Sitting champion Filipe Toledo in the crosshairs?

Of all sporting fans on the face of this earth, would you agree with me that surfing fans are the most long-suffering? What with Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch Pro coming around basically every year, World Surf League CEO Erik Logan’s ginning up the business with ludicrous statements, a five month off-season and a Super Bowl at Lower Trestles, surf fans really put up with a whole ton.

Surfline.

But here we are, with professional surfing at its very highest level ready to kick off this month begging for and dribs or drabs, pouring over the social media accounts of World Surf League principals, desperately trying to read the tea leaves.

Jessi Miley-Dyer, Senior Vice President of Tours, Head of Competition, for example, just posted an extremely cryptic one, announcing the “ins and outs” for the 2023 Championship Tour Season.

In:

Confidence as a choice, neon wetsuits, leaving your kindle in a plane seat every three trips, cryptic Taylor Swift lyrics, hairbrushes, friends to take on the world with, purpose based goals.

Out:

Twitter, owning more than one leg rope at one time, apologizing, going goblin mode, three fins the same size in your board, gluten, replying to trolls on the internet, goals related to your appearance.

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A post shared by Jessi Miley-Dyer (@jessmileydyer)

So much to ponder.

Is “confidence as a choice” a clear shot over Filipe Toledo’s bow?

Is “purposed based goals” a shot over BeachGrit’s?

What do you see?

Help, please.

Surfline.

Oh but you certainly know the fable of that boy who cried wolf. Aesop’s story of woe has been so widely told as to now be shorthand for someone who fibs, exaggerates, outright lies so often as to no longer be believed, which brings us directly to the official forecasting partner of the World Surf League.

Surfline, based in Huntington Beach, California, has long drawn some ire for both sticking cameras up at waves thereby inviting hordes of freshies and over-exaggerating “swell” events, leading to depression and even more hordes of freshies, but the work it has done with the aforementioned WSL has become the stuff of legend.

Whether the path was forced or chosen, Surfline began delivering cartoonish reports ahead of World Surf League Championship Tour events, doubling wave heights, cancelling wind and weather. Fans of professional surfing, waking up expecting 17-foot Bells, have been met with 3-foot Winkipop etc. for years now and so, hours ago, when Surfline declared “bombing” west swell will deliver largest surf California has seen in fifteen years, many grumpy locals are in literal disbelief.

Places to catch beasts, the surf forecaster writes, include Ventura, El Porto, Cardiff, Blacks and Ocean Beach.

But do you live in one of those places? Are you waxing your gun or guffawing in your soup?

World Surf League CEO Erik Logan, a true believer, is certainly preparing his step-up. El Porto is his local and the site of a recent amazing display of wildly below average skill.

If the “bomb” turns out to be a sparkler, maybe still worth turning in.

Fashion police.

There are many things to fear when dipping a toe into the ocean waters and more so in South Africa. Chilly sensations, big kelp, man-eating Great White sharks, Afrikaans but never before have “baby seals” fallen onto the list, or at least until days ago.

For then, and there, on Clifton 4th Beach, just off Cape Town, a li’l fella went right after a boy wearing a lycra swim shirt before swimming out and eating surfers in the lineup.

The entire shocking episode was caught on TikTok and begins as any video featuring a baby seal should, with the filmer declaring, “Ahhhh cutie,” as the shiny buddy scoots across the sand. Except then, out of nowhere, the adorable creature turns on a boy splashing around, minding his own business, and begins violently attacking. The boy, surprised, begins running in circles and is then pulled under while grown men jump into action and grown women shriek loudly.

After prying the former “cutie” off the boy, things appear to go back to normal but then the lifeguard’s whistle begins to sound and we see that the baby seal has made its way into the lineup and is feasting on surfers.

More shrieks.

And scene.

According to experts, seal attacks on humans are extremely rare and no one knows, for certain, what caused this one. I will say, though, while lycra swim shirts certainly don’t deserve wanton violence, I have always found them very gauche as fashion pieces.

Like, uncool at any age.

@thesicilianwifey Seal Attacks twice! #cliftonbeach #sealattack #capetownbeach ♬ original sound – The Sicilian Wifey