Kelly Slater? Is that you?

The eyes of the surfing world are, currently, cast toward Torquay, Australia and its notable Bells Beach. Yes, the “world’s oldest surf contest” is scheduled to kick off any moment now with a forecast so… unchill that those professionals dancing around the mid-season cut line should be rightly terrified. Yes, they will be forced to dance for their lives in “jumbled” waves with “unfavorable” wind.

Yikes.

It will be the fourth event in a row with very poor conditions but at least the first two were on Oahu’s North Shore with its haupia pie, Spam musubi, Turtle Bay resort filling in the long hours between Jessi Miley-Dyer calling the day’s competition off again.

But when was the last time you actually stayed at Turtle Bay? For me it has nearly been a decade but I have the fondest memories of that brutalist hulk perched upon those emerald mini-cliffs. The poolside mai tai is second to none and I’ve never had finer escargot than I’ve had at Lei Lei’s, no not even in France.

Well, apparently the hotel features much more as revealed by a Bloomberg reporter who went undercover in various jobs in order to expose mighty “White Lotus-esque” secrets.

The naughty bits are, in truth, relatively tame. European women sunbathing topess on the beach, chubby diners nipping extra eggs Benedict from the buffet and taking it to their rooms, honeymooners getting into lobby fights, influencers stealing golf cars and crashing them for the likes, etc. but one revelation shocked me to the core.

Namely, when working as a bellman, the sleuth made known that surfing was “a big priority for many on staff” and that one of the other bellman “has won multiple world surfing championships.”

Has won.

As in not necessarily finished winning.

And whoa.

For we all know one Kelly Slater, currently at Bells, is below that mid-season cut line. We all know that the next event, Margaret River, could very well mark the end of the winningest-ever surfer’s gilded career. We all also know that Slater lives part-time on the North Shore where he enjoys renting one of his homes for $36,000 a month. And, lastly, we also all know that the 11x world surfing champion is notoriously cheap, never picking up tabs etc.

Might it be that Slater is preparing for the end, moonlighting a few weekly hours at Turtle Bay in order to cash in on employee discounts for rounds of golf and/or Lei Lei’s?

Stranger things have, certainly, happened.

See: Armie Hammer selling timeshares.

Rage against the Brazilian Storm.

There have been many extremely sad breakups this year, ones that left surfer cheeks tearstained but, also, hope flickering in heart. Who could forget the demise of Giselle Bündchen and Tom Brady? The Brazilian supermodel and her handsome quarterback beau formed the very ideal until, overnight, they called it quits. Of course candles were lit for a Bündchen and Kelly Slater reunion, though those have seemed to have burned low.

Then there was Shakira and Gerard Piqué. The Colombian chanteuse and her Spanish footballer were married for around the same time as Bündchen and Brady, cutting an international figure of the aforementioned ideal, but they too fell under the bomb.

As a way of dealing with the demise, Shakira went surfing. Oh, our lifestyle choice was not new to her. She had spent much time on a surfboard out at sea but her earnest embrace, in order to soothe a broken heart, was something we all understood.

Piqué, for his part, has remained mostly silent and surf-free, though sat down with Romero for an interview wherein he described the jolt of rage coming from Shakira’s many surf fans.

“In the beginning, it was bad and it reached a point where if I had let things get to me, I would have thrown myself off a cliff,” he said of their comments. “For example, my ex is Latin American … you can’t imagine [the comments] I’ve gotten on social media from her fans. Millions of barbarities! But I don’t care about any of it. Honestly, not at all because I don’t know them. These people have no lives and why should I care? I’ll never meet them, they’re robots, you know?”

The FC Barcelona back has clearly never heard of the Brazilian Storm nor been bashed by their fans. As one who has, I have to think his calling them “barbarities,” saying they have no lives and describing them as robots will certainly not go over well.

Likely many more comments on his various feeds.

“World SHAME Piqué” etc.

More as the story develops.

"Jumbled surf and unfavorable wind."

The third stop on the World Surf League Championship Tour allegedly kicks off in mere hours though surf fans, around the globe, are in no way encouraged to drop what they’re doing, call in sick for work, update internet service provider, no. For the third time in a row, the forecast has been labeled “dog shit” by the League’s official partner Surfline.

The just-released “brief overview” reads:

TUES 4th: Modest yet fun surf, clean in AM – Possible run for at least AM
WED 5th: Smaller surf and with onshore wind – likely off
THURS 6th: New/modest swell but wind problematic – Possible run for at least AM
FRI 7th: Smaller, easing surf but clean – Possible run for at least AM
SAT/SUN 8th-9th: Possible rise of jumbled surf and unfavorable wind — likely off

“Modest yet fun” being the best Surfline could conjure.

“Problematic” and “unfavorable” carrying the day.

But what could have happened between a relationship once crowned with absurd positive fantasy? A marriage based upon seeing the brighter side and by “brighter side” I mean an absurd positive fantasy?

Surf fans clearly remember even just last year, and the years before, wherein  Surfline would praise whatever the forecast was using the fruitiest of nonsense. Two-foot and dumping became ten-foot and reeling. Flat became rippable.

Now?

Jumbled surf and unfavorable wind is merely jumbled surf and unfavorable wind but how did the union between World Surf League and Surfline officials sour so… publicly?

Did the forecasters, themselves, push back as their good names became synonymous with Erik “Flimflam” Logan?

Did the Surfline brass realize that the momentum is not, in fact, real?

Questions we can bandy about as we tune in to modest surf in mere hours, I suppose.