Photo: Fjordlapse Photography
Photo: Fjordlapse Photography

In bombshell announcement, Norway’s beloved crown prince declares he’d be a professional surfer if he didn’t have to be boring ol’ king!

“I am often asked what I would have done if I were not the Crown Prince..."

Erik Logan. Getting there, etc. but can we leave spiritism behind for a moment and focus on your perception of your life now versus your perception of what you thought you’d be when you were young? I first imagined Marine followed by marine biologist followed by Bible translator.

I became a surf journalist.

Haakon Magnus, who lives in Norway, imagined himself a Kelly Slater-esque professional surf legend.

He’s set to become a boring ol’ king.

Crown Prince Haakon made the shock announcement during an interview with Norway’s NKR declaring, “I am often asked what I would have done if I were not the Crown Prince. Then I would have been a pro surfer on the World Tour. Maybe an ex-professional by the way, because now I’m almost 50.”

The piece was accompanied by photos of the very handsome viking paddling a longer board with many more at the Royal House of Norway’s own site.

Back to you, though.

How has fantasy matched with reality?

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Ghost of ruthlessly fired World Surf League CEO Erik Logan begins to materialize from Atlantic mist as Brazilian boys burnish bonafides in beachbreak!

Closer.

I beat it out of the terreiro late, maybe too late, maybe just in time, though I don’t know how, man. The drums, swaying, clapping, chanting, doves gripped by wings and held up high had put me in quite a state and I thought, for a moment, that the ruthlessly fired former World Surf League CEO Erik Logan was going to materialize in the body of a tween girl, eyes rolled back, and tell me his secrets.

Then it hit me like an axe-shaped scepter to the head. Of course he wouldn’t be out here, with The People doing The People things, senhor inteligente. Logan is quintessentially American in the most zhuzh’d corporate way possible. There is no way his smarmy voice could rise above the drums and the claps and the chants, nor his pearly white veneers inhabit anything but pure corporate executive so I stumbled out onto the street, far, far away from anything remotely “tourist” and it was louder still.

Cars with massive speakers cruised slowly up tiny half-paved roads with half-finished buildings teetering above. A gaggle of tank top’d men and Haviana-shod women sat drinking Heineken under bright fluorescent lights while moving their hips to music blasting at stadium volume.

Logan don’t sway his hips.

I somehow snagged a cab, the driver utterly confused at finding me, had him drive me back to hotel and purposed to go to the beach the very next morning and try to sort the where and the why as they related to the former World Surf League CEO’s cruel erasure more sensibly.

The Atlantic in this north and east corner of Brazil is surprisingly rough and as I pulled up to a beach club, the next morning, packed to the gills, I was surprised to see three younger boys out amongst it, taking off on closeouts, boosting sloppy airs into the churned soup. It was ugly but infectious, their joy evident, and I sat and stared longer than I should have. It felt like a direct challenge to a scratchy broadcast of the X Games, live from Ventura, playing over the bar with ancient relics Sal Masekela and Tony Hawk calling the action.

Masekela claiming the “level” of skill at this failed iteration of extreme sport broadcasting to be bigger and better than ever in the history of the world.

I don’t understand how, after all these years, he can keep the dial at perpetual eleven, never even trying to find nuance, only able to amp, amp, amp, amp but vainly amp. Everyone in the audience looked bored. Nobody at the beach club was paying attention.

A silly and pointless man.

And even though what was happening in the water, here, was nothing new, Brazilian boys burnishing beachbreak bonafides, it felt fresh.

The delight felt fresh, as if it was being experienced for the very first time.

Like a virgin.

Wait.

Erik Logan……….

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Tensions boilover in Florence camp as world champ John John explodes at brother Nathan’s tardiness at pumping Jeffrey’s Bay!

"It's pumping! Go!"

In one of the more candid moments in the heavily curated lives of John John and Nathan Florence, we find the brothers amid a moment of great tension over Nathan’s tardiness as John John waits to surf very good Jeffrey’s Bay.

I’m in camp John John.

Is there a greater frustration than standing there, suited to the hilt, board under your arm as pals wander aimlessly, fiddling with toys, cameras, wondering about what wetsuit to wear, board to ride, as the waves pump, the crowds fill in etc?

“Let’s go, it’s absolutely pumping,” says John John.

Nathan, working the controls of his little helicopter says, “I just got the sickest clip.”

John John, thirty now can you believe and with two world titles strapped around his waist, has always been the brother who would  jump out of bed first, his heart beating fast and his mouth wet with the desire to do good.

Nathan, who is twenty eight, may be mad but he is serious about it. And he may be without a soul. But he is not without a heart.

Eventually, Nathan gets rubbered and waxed and the brothers prowl the lineup like tigers.

Essential.

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"If you want to go swimming in a dead ocean, go to a pool, go to a wave pool. If you want to be part of something that’s alive, and that’s what surfing is to most of us, then you’ve gotta be prepared, you’re doing that in a living ecosystem."

Surfer attacked by suspected Great White shark at Margaret River as it’s revealed SharkSmart’s tagged notifications have been “offline since Wednesday”

"If you want to go swimming in a dead ocean, go to wave pool. If you want to be part of something that’s alive, you’ve gotta be prepared."

A surfer in his twenties is in a stable condition at Bunbury Hozzy after being attacked by a suspected Great White at Boat Ramps this morning. 

The man was surfing with two others and hit around 8:45am. He swam to shore and went to a nearby cafe for help. An off-duty nurse stemmed the bleeding of what our source describes as a “great big gash” and he was driven to Margs hospital before being transferred to the bigger Bunbury hospital one hundred clicks north. A Great White was seen in the area shortly afterwards and all beaches between Gas Bay and Margaret River Mouth are now closed. 

It’s since been revealed that SharkSmart’s tagged shark notifications have been offline since Wednesday ‘cause of a tech fault, which is the achilles heel of the whole there’s-gotta-be-better-ways-to-keep-shark-attacks-down-than-culling-the-beasts. All it takes is one outage, no one knows what the hell is out there and boom. 

Boat Ramps, if y’didn’t know, is one of the best waves in the area. On an eight-to-fifteen-foot south swell, it’s a fair enough facsimile of Second Reef Pipe says one former tour surfer with “massive barrels on the inside bowl.”

The Margaret River region is notorious for its booming Great White population although when world champion Brazilian surfers Italo Ferreira and Gabriel Medina refused to surf a CT even there in 2018 after two nearby attacks in one day, they were described as “weak and conniving” by the celebrated Western Australia author Tim Winton. 

“As someone who’s surfed all over the world and with the machismo and bravado of Brazilians in particular, I thought it was amazing how cowardly those guys were,” he said. “Look, not everybody wants to be in the water the day after two guys have failed the taste test around the corner, but I thought it was a really low act on behalf of those two guys…I just think  if you want to go swimming in a dead ocean, go to a pool, go to a wave pool. If you want to be part of something that’s alive, and that’s what surfing is to most of us, then you’ve gotta be prepared, you’re doing that in a living ecosystem. If you want to kill all the sharks you’re just going to kill the oceans. It’s one of the few places in the world where there are actually real waves.”

More on the attack as it comes.

 

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Come and git your 1/12th slice of the Ranch.

Buy access to mythical surf Valhalla Hollister Ranch for you and a friend for $675,000!

Whatever you think of the Ranch, capitalism or maybe feudalism at its worst, the rich eat the cake, the poor sweep up the crumbs, sure would be nice to have a place there.

Have you ever wanted to get your own key to the fabled Hollister Ranch but don’t have the thirty-three mill to toss at James Cameron’s compound or five mill for a one-third share in Conner Coffin’s parents’ joint?

A little background for those who’re unaware of this unspoiled slice of California heaven. Hollister Ranch is fifty-eight square clicks, or 14.400 acres, of gated beachfront land on the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County, California. Therefore, y’aint surfing round these parts unless you can boat in.

But as Jen See wrote a lil while back, “The idea of Hollister Ranch as some kind of Eden persists, but is by now, largely imagined. The best-known spots on good swells buzz with jetskis, zodiacs, and floating machines of all shapes and sizes. Anyone with a boat or a friend with a boat can go there. And we all know by now what happened to Eden.”

Matt Warshaw’s take on the Ranch hits a similar vein. Read about the “hard ugliness” of the joint and its “sales pitch wearing a Gestapo jacket pretending to be a conservation statement” here.

Then there’s this take

“The idea of opening up such sacred land is totally asinine. Hollister Ranch is the only remaining example of what California used to be. This heritage of Old California is what I live and breathe. It is what drives my studies as an Ag. Engineering student, my aspirations in agriculture, and my recreation as a surfer.”

Whatever you think of the Ranch, capitalism or maybe feudalism at its worst, the rich eat the cake, the poor sweep up the crumbs, sure would be nice to have a place there.

But, $675,000? For the slightly more well-heeled among us, why, that’s almost doable yeah?

So what’s it buy?

A 1/12th interest in 5 Hollister Ranch Road or “access of one individual and their guests entrance into the historic Hollister Ranch.”

No sleepovers, no parties, get in, get out.

As one beloved BeachGrit commenter wrote: “One of the jokes about localism and crowds at the ranch is that many of the parcel holders have sold portions of their property as proxies for access and parking. Been told that many parcels on the Hollister side had dozens of side deals that include gate access. Building on each parcel is not easy, permits aren’t just issued. Then the Santa Barbara Surf Club has access to grandfathered in.  Think Gidget families.

“And Dez, there is only one A break on Hollister.  Sure, photogenic as fuck, but none surf as well as they photograph.  And the locals are not rippers.  It’s still living on the myth of Greenough and Aurness. The gems are on the Bixby side that has one ownership.  Bixby has a south swell window too which more than doubles it surfing days.  Maybe triples.”

Buy your key to Hollister here!

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