Ch-ch-ch-changes.

BeachGrit is, as you know, an anti-depressive place where you can come and be amongst friends, learning about the love lives of surf-adjacent celebrities, how they intersect with Kelly Slater and, occasionally, receive hot real-estate advice. The stuff of flowery dreams. Wars and rumors of wars, economic or environmental collapse can momentarily be forgotten except, I suppose, today in the wake of a Washington Post hit piece declaring that iconic Northern California big wave Mavericks is on its way out the door due climate change.

Following the lantern-jawed Grant Washburn, who has been surfing Mavericks since it was “just a rumor,” the report discusses how the cliff ringing the beach is eroding at an alarming rate, crumbling and tumbling into the ocean below.

“You can argue the cause, but you can’t argue the beaches have receded,” Washburn told the outlet. “… People would say, ‘Oh, that’s a 100-year swell; you’re not going to see that again in your lifetime.’ And then like, a month later there would be another one. And it was like, huh? So either guys have the wrong name for this stuff or the scale is broken.”

I completely agree with the overuse of “100-year swell,” and cast an angrily squinted eye Surfline‘s way.

Cheryl Hapke, a coastal geologist who wrote a 2007 survey which declared Mavericks has the fastest eroding cliffs in the state, said, “These atmospheric rivers are problematic because it’s going to cause erosion to increase.”

But what of the wave itself? That cold monster that bubbles from the deep and horrifies?

Well, it breaks on a 5 million-year-old paleo seabed too far out to sea to be affected by cliff erosion though rising sea levels etc. may flatten the wave as it won’t be able to “feel” the reef anymore.

It has been one of the worst winters in memory, according to Washburn, with only a few surf-able days. “It’s kind of a weird setup where you want a storm but not right on you,” he said, adding, “Mavericks has seen some of the biggest waves that I think we ever recorded. But we couldn’t surf them.”

All very sad but silver lining? A grand opportunity for the World Surf League to send Connor O’Leary and Jadson Andre to Half Moon Bay in order to plant some small bushes?

Synergy.

Classic Notebook.

Ink on the Kelly Slater and Gisele Bündchen reunion obituary is not yet dry, lightly streaking down the paper like tears down surf fans’ cheeks, but that has not stopped the latter from re-dreaming big dreams. As you know, the Brazilian supermodel has been linked to a billionaire who earned money from his father’s real-estate cunning thus ending hope that she would reengage a man holding mere tens of millions even though that man happens to be an ex flame and also the best surfer in the world.

Hope springs, though, and, today, news is breaking that Cameron Diaz is set to retire from professional acting for the second time.

The Charlie’s Angels starlet, who came back from early retirement to act in a film with Jamie Foxx, reportedly had a “meltdown” on set and is finished with the whole business, sources citing her desire to be home with family instead of slaving for ten-hour days.

Well, surf fans are keenly aware that Diaz’s former… friend, Kelly Slater, will soon be on his way to Australia in order to face a retirement firing squad. The surf great, who retired in the mid-2000s and then again when Joel Parkinson did, will, like Diaz, be older and finished with work.

Diaz and Slater were photographed much after the blonde stunner split from then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake and the attraction was clear but harshly denied. “We’re just friends,” Slater told People Magazine, though the 11x World Champion is well-known for his head games.

Now, Diaz is currently married to musician Benji Madden, the two sharing a child, and Slater is claiming that, someday, he and longtime girlfriend Kalani Miller will become married but…

Might the two rekindle a healthy friendship that could grow into an even healthier friendship?

One of them caring for the other in a beautiful old folk’s home he or she has built by hand?

Have you never seen The Notebook?

Stop what you’re doing and watch now.

Cape Fear comes to Torquay.

Yesterday global surf fans rejoiced at the announcement that one of the precious wildcard slots for the upcoming Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach would be gifted to Owen Wright who declared he would use the moment to announce his retirement. The Olympic bronze medalist, and mainstay on the World Surf League Championship Tour, stated, “After my traumatic brain injury in 2015, my desire to prove to myself and the world that I could still be great and overcome this life-threatening incident inspired my recovery. Given my recent history with head injuries and concussions, competing at some of the heaviest waves on the planet is no longer in the best interest of my long-term health.I excelled in these conditions over my career, but the risks associated with this type of surfing are too significant for someone in my position, given my medical history.”

And while global surf fans were drying their eyes while fetching Owen Wright singlets from cedar-lined hope chests, the Championship Tour surfers, themselves, and especially those residing near the dreaded mid-year cut line, are quaking with fear.

Wright, himself, was one of the major names guillotined last year, given a proper head injury as it rolled from the blade and into the gutter. He was certainly having an off year but was not nearly incompetent, many good years appearing out ahead.

And you don’t imagine that revenge, a Cape Fear-style madness, has been percolating for an entire year?

Pictures tacked to the walls of one of his beautiful homes featuring World Surf League foes in crosshairs?

You certainly recall the 1962 thriller starring Robert Mitchum, remade in 1992 starring Robert Di Niro, wherein a very angry ex-con terrorizes the family of the public defender he believes responsible for his lengthy imprisonment.

Aye, aye, aye.

As a wildcard, he will come up against those in danger of The Widow including, possibly, Connor O’Leary, Matt McGillivray, Kanoa Igarashi, Kolohe Andino and one Kelly Slater.

How many skulls do you think Wright will carry with him into retirement?

The aforementioned greatest of all-time’s?