"He got a 10, a 9.9 and a 9.8 all in the same Pipe Masters heat. Legendary performance in big waves too.” 

The 1990 Pipeline Master Liam McNamara, along with three-time winner Tom Carroll and decorated Pipe charger Strider Wasilewski, have led tributes and shared stories of the Japanese surfer Naohisa Ogawa, who has died of cancer. 

McNamara wrote of his pal of thirty years, 

“For everyone out there to know Nao was a part of the crew of goofy foot helmet wearing Japanese chargers in the late 80s early 90s and into the 2000s! Takayuki Wakita Atsushi Imamura and Naohisa Ogawa were the 3 samurai helmet wearing kamakaze pilots for a couple decades! They pushed each other to a crazy level! All 3 would post up deep deep at my peak

“The Wakita peak!! 

 

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A post shared by Liam Mcnamara (@liam__mcnamara)

“So many crazy waves ridden no one could really tell them apart as they  all charged so hard!! Small in stature but big balls and true honor and respect for everybody! Nao had a silver board and a silver helmet and became the “Silver Bullet”Nao was the most genuine soft spoken respectful guy you would ever meet! He would also smile at you and say hi in or out of the water. He competed in the Pipeline Masters over a dozen times getting 10 point rides making a name out out that heaviest wave on the planet!” 

The Hawaiian-based Australian photographer Sean Davey recalled Ogawa’s epic heat in the Pipe Masters. 

“I recall the year that the Pipemasters was invitational. If memory serves me correctly, Naohisa got a 10, a 9.9 and a 9.8 all in the same heat. Legendary performance in big waves too.” 

"This is a dick measuring contest to perform masculinity."

Two fisherthems, as the noted chanteuse Sam Smith would call them, have come under fire after killing a beached shark with a knife through the brain, ignoring the leas of shocked onlookers who had offered to drag the fish back into the ocean.

In the minute-long clip posted to Twitter, we see two men dragging a blacktip reef shark up the beautiful New Myrna beach sands as Mariana Sabogal, who filmed the event on her telephone, protests.

Two men kill a shark for no reason 😳 pic.twitter.com/9Jjj4u3uML

— More Crazy Clips (@MoreCrazyClips) May 21, 2023

“Can you put it back?” she says.

“You put it back!” says one of the men.

“We will! I’m not a vegetarian. You should not be doing that with animals. Please do not do anything to it. Please do not do anything.”

One man picks up a knife and plunges it into the rough location of the fish’s brain, which is just behind the eyes although it doesn’t die instantly suggesting a missed shot.

“It’s legal harvest!” he says. “There’s nothing you can do!”

“Why are you doing that?” asks Mariana.

“Because it’s natural!”

“Are you fucking insane, honestly,” she says. “Are you enjoying this?”

“No, I’m taking this to eat. “

Shortly after the ruckus, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released a statement that read in part,“It is common practice for anglers to euthanize sharks after landing for ethical and safety concerns. This video is not currently under investigation as no violation of state law regarding the method of harvest occurred.”

One man’s euthanasia is another’s execution, of course.

“There’s a lot of things that are legal, but they are not morally right,” said Mariana.

Bit of back and forthing in the comments with many readers correctly pointing out that the method of dispatching a shark ain’t no different to what is dealt to millions of delightful sea creatures every day, including the wildly intelligent octopus.

Others not thrilled.

“This is a dick measuring contest to perform masculinity.”

Where do you stand on this matter?

I swing both ways.

Feel the chilly breath of the engine of slaughter upon your neck!

The ol’ leash-or-no-leash debate has exploded following the near-scalping of a bodyboarder at The Wedge, Newport Beach’s mutant cross-wave that takes a south swell hitting the rock wall and creates “a titanic slingshot that breaks with enough pounds per square inch to send Stone Cold Steve Austin to the mat.”

In a clip posted on YouTube shorts by the world’s most famous redhead Jamie O’Brien, an almost-forty-year-old vlogger from Pipeline Beach on Oahu, we see the bodyboarder going right against the prevailing traffic, before the axe of the dreaded engine of slaughter almost lands upon his neck; enough to feel its chilling breath.

Of course, the man being a bodyboarder fed into a long-held prejudice about riders of the little foam crafts.

“That’s not a surfer. Thats a boog.”

“Sponger. Not surfer. There’s a difference.”

“Less body boarders the better lol.”

“That’s not a surfer. He’s a bellyboarder.”

“That’s not a surfer, that’s a boogie boarder!”

Etc.

Which begs the question, are bodyboarders people too and are therefore endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?

Or no?

I think yes! Some of my best friends etc.