There's a new alpha male in the storied Florence family!

The Oahu surfer Nathan Florence, brother of US Olympian John John, has officially spiked the Jan Brady curse and become the alpha male of the Florence squad, which also includes little brother Ivan.

Florence, who is twenty-nine and whose couronne of red hair is masked by the bleaching effects of sun, has leveraged his big-wave skills and a deft touch on social media to become the world’s most talked about surfer over the past twelve months.

First, a wave some big-wave surfers called the “best barrel ever” at a remote Irish reef last November, the swell generated by the remnants of Hurricane Martin.

 

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“When riding the lightning all comes together!” said Nathan Florence. “One of the rides of me life, thanks all local boys for having me in their beautiful land and inspiring always to send!”

Compliments were quick to follow.

Mark Healey, no stranger to oversized waves, wrote, “You may have my two favourite backhand tube ride ever.”

From WSL commentator Strider Wasilewski, “Best heavy wave surfer in the world.”

Pipe Pro runner-up Seth Moniz, “Best Barrel ever.”

Florence’s brother, John John, older by two years was quick to collar tie the middle bro of the Florence triumvirate, writing with a masterfully droll wit, “Could’ve been deeper.”

A few months later, the sexy powerlifter turned Only Fans star who has a face like a benevolent sea turtle, was almost paralysed after a wipeout during a a twenty-foot day at Jaws. The force of the wave snapped a vertebrae in his spine. Florence credited his regime of deadlifts for saving him from a life in a chair.

“I got picked up and I fell through the barrel. I fell a lot longer than I thought,” said Florence. “After the initial impact, I got sucked up and fell again. As I was falling, I was pulling my vest. I just fell a lot farther than I thought and my body was in a weird position. I just slammed on my back on the bottom of the barrel, which is just hard water. Right when I slammed, I just felt kind of a snap in my lower back, right on my spine.”

Anyway, a wild ol year for Florence, who rarely missed a slab or ledge session whether it was in Hawaii, Australia, Scotland or Ireland.

And his diligence was rewarded last night when he was awarded Ride of the Year and Surfer of the Year at the Big Wave Challenge awards in Nazaré, Portugal.

In the gals, it was all France’s queen of big-wave surfing Justine Dupont, the first woman to surf mythical outer-reef Belharra. Justine’s ride of the year came at the famed Cortes outer bank.

BIG WAVE CHALLENGE WINNERS

SURFER OF THE YEAR
Men – Nathan Florence (Hawaii)
Women – Justine Dupont (France)

RIDE OF THE YEAR
Men – Nathan Florence at Mullaghmore Head, Ireland. Video by João Tudella
Women – Justine Dupont at Cortes Bank. Video by Johnny Decesare & Tucker Wooding

PADDLE
Men – Chacha Ibarra at Punta Lobos, Chile. Video by Oscar Fredes Rodrigues & Rodrigo Farias.
Women – Laura Enever at Outer Reef Oahu. Video by Ian Grose, photo by Daniel Russo.

BIGGEST WAVE
Men – (TIE)
Nic Von Rupp at Nazaré, video by Tim Bonython
Shaun Walsh at Jaws, video by Carlo Carbajal. Photo by Fred Pompermayer
Women – Justine Dupont at Cortes Bank, video by Johnny Decesare. Photo by Frank Quirarte.

WIPEOUT OF THE YEAR
Danny Griffiths at Shipstern Bluff. Video by Talon Clemow

YOUNG GUN
Ned Hart (Australia)

VIDEOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR
Tim Bonython (Australia)

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SPORT
Big Wave Tour founder Gary Linden
Nazaré Mayor Walter Chicharro

Click here to see all the contenders and the winning waves.

“Then (Bikram Choudhury) tried to touch me!”

Just when you thought there was nothing left to know about Kelly Slater, multiple new story lines, including his view on hot yoga pioneer Bikram Choudhury, have been revealed.

Let us set the scene. 

Kelly Slater is in the recording pod of Stephen Glover aka Steve-O for an episode of his show, Steve-O’s Wild Ride! It is very popular and counts 1.63 million subscribers. Steve-O’s Wild Ride! has been running for three years and includes co-hosts Scott Randolph and Vincent Imperati aka Skinny Vinnie. 

There is much sexual excitement in the air, of course.

Steve O’s sadistic and masochistic overtones fitting into Kelly Slater’s long life as a sexual emblem. Together, they form one of the most intense and abrupt images of convulsive beauty you’ll ever see. 

First, the conversation turns to yoga, a holistic discipline that combines physical postures and ethical principles to promote physical and spiritual well-being. It does very few of these things in my experience except breed a superior minded person with stretched out tendons. 

Steve-O mentions he tried the activity once whereupon Kelly Slater trumps his host with talk of his love of hot yoga, a superior version of regular yoga created by Indian man Bikram Choudhury. It is recommended only for those in the most robust of health.

Steve-O asks if Slater watched the Netflix documentary Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator. The show paints the hot yoga pioneer in a poor light, Bikram apparently revelling in “sexual harassment, rape and maniacal control.”

Kelly Slater makes light of the Indian narcissus’s alleged crimes, “Then he tried to touch me!” and says he “felt bad” doing Bikram yoga.

Shortly after, Slater’s stint on Baywatch where he appeared in 27  episodes between 1992 and 1993 as Jimmy Slade, is discussed.

Slater says he threw the audition his manager organised, didn’t want to be there and deliberately acted poorly,

“They called a day or two later and said they loved me”.

Incredibly, says Slater, he was paid only $2500 per episode.

Even better, as a kid Slater saw himself becoming a comedic actor like Steve Martin.

“We spent endless hours watching The Jerk” and says both his parents were stars of the stage in Florida. 

Other highlights include never-before-discussed elements of Mick Fanning and Slater’s brush with White Death at Jeffrey’s Bay. 

Essential. 

“Is this the last days of normal civilisation?” asks Smoking Joe Rogan.

The insanely popular podcaster, and rare voice of the centre with perhaps a slight right-ish lean, Joe Rogan, has taken on the mighty task of examining the Hamas v Israel war with the big-wave superstar Shane Dorian.

Shane Dorian, whom you’ll remember from his epic debut on BeachGrit in 2014 where he instructed readers on how to catch a twenty-foot wave and maybe a little later later when he discussed what it’s like to have a pretty baby deer die in your arms, joined Rogan for what is mostly a talk about stem cell treatment, hunting and eating meat.

All pet topics for Joe Rogan.

All very good, all well told by two charismatic men, interesting anecdotes fluttering between the two, nothing hysterical, just a couple of good ol boys doin’ what they do.

It lights up when Shane Dorian steers the conversation towards the Hamas v Israel war, which began on October 7 after Hamas terrorists, also the democratically elected government of Gaza, fed their blood lust for killing Hebes, prompting an understandable retaliation by the besieged Jewish nation.

“I don’t know if this is going to take us down a rabbit hole but…” says Dorian.

“I like rabbit holes,” says Joe.

“I was just…tripping” says Dorian, “We’re here in your studio talking about bow-hunting and food and there’s a war, there’s, like, people putting missiles together into some launcher thing right now and (Dorian makes launch and explosion sounds)…psssssh…pfffffow!”

“Israel’s about to invade Gaza,” says Joe. “They’re talking about a ground invasion of Gaza.”

“That’s so gnarly!” said Dorian.

“It’s so terrifying because we’re so close to World War III,” says Joe. “We’re so close.”

“It’s no joke, man,” says Dorian.

Essential.