“He got out of his room naked… He hit almost everyone who was on the street.”

An Australian surfer who until a couple of nights back was enjoying the ripe fruits of the Mentawais is facing a helluva storm after being arrested following a wild melee outside the exclusive Moon Beach resort on the Sumatran island of Simeulue. 

Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, who is twenty-three and from the Queensland holiday hamlet Noosa, is “accused of an alcohol-fuelled, naked rampage outside a beachside resort that left a passer-by in hospital and prompted an angry mob of residents to threaten to burn down the hotel.”

The island’s head cop Jatmiko said Risky-Jones had been drinking vodka before emerging from his room naked. 

“The security man attempted to stop him but got hit at the neck and fell down,” alleged Jatmiko. “He then went on to the street and disturbed passers-by. He hit almost everyone who was on the street.”

Risby-Jones is also accused of hitting a motorbike rider and throwing the moto onto him after he fell into a gutter. The resulting leg wound, says the cop, needed fifty stitches,. 

In retaliation, furious onlookers then tried to burn down the resort. 

“The people got angry and almost put the resort on fire. Luckily, local police and the village head managed to calm down the mob.”

Now, up here in northern Sumatra Islamic law, aka Sharia, rules in morality matters which means happy homosexuals, wild swingers and boozers can, and often are, publicly caned. 

Because the motorbike rider’s wife accused Risby-Jones of violence and not drinking, his case is being investigated under Article 351 of the Indonesian penal code, which carries a max of five years in jail. 

Howevs, authorities haven’t ruled out investigating the boozing angle.

Two years ago, three men were given forty lashes of the cane for drinking in public, although non-Muslims can choose Sharia, which is swift, if cruel, or Indonesia’s penal code which, like most legal processes, can be a labyrinth that’ll drag you and your credit card into the darkest hole for months, years.

Sometimes better to take your lickings and move on.

The phallus rises thick, red and arching!

Under gloomy skies and only one hour after putting Joao Chianca to the guillotine in the final seconds of their semi, the Brazilian Gabriel Medina has stormed into world title contention after a dominant performance over Griffin Colapinto at the Margaret River Pro. 

Like a German tank crunching through straw huts on its way across a border, Medina was untroubled by difficult six-to-eight-foot waves that left most of his peers, although not Griffin Colapinto let’s be said, looking maladroit. 

Colapinto had seized his place in the final when he overthrew two-time Margaret River Pro champ John John Florence in a coup d’état so bloody it shocked surf fans.

The win puts twenty-nine-year-old Medina, who hadn’t placed better, or worse, than ninth in the previous four events, into seventh spot on the ratings and with a shot at claiming his fourth world title in September.

Colapinto’s second-placing, meanwhile, gifts Colapinto a place on Finals Day, which is held at his home beach Lower Trestles, something that has eluded the twenty four year old in the previous two seasons. 

“It’s a contest I’ve always wanted to win,” said Medina of his seventeenth tour victory. “I’m always struggling to make heats here.”

Next event is the loathed Surf Ranch Pro, a contest that Medina has won twice and placed second in three starts.

Be careful what you wish for…

After what feels like a never-ending series of near-fatal accidents around Byron featuring leashless hipsters on longboards belting people in the head, its council has unanimously voted to enforce the wearing of legropes by law. 

Yesterday, councillor Cate Coorey, a progressive who says “we must heal and restore this land and plan for a climate disrupted future” put forward the motion that would see cops roaming the beach ready to sting the leashless with on-the-spot fines of $75 or $1100 if you want to take it to court. 

“This is not all about being punitive,” said Coorey. “Some have said, ‘surfers are a rebellious community and they won’t support it’, but they nearly all do because they nearly all wear leg ropes,” 

There’s gonna be signs on the beach and rangers on the sandy beat although the council’s legal advice is it might be a little tricky to make a clean bust. 

“The offence … is not just about engaging in certain conduct [not wearing a leash], but engaging in that conduct contrary to a notice,” the report said, adding the council would need to prove they had passed “near enough to a notice prior to entering the water that they could be said to have acted contrary to it”.

Two months ago, the pro surfer Matt Cassidy nearly bled out on the beach at Wategos after being hit by a loose board and six months back, an aged care worker and mother of a disabled kid was crippled after she got belted by an out-of-control surf pilot who then criticised her for damaging his board with her bone and tissue. 

“It sends the right message that people are starting to take it seriously, that surf safety is something we should have top of mind when we enter the water,” said Cassidy. “If it helps just one kid hanging out at the lagoon at the Pass not get hit in the head by a mal, they’ve done the right thing.”

You like cops on the beach?

Or do you prefer a little ol frontier justice?