Rage percolates.

What can be written about Kelly Slater that has not already been? That he enjoys nose walking snowboards? That his girlfriend is Chinese? Old news, all of it, as the world’s greatest surfer has had his life combed over so greatly, with such relish, that every hidden truth is public, every step, over the course of 50+ years, accounted for.

Part of it is due the fact that Slater is not media averse. While he has a famous penchant for blocking those sporting journalists he does not like, he spreads himself wide before others and shares innermost secrets with ease.

Part of it is due the fact that he is 50+ and has been under the burning klieg light for the vast majority of it.

It could be thought that Slater will surf into his 60s, 70s, 80s and do so extremely publicly though a new challenger has reared his head and stolen the GOAT’s thunder.

Namely, Seiichi Sano.

The diminutive Japanese man decided his life needed challenges, around 80 years of age, and so he climbed Mt. Fuji and took up surfing.

Now almost 90, The Guinness Book of World Records has officially recognized him as the “world’s oldest male surfer.”

“I think it would be interesting to try to surf until I’m 100,” he told the Associated Press. “I think I take better care of myself when I have goals like this. Even now, I take better care of myself than I did before.”

Slater is certainly at home seething right now, imagining some way he might steal Sano’s thunder. Dreaming of ways to shade the elderly gentleman.

Remember when Joel Parkinson dared announce his retirement?

In any case, I’d imagine that Slater will, himself, now claim that he is already 100.

He surfs against Jack Robinson and some unknown at the upcoming Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach.

Maybe “event seed #36” is World Surf League Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer.

Worldwide Look At Me Tour rolling on.

Saving the youth.

Australia is an undeniably wonderful country floating, there, below the equator. An undeniably wonderful cuisine of meat pies, undeniably wonderful national costume featuring Bintang t-shirts, undeniably wonderful soundtrack set to the soothing melodies of Kylie Minogue.

And, of course, there is the surf. Such variety of wave and water temperature, almost each fronted by a surf lifesaving club wherein members can sit in plastic chairs and eat meat pies either before or after a dip in the ocean. Being undeniably wonderful, one of them just north of Adrian Buchan’s Avoca Beach has very progressively decided to enact a 100% ban on nudity.

No naked in changing rooms.

No naked in the shower.

According to The Guardian, one naughty swimmer, Nada Pantle, dared to change from swimsuit to clothing and got slapped with a threatened “disciplinary action.”

Another, Wendy Farley, got drilled for rinsing off sans attire.

Both received sternly worded letter reading, “The club is a family friendly environment and at that nudity is not acceptable. Should you continue to ignore the rules, you will be subject to disciplinary action, and/or … termination of your membership.”

Yikes.

While Pantle felt “body shamed” by the notice and Farley thought it was sending the wrong message to young women, the chief executive of the club, Jon Harkness, stood firm.

“The purpose is to protect young people,” he said. “They all potentially use those shower facilities.”

Europeans, long used to being au naturel basically everywhere, got wind of the situation, stuck their wieners right where they didn’t belong and criticized the new rules, declaring, “We got mixed saunas. Any public shower (public pool, sports club, gym etc) is an open plan and you definitely see naked people while changing … A naked body is only indecent if you teach it to be indecent.”

Harkness, brave and bold, stood firm.

“Nobody inferred that. We were purely asking (the offending women) to follow the rules to constantly be modest within changeroom facilities.”

It is unknown if Torquay’s surf and lifesaving club will adopt the zero nudity policy ahead of the upcoming Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach but here’s to hoping.

"Insanity!"

Talk about rubbing salt into a wound. Days ago, Wai Kai Commercial Development announced that the “world’s largest deep standing wave” being built in Ewa Beach, on the glorious isle of Oahu, was officially filled with water, 1.7 million gallons of fresh, delicious, H2o, and ready to polka. Delighted tourists, who flew from across the world, shrieked with delight as they pushed through gate, towels and soft-topped surfboards in hand, thrilled to wiggle and giggle.

A problem?

Well.

The island is currently experiencing a major water crisis thanks to depleted aquifers laced with forever chemicals.

Ernest Lau, manager and chief engineer of the Board of Water Supply, described the opening as “unfortunate” in an interview with CBS News but said there was nothing his team could do as wave pools have not been expressly forbidden.

“The wave pool, that’s a sore spot for our community,” he said. “And we’re learning from that. It is going to use a lot of fresh water to fill the pool. And every five years, they’re going to have to change that water in the pool, so it is a large use of fresh water periodically.” Lau added that developers told him using seawater or recycled wastewater instead “was not an option they really could handle.”

While the developers have vowed amazing World Surf League-esque sustainability initiatives, including plans to become “Sustainable Tourism and Outdoors Kit for Evaluation” certified and possibly have Connor O’Leary come plant little bushes, it has not been enough to smooth the feathers of angry locals.

“They’re opening the largest wave pool on the island of Oahu in a water crisis,” local resident and water rights activist Healani Sonoda-Pale declared. “…They’re 100 feet away from families who don’t have access to clean drinking water. And there you see the dichotomy of the haves and the have-nots of how industry will continue, despite the fact that their neighbors are suffering.”

But at least those have-nots will get to gaze upon a German import. Like a fine sausage, the wave technology comes from Europe’s engineering capital and was inspired by Munich’s famous river wave The Eisbachwelle.

“That’s where the basic idea came from. Long ago when I came to Munich to study, we’d meet daily at the river to surf. And the idea was born in my head that one should develop the technology so it can be built everywhere. Not just in Munich in the river but everywhere in the world, independent of the river, because everybody has so much fun surfing there,” wave founder Rainer Klimaschewski told Reuters.

So, to sum up, all that fresh water being used up is the wound and Germans importing waves to Hawaii is the salt.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

What do you think?