Gold Coast man accused of “bringing sand to the beach” after teaching pet snake to surf

Like Joel Parkinson except skinny.

Australia’s Gold Coast, home to Snapper, the Alley, Kirra, etc. is very famous for its waves but also its hungry locals. Men and women who don’t think twice about slithering around their fellow surfers and sliding into waves not, by rights, theirs. Snakes. It may just be the snakiest stretch of water on earth and so it was with much confusion when the world learned of a man who brought a pet snake all the way from home into the lineup.

But let us meet Higor Fiuza and his carpet python Shiva. The long-haired longboarder has owned the animal, now a few feet long, since she was a little baby and “always took her to the beach” where she would lounge on the sand. One hot day, he decided that she belong with her own kind, in the lineup, so paddled her out.

She took to it immediately.

“Usually when she doesn’t like something she starts hissing but she doesn’t hiss [in the water], she is always chill.”

Shiva clings to Higor’s neck, when they are surfing together, though not everyone loves it. “[Some] people get really scared but others think it’s amazing when they see the connection between me and her,” he told Australia’s ABC News. “I think I can get a barrel behind the rock [at Snapper Rocks] with her one day.”

As a surfer, if you saw yet another snake out amongst it would you be tickled or pretty annoyed?

Yeah.

Me too.