Happy days here again.

The jaw-dropping storylines continue to… drop now days after the World Surf League’s third Championship Tour stop, the poetically named MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal, has wrapped. You know that Caitlin Simmers created the beginning of history in winning her first CT event in three tries against veteran Courtney Conlogue. You also know that Joao Chianca, a dark horse favorite now in the light, smashed Australia’s Jack Robinson to hoist his first CT trophy after being culled off tour just last year.

Epic.

But what of the shapers, those brave men and men crafting sculptures under their very feet who have, for the first time, been recognized by the aforementioned World Surf League via the Vissla CT Shaper Rankings, much ignored on official channels but ballyhooed at announcement.

If you recall, the man or man who formed the winning board would get some glory and where do we currently stand?

Ahhh, as predicted Sharp Eye’s Marco Zouvi is well out in front thanks to stellar boards, no doubt, but also the likes of Jack Robinson and fantastic Filipe Toledo who slide them. “Mayhem” Matt Biolos is second, thanks to the likes of Carissa Moore, and Australia’s Darren Handley is third which leads us to a resurgent Channel Islands.

The Santa Barbara co. was a mainstay at the top of the podium during those magical Kelly Slater years. Al Merrick and the 11x World Champion seemed to have a bond forged in the heavens. Well, time and tide wait for no man. Slater left to found Slater Designs, Merrick retired and surf fans wondered if the iconic hexagon would ever return to glory.

Like a phoenix rising, it certainly has. Britt Merrick took the reigns and quietly went about carving excellence which reached a crescendo underneath Chianca’s feet in Portugal.

Note the logo placement on the Brazilian’s winning round tail CI Pro (above).

Same same as Slater’s from the good times.

Happy days here again etc.

Spicy.

I’ll be completely honest. I have never watched the reality television program Vanderpump Rules nor know anything about it, where it’s set, what the rules are etc., but news of an affair between stars has dominated my news feed over the past few weeks. Apparently a man named Tom Sandoval, who may be a bartender, was dating a woman named Ariana Madix, occupation unknown, for many years though she just found naughty pictures, texts etc. on his phone from another woman named Raquel Leviss, occupation also unknown.

Leviss, who first appeared in season three, had a “scandalous” fling with Sandoval’s best friend Tom Schwartz, occupation unknown, who had just broken up with his wife of five years Katie Maloney, occupation unknown. The coupling was frowned upon because Maloney had a hard and fast rule that Schwartz was not allowed to “hook up” with anyone in the “friend group.”

Well, that whole business was going on while Sandoval was making naughty FaceTimes with Leviss. After the affair became public, Sandoval took to social media to declare, “I want to first and foremost apologize to everyone I’ve hurt through this process. Most of all I want to apologize to Ariana. I made mistakes, I was selfish, and made reckless decisions that hurt somebody I love. No one deserves to feel that pain so traumatically and publicly.”

Except his true feelings of guilt and remorse are now being called into question.

Eagle-eye’d fans have spotted that Sandoval and Leviss both wear Gerry Lopez’s iconic lightning bolt logo, in necklace form, as a secret message to each other.

According to Matt Warshaw’s must-have Encyclopedia of Surfing:

(Lightning Bolt ) Surfboard and surf accessories company founded in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1970, by Gerry Lopez and Jack Shipley, and turned into an industry powerhouse with the help of California surfwear executive Duke Boyd. Lopez and Shipley were both working at a Honolulu shop called Surf Line Hawaii in early 1970; the 21-year-old Lopez was on the cusp of becoming the universally acknowledged master at Pipeline, and had been shaping surfboards since 1968; Shipley was an ace Surf Line Hawaii salesman and a surf competition judge. They joined up and bought the old Hobie Surfboards outlet on nearby Kapiolani Boulevard in the summer of 1970. Lopez had been using a colored lightning bolt emblem on his boards since 1969, and since the dark-haired goofyfooter was going to be the new company’s one and only marketing tool, they named the new shop Lightning Bolt Surfboards. (Hansen Surfboards in California had introduced a short-lived Lopez-designed Lightning Bolt model in early 1970.)

That lightning bolt emblem sure was a good one and it is sad to see it tarnished by forbidden love.

While you are here, what is your favorite surf logo of all time?

Volcom’s Stone?

Quiksilver’s mountain and wave?

Body Glove’s hand?

Rip Curl’s squiggly words inside circle?

Many options.

"This isn't real, is it?"

There is much that divides us, seemingly more all the time. Language, left/right positioning, opinion regarding transgendered athletes and their participation in sport which makes the just-wrapped MEO Rip Curl Portugal Pro that much more endearing. Oh, the third event on the World Surf League Championship Tour schedule was not without alienation. Absurd crowd size was viciously argued over as well as the commentary value of Jesse Mendes.

One moment, though, united everyone.

Portugal’s President Marcelo Nuno Duarte Rebelo de Sousa taking in the action, live, from the stands.

While his politics certainly cause some to frown, his face was the universal visage of “person watching competitive professional surfing for the very first time.”

The same face made by grandmas in Chicago, co-workers in London, nieces in Timbuktu and nephews in Shangai.

Squinty eyes, mouth lightly agape, utter confusion spreading from ear to ear.

One silent thought repeating in a mind quickly draining.

“This isn’t real, is it?”

Yes, for one brief and glorious moment, President Rebelo de Sousa was all of our mothers.

Viva Portugal.