in Santa Barbara now.”

Like everyone else on the pier, they’re watching the spot with the breakwater and the flags, the one that’s in every video. Like everyone else, they’ve seen the forecasts and felt the hype. They’re dreaming of perfect barrels.

They’ve come to the wrong place.

Disordered swell funnels into the harbor and brushes the pier. I watch as a surfer drops into a peak at the harbor mouth near the green buoy that marks the starboard side of the channel. It doesn’t barrel. Instead, he wrangles the open face, scarred by the storm’s violence and twisted by the winds.

The biggest sets pass by the harbor altogether and continue down the coast. I remember a long-timer once told me a story about catching a wave on the east side of the pier and riding it a mile or so down the coast. It sounded improbable at the time, the kind of trick memory might play on a man.

Now I can see how that ride might have been possible.

I cruise down the beach and pass through a parking lot littered with sand and kelp, the sure signs of a high tide and a big swell. Normally, there aren’t really even waves on this part of the beach. I look out to overhead sets, brown with churned up sand. Even from the beach, I can see how the long period swell is moving water deep beneath the surface.

It’s anything but playful.

A pair of guys walk down the beach carrying Wavestorms under their arms.

I laugh.

Where there’s a wave, there’s a Wavestorm.

They look excited and optimistic. The Harvest buoy off Point Conception reads 23.3ft, 18 seconds, 283 degrees. The ocean laughs at your optimism.

“We are all the idiots,” my friend writes in a text. “We just don’t know it until our luck runs out.”

Late afternoon, I ride out into the golden light of California in winter. The low tide has done nothing to slow the swell. In fact, it’s bigger now and the angle has shifted more to the west: 25.9ft, 18 seconds, 276 degrees.

I join the crowd on the breakwater.

A surfer pulls into a barrel, easily double-overhead. It slams shut. It’s a brief moment of glory with a tumultuous ending. Another gets rocketed over the falls.

Out on the horizon I can see the waves feather on a reef I didn’t know was there. The light catches the spray, fragile and ethereal, as the wind blows it to the sky. Closer to shore, the waves slam into the sand, dark and heavy.

Across the way, emergency vehicles gather on the cliff, lights flashing. A red search-and-rescue helicopter hovers overhead as a pair of jetskis trace ever-widening circles. A surfer is missing. I think about the Wavestorms from earlier in the day. I think about how we’re all the idiots when our luck runs out.

A crew of local groms gather on the sand to paddle out. A few ride old boards they clearly expect to break. They make it during a lull and the current easily pushes them down the length of the breakwater. The biggest waves are out in front of the yacht club, rather than in the usual spot. The long period swell behaves in surprising ways.

Two friends compare notes.

Did you check anywhere else? They list off the spots between here and Ventura. Too big. Yah, that was too big, too. One is holding a narrow gun-shape, roughly 7’0.” He understood the assignment.

Not everyone did.

I see a keel-fin fish with a beautiful gloss coat. No leash. Perfect for a clean day at Rincon, the board looks spectacularly out of place here. A finless 88 walks by, followed by a round-nose midlength. Idly, I wonder how that worked out for them. Probably not super well.

I run into a long-time local. Get any good ones, he asks. Oh sure, I say. I rode one all the way from here to Casino. We watch as someone gets smashed in a close-out. Looks fun, he says, rolling his eyes. More friends, more laughter. It’s a small town, and everyone is here.

A well-known surf photographer saunters by with a camera casually in tow. He stops to chat with a friend who packed a massive closeout earlier in the afternoon. It was like a house fell in on you, the photographer says. His friend is the kind of guy who can take whatever the ocean hands to him and go back for more. He has the instincts that only come with years in the water, and later he scores a good one.

The sun sinks lower.

Falling below the palm trees, a perfect circle, it spins a dream of California. There it is, the image screened on endless t-shirts and postcards. Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.

A nearby radio crackles.

One of the boat owners from the harbor has his radio tuned to the emergency comms channel.

“Surfer found.”

It’s the first time he’s heard that message, he says.

On the cliff, the lights continue to flash.

You can travel the world and see big, beautiful swell just about any time you like, it’s true. The internet makes it all so easy now.

But, there’s still something magical about seeing your local, everyday ocean shapeshift into something entirely unexpected. What a surprise to see deep, cavernous barrels in a place that rarely has swell at all.

Someone slides into a barrel, and miraculously makes it out. The crowd erupts in cheers.

At every wipeout — and there are so, so many — comes a chorus of groans. The crowd on the breakwater is fully engaged.

Beers crack open.

Did you see that?

Holy shit.

One more set! Let’s see just one more set.

All the forecast hype and the nerves, all the fears of missing out and the driving around, it’s easy to get carried away by those things and forget the whole point of it all.

Standing on the breakwater, laughing with friends, watching the swell march through, hooting the good rides, it feels like there’s no better place to be.

The ocean has a way of reminding us what’s real.

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“Bomb” swell arrives in Southern California spiking wave heights and drawing severe warnings from Surfline: “Bottom line is that it’s Very Dangerous at all areas so really think hard before you attempt a paddle out!”

Get It!

The “bomb” swell has arrived. Southern California surfers who, days ago, were in literal disbelief after World Surf League forecasting partner Surfline had predicted waves reaching never-before-seen heights across region are, right now, eating crow and/or drinking salt water.

Blacks: 15 – 18 ft.

Swamis: 8 – 12 ft.

Huntington Beach Pier: 8 – 12 ft.

World Surf League CEO Erik Logan’s El Porto: 10 – 15 ft.

First Point Malibu: A celebrity comfortable 4 – 6 ft.

Sunny skies, light winds and it might be thought that Surfline staffers would be relishing a rare victory. Parading around various cities and towns pounding chests, insisting that Nostradamus ain’t shit compared to Kevin Wallis. But those thinking such things would be wrong.

Ever erring on the side of abundant caution, those who might want to test their mettle against nature’s finest were met with stern warnings.

“Massive surf is hitting all areas this morning with Over Head to Double Over Head waves rolling thru many areas,” penned North County Surfline advisor Bird. “Winter focal spots can see waves even larger than that. A 6’+ high tide is further adding to deep ocean surges that are spilling in to the lower lying car parks and breaking over some of the structured areas and piers. Winds are light offshore. Bottom line is that it’s Very Dangerous at all areas so really think hard before you attempt a paddle out. If you want to go watch the action stay extremely clear of those areas that can get flushed out by the rogue Super Sets.”

Will vulnerable adult learners heed the warning?

Will the Donald Trump-esque random capitalizations of Over Head, Double Over Head, Very Dangerous and Super Sets add the proper gravitas to keep them away?

David Lee Scales and I discussed confidence and entitlement outweighing reality in these the post-Covid surfing days of our lives. We also spent time wondering if vision boards are an important tool for personal success. I think you will enjoy the episode much and should listen whilst preparing to Charge The Bomb.

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After the arrest of Guzmán, who, authorities claim, was moving up to five tons of fentanyl a month into the US and who also allegedly ordered informers killed, as well as a popular Mexican singer who refused to sing at his wedding, the Sinaloa capital, Culiacán, has gone up in flames, literally. 

Surfers trapped in Mexico as civil war erupts in Sinaloa over arrest of alleged fentanyl trafficker and kid of drug lord El Chapo, “We’re hiding out in our apartment with no water or food wondering what the night will bring down!”

"I’m surfing like Apocalypse Now come (too close) to life."

There’s considerable heat on the streets of the Mexican state of Sinaloa tonight following the arrest of Ovidio Guzmán, alleged major mover of Fentanyl into the US and son of the wonderfully cinematic drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The Americanos have been trying like hell to get El Chapo’s kid extradited back to the US since 2017 when the old boy got life in a Florida pen for “drug trafficking with intent to distribute, conspiracy association, organized crime against health, money laundering, homicide, illegal possession of firearms, kidnapping, and murder in Chicago, Miami, New York, and other cities.”

“It’s a reality that drugs destroy,” said El Chapo. “Unfortunately where I grew up, there’s no other way to survive.”

And, now, a five-mill reward offered by the US government has seemingly persuaded one brave soul to snitch on the kid. 

After the arrest of Guzmán, who, authorities claim, was moving up to five tons of fentanyl a month into the US and who also allegedly ordered informers killed, as well as a popular Mexican singer who refused to sing at his wedding, the Sinaloa capital, Culiacán, has gone up in flames, literally. 

The Sinaloa cartel have set up road blocks all over the joint, they’re firing at Mex air force planes with 50-caliber machine guns, cars and trucks are on fire and new arrivals at the airport are huddling under their seats.

And, just a couple of hours south, in surf-soaked Mazatlan, surfers have been told not to move from wherever they’re staying.

In a missive sent to the noted surf journalist Ben Marcus one wrote:

“I’m down in Mazatlan surfing at Olas Altas beach when the Mexican federales captured cartel boss Ovidio Guzman this morning and the cartel goes into reprisal mode and Culiacan and Mazatlan are locked down; the city here is absolutely silent and deserted with choppers flying overhead—and I’m surfing like Apocalypse Now come (too close) to life.

“And now we’re hiding out in our apartment with no water or food wondering what the night will bring down. All a bit too weird. Hope you’re well!?”

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“The city council in their reasoning referenced BeachGrit articles three times, articles that you had written talking crap about the wavepool and the Slater technology. The city council is referencing your work and that’s part of the reason we got shut down!”

Bombshell text message reveals “outrageous and contagious” journalist responsible for Kelly Slater’s failed $250 million bid to build a wavepool and hundreds of houses in Palm Springs!

“The city council in their reasoning referenced BeachGrit articles three times!"

Three months ago, a bold plan to build a Kelly Slater wavepool surrounded by “hundreds of houses” in Palm Springs was unanimously shut down by La Quinta’s city council, “citing community concerns that the surf club would bring ‘the wrong element’ i.e. people still alive.”

“Concerns about building a wave tank during a historic drought were raised, though the developers promised it would take less water than neighboring golf courses,” reported BeachGrit. “The footprint was shrunk to alleviate stress but there was no alleviating the stress of ‘surfers’ coming to town.”

Now, it can be revealed that it was a raft of stories from shock jock Chas Smith that caused the project to be shelved.

In a podcast broadcast three days ago, the show’s host David Scales tells the story of one of the principal architects of the scheme texting Smith and writing,

“The city council in their reasoning referenced BeachGrit articles three times, articles that you had written talking crap about the wavepool and the Slater technology. The city council is referencing your work and that’s part of the reason we got shut down!”

Another anecdote from Scales, however, suggests the BeachGrit excuse is a red herring to cover for a plan that was unlikely to succeed in the first place.

 “A friend of mine, a potential investor,” says Scales, “sat through meetings, saw pitches, saw the financials, all the plans, said this thing is a pipe dream. The numbers are ridiculous. There’s no way they’re getting this funded. And, even if they do, no one sees a return. What they’re asking, the prices the homes need to sell for, and the fee people need to pay, are insane.” 

Chas Smith, who has fled to Park City, Utah, following the revelation, has been approached for comment.

My fav story from the series is BeachGrit commenter Hippy’s take on the project, “Palm Springs wedding planner reveals tragic flaw in Kelly Slater’s $250 million La Quinta wavepool and real estate gamble.” 

 

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Photo: @Marco Freire
Photo: @Marco Freire

47-year-old Brazilian “ride of the year” nominated surfer and Lucas Chumbo tow partner Marcio Freire dies at Nazaré after being towed to beach in cardiac arrest.

Tragedy.

Tragedy has struck the Portuguese big wave Nazaré hours ago as local media is reporting that the Brazilian surfer Marcio Freire has died after a heavy wipeout.

According to the captain of the Port of Nazaré Mário Lopes Figueiredo, Freire was immediately fetched from the water and “towed to the beach by a colleague on a jet ski, already in cardio-respiratory arrest.”

The rescue crew immediately raced Freire to the beach where he was met by an ambulance and medics. The captain continued, “Unfortunately, none of the life support maneuvers were successful, and death was eventually declared on the spot.”

Freire becomes the first, registered, fatality at Nazaré.

The picturesque giant, which exploded onto the scene after Garrett McNamara first surfed it in 2011, has been flooded with those seeking fame and glory since. Multiple records have been recorded including the Guinness World Record for “highest wave ever surfed” by Sebastian Steudtner.

Freire was no thrill-seeking novice, having been in the running for a Ride of the Year award out at Jaws, where he frequently surfed.

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