Money moves.

The Gold Coast Pro, there stage right of Snapper Rocks, will officially kick off today, by all accounts, and professional surfers are ready. As you know, Coolangatta’s most famous wave once commenced the entire Association of Surfing Professionals then World Surf League Championship Tour season. There was a gilded ball in nearby Surfers Paradise, first, then many fine performances in the water before the production moved south to Bells.

Alas, those were different time. Since, a smarmy Oklahoman has decided that Snapper ain’t good enough and relegated it to the scrub Challenger Series. It’s value, now, based upon the fact that it is the first stop after the new “mid-season cull” and allows beheaded professional surfers their first possibility of redemption.

Points toward requalification.

Nat Young, Zeke Lau, Jackson Baker, Michele Rodrigues et. al. will be surfing in the round of 64 after their decapitations. 11x world champion Kelly Slater will be surfing there too even though it is unnecessary for him so to do. The aforementioned smarmy Oklahoman, World Surf League Chief of Executives Erik Logan, changed the rules overnight allowing the 51-year-old to earn points from wildcard entries into Championship Tour events and then gave him wildcard entries into ALL Championship Tour events.

Sneaky.

But there he is anyhow, in the round of 64, heat 12.

Now, most of the hopefuls have been in town for days, warming their legs and spirits on Snapper’s lengthy rights though a terror has reared its head.

Enforcing locals.

First brought to light by the “bastion of kook” Surfer magazine, this new grotesque breed appears to horrify and bully by donning springsuits, dropping in and surfing so poorly that the idea of skill, of style, is sucked from the very souls of all nearby.

We will see how this affects Young, Lau, Baker, Rodrigues et. al. but Kelly Slater took absolutely no chance. He chose, instead, to warm up at The Lineup at Wai Kai.

Just west of Honolulu, The Lineup is said to be “the world’s deepest standing wave” and sources on the ground declare that Slater very much enjoyed the experience, even tiring himself out on an extremely long ride.

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He was, anyhow, on a flight to Australia yesterday and will likely be ready to “earn” his way back to the bigs.

Get excited.

But, quickly, does Slater’s excursion to, and approval of, The Lineup make you want to sample? It sure does me.

See you there.

A match made in heaven.

One of the more enriching moments we shared this spring (autumn in Oceania) was Sam George declared “Death to Secret Spots” on adult learner website The Inertia.

The surf guru opened his missive thusly…

Back in 2003 I got the call that just about every other surfer in the world dreamed of: an invitation to join the Quiksilver Crossing, and a berth on the Indies Trader as it made its way down the largely unknown coast of Nicaragua. Granted, I was editor of SURFER magazine at the time, yet it was still to be like no other surf trip I’d ever experienced. Not exploring a remote coast by boat — I’d been fortunate enough to do that a number of times before — but for being asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement before joining the ship.

“While the basic route is outlined,” read the project’s official website. “no specific references are given in regards to surf spots. Everyone connected with the project respects keeping known and unknown surf spots a mystery.”

Everyone but me. Seeing as how on my watch at the top of SURFER’s masthead, my editorial policy concerning exotic travel stories was to place the trip on a map without necessarily drawing a map, I took exception to this particular ethic.

“That sounds great,” I said, in discussion with Martin Daly, the eminently colorful and opinionated skipper of the Indies Trader. “You want us to reveal the place, promote the place to the benefit of Quiksilver’s brand, but not say where it is. I think you’d better know that my current motto here at the mag is, ‘Death To Secret Spots.’”

And then proceeded to carry on for much time, writing about how the idea of secret spots is anathema to stoke or soul or some such.

Beautiful.

He followed it with a second, equally inspiring, piece leaving The Inertia to lead the campaign.

Making good on his promise, the Zach Weisberg-fronted soft space days ago released a photograph of a San Francisco secret spot certainly thrilling regional Thai funboard enthusiasts.

But have you surfed ________ before?

Did the usually grumpy locals treat you kindly?

How will they treat Ben Gravy when he follows The Inertia’s easy to follow map to YouTube glory?

Many questions.

Locals only.

You, here, are an educated bunch, well-read etc., and so there is no doubt that you are aware of The Hague and its place in our world. The northern Dutch city, home to roughly half a million souls, is the seat of the International Court of Justice where war criminals of smaller nations or gross human rights abusers of equally smaller nations are tried in abstentia, convicted and told to feel very bad about their actions whilst eating caviar in their capitals.

The architecture is beautiful, Bauhaus-adjacent, the weather is bleak, touched with grey, and surf is plentiful, albeit of a lower quality.

Well, for surfers who reside in cities, or neighborhoods, around the world with much better surf, a move to The Hague’s Scheveningen beach must now be considered for in a heavy slam against vals, blow-ins, commuters, a first-of-its-kind “if you don’t live here, don’t surf here” law has been passed.

Beginning immediately, it will cost a whole fifty Euro to park a vehicle on the street, be it for a minute or an hour or six hours.

Jurriaan Esser, a spokesperson for the city council, told The Guardian, “We want the primary way of transportation to be your legs, and then the bicycle, public transport, and, last, cars,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t allow cars in our city: it means that if you have a short distance to travel, your primary way of transportation should be your legs. It benefits not only the environment but also travel times.”

But also also surfers who live a walk away from the shore and can carry their boards under their arms. And imagine if these sorts of rules were passed in, say, San Clemente, California or Coolangatta, Australia or Sebastian Inlet, Florida. Lineup crowds would, no doubt, be slashed.

Peace and prosperity.

A car in every garage and a wave under every surfer who lives a few blocks away’s feet.

Not all are in favor of the move. Fleur Kruyt, the owner of the Van Kleef distillery, told broadcaster Omroep West she was not keen on the scheme. “This will not make business any easier,” she said. “A lot of buildings here are empty, and if you set a minimum of €50 to get to a shop, I just don’t understand it.”

Though what is more important, business or uncrowded waves?

I think we all know the answer.