Dane Reynolds surfing in Mexico after head injury
Dane Reynolds, back in the water the day after an almost-fatal head injury. | Photo: CH11

Dane Reynolds makes triumphant return to surf after almost fatal head injury in Mexico

Derek Rielly

By

One day after the freak accident that nearly killed him, Dane Reynolds climbs back on the horsey.

The go-for-broke Bakersfield-born surfer and former world number four Dane Reynolds has made a triumphant return to surfing after a freak accident that almost cost him his life. 

Dane Reynolds, whose Carpinteria idyll was shattered seven months ago when Travis and Kourtney Barker-Kardashian splurged $16.5 million buying Conan O’Brien’s redundant beach house, walked through a glass door in Mexico, shattering the glass and puncturing his forehead.

“That was a change of events,” Dane Reynolds says in the accompanying video, as he presses a t-shirt around his leaking head. Footage captured from the emergency room finds Reynolds supine yet calm, fly wide open, a gap in the flap as they say, body covered in his own blood. 

Dane Reynolds in a Mexican hospital.
Dane in a Mex hozzy bed.

It isn’t the first time Dane Reynolds has flirted with death.

Eight years ago, surf fans were turned into primitive savages after footage emerged of Chucky Rigano dropping in on Dane fluttering his wings in a long tube, at Sandpit in Santa Babs, California.

“I was thinking oh shit, I just hopped some Santa Barbara fisherman that’s gonna kill me. Then I looked closer, and it was Dane Reynolds, honestly one of my favourite surfers,” Chucky told BeachGrit. “The guy that yelled go was for sure yelling at Dane because he made it around the section and was getting pitted!

“He was super pissed initially, and had every right to be. Anyone, including myself would have snapped for sure. I honestly felt so bad and embarrassed as it gets. Imagine crapping your pants on a first date with a girl you really like, and times that by 10! I said I was beyond sorry multiple times and that I really didn’t see the guy.”

Anyway, in a new video just released on his CH11 YouTube channel, we discover that Dane Reynolds was in the water the very next day after being taped up in hospital.

Per the short’s accompanying blurb,

“Dane Reynolds’ first session in Mexico after busting down the door with his big dome piece. Yellow swim cap X OG Channel Islands Rookie at a sloppy right point.”

As Dane says, “Even when the conditions are shit, riding waves is the best thing in the world.”

In the video, Dane Reynolds’ famous daddy-body is heavy, massive like the country that gave him birth, yet when he surfs he becomes like a cowboy of the Westerns: ready to fire his guns at the drop of a hat, getting into a rage at the least provocation.

Taylor Swift (left) with Bryan West while Nick Carroll and Sam George re-think everything. Photo: Bryan West
Taylor Swift (left) with Bryan West while Nick Carroll and Sam George re-think everything. Photo: Bryan West

Surf journalists rue bad choices as newspapers hire Taylor Swift reporters!

Chas Smith

By

"Where did we go wrong?"

Heartache is currently ripping through every house that a surf journalist calls home. Brothers Sam and Matt George Skyping, earnestly questioning the value of their divine drippings. Sean Doherty slamming his head against his Michael Peterson shrine. Nick Carroll telling his brother Tom that he wishes he was never born.

Much despair.

Yes, what was once a vaguely passable occupation has devolved into an embarrassing horror. A blighted landscape bathed with the flickering glow of Surfer magazine’s AI powered masthead. Where did we all go wrong? What could we have done differently?

It starts and ends in Nashville, as it turns out.

Taylor Swift Rules Everything

Newspapers, which have been busily firing people for decades now, have flipped a U-turn and are hiring again. Not surf journalists or political hacks or foreign correspondents, no, but dedicated Taylor Swift reporters.

Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, announced it was desperately seeking a cub to solely discuss the most popular woman on the planet two months ago. After hundreds of applications, Bryan West from Phoenix, Arizona was pegged.

“I would say this position’s no different than being a sports journalist who’s a fan of the home team,” West told Variety. “I just came from Phoenix, and all of the anchors there were wearing Diamondbacks gear; they want the Diamondbacks to win. I’m just a fan of Taylor Swift and I have followed her her whole career, but I also have that journalistic background: going to Northwestern, winning awards, working in newsrooms across the nation. I think that’s the fun of this job is that, yeah, you can talk Easter eggs, but it really is more of the seriousness, like the impact that she has on society and business and music.”

He believes that the “biggest moment of contention” is going to be Taylor Swift’s “hidden vault songs.”

What do you think it will be?

More importantly, how would Sam George cover Taylor Swift?

Exciting to ponder.

Kelly Slater, UAE sheik and Filipe Toledo in Abu Dhabi.
Kelly Slater, happy sheik, even happier kid and, inset, world's best little wave champ Filipe Toledo.

World’s best small-wave surfer Filipe Toledo shows his “barbaric turns” at Kelly Slater’s controversial Abu Dhabi wave pool!

Derek Rielly

By

The king of little waves Filipe Toledo gives hell to Abu Dhabi tank!

So much heat enveloping the Kelly Slater-Adam Fincham-designed wave pool in Abu Dhabi yesterday, and not just from its dreamy location in the Persian Gulf.

Surfers took a break from giving hell to Jews defending their fragile state to give it to Slater for being part of the tank’s creation in the controversial Petrostate.

A few examples of surfers’ thoughts.

Yeah! Go “surf” in a fossil fueled cess pool in the midst of a Palestinian genocide! Genocide rhymes with Ecocide! Go Kelly Slater!
How appropriate: “surfing” in a fossil fueled cess pool in Arabia during the midst of Palestinian genocide!? Kelly Slater is such an inspiration! More carbon emissions per “wave” than the 20 hour flight (first class of course) from the white trash capital of the universe (Florida — or is it California? Same thing). Oh wait – Genocide rhymes with Ecocide! Go Kelly!

Did they try and just google a place with even less available water than Lemore and say 📍 that’s the spot?

Are women allowed?

Ugh. A shame he’s doing business in that neck of the woods.

and only 45 Nepalese slave labor workers died of heat stroke building it just so Kelly can surf while avoiding the common peasants taking his waves. what a modern marvel!

And so on.

For those unpolluted by a childlike take on Middle Eastern politics, Kelly Slater demonstrated the blue-water wave to perfection. He even treated his fans to a lightly aerated chop-hop at the wave’s eventual conclusion.

Now, footage has been released of the world’s best small-wave surfer Filipe Toledo at the controversial tank.

Filipe Toledo, who is twenty-eight, has the most well-rounded small-wave attack in the world. He has completed two world title wins in three-foot waves at Lower Trestles and in three events at the Lemoore tank has been runner-up twice, and a winner in 20021.

In waves three-feet and under he is untouchable, although Fillipe Toledo’s big-wave bona fides are yet to be proved. 

 

Wealthy kooks (insert) plan their line at Nazaré. Photo: Dumb and Dumber
Wealthy kooks (insert) plan their line at Nazaré. Photo: Dumb and Dumber

New report suggests Nazaré overrun by uber-wealthy kooks!

Chas Smith

By

"What was once exotic and had to be earned has now become a playground for thrill-seekers, many of them wealthy..."

This world, man. Ever more a tale of two distinct classes. The haves and the have nots. Those who struggle to make the car payment on aged Toyota Tundras and those who enjoy the comforts of the Aston Martin Valour. Now, in times past the uber-rich were happy to stay in their exclusive enclaves and do their exclusive things. Summering on Lake Como, for example, and taking the Alpha Zs across to the Clooneys for luncheon. Post-Covid, though, things have changed.

Billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, who came into their wealth through nerdy means, lack taste entirely. That vacuum is filled with all manner of lower-brow endeavors that should not interest them. Fighting mixed martial arts. Pumping weights. And, according to a terrifying new report, surfing big waves.

Nazaré Gets Kooked

Yes, a reporter from luxury publication Forbes just spent time in the Portuguese hamlet with big wave star Justine DuPont and her husband/sled-driver Fred David.

He was in town to ride on the ski and get a peek at the “huge swells barreling” but excess wind derailed that plan and so the trio merely explored Garrett McNamara’s beautiful baby.

Metaphorically.

While wandering and sipping various chocolate milks, the writer bemoaned:

As for surf purism, big money comes in now from amateur fat-cats from all over the world wanting to “tow in” say, to one big wave, take the accompanying trophy photo and then head home to brag about it. Unfortunately, it’s part of the current trend of tourists paying exorbitant sums to “experience” adventure. What was once exotic and had to be earned has now become a playground for thrill-seekers, many of them wealthy, and now, unfortunately, Nazare is beginning to feel that surge.

Bleak.

While DuPont and David took the bad with the good, happy that local businesses were benefitting, I think we should do a better job of shaming the “wealthy thrill-seekers.”

And those who help facilitate their “experiences.”

Kai Lenny.

New Kelly Slater wave pool in Abu Dhabi draws ire from surf fans.
New Kelly Slater wave pool in Abu Dhabi draws ire from surf fans.

New Kelly Slater wave pool in Abu Dhabi provokes shock reaction from surf world

Derek Rielly

By

"Genocide rhymes with Ecocide!"

Overnight, we saw the first video from the long anticipated Kelly Slater wave pool on Hudayriyat Island in Abu Dhabi, proclaimed by developer Modon Properties as the “longest wave pool in the world.” 

Still boyish at almost sixty and surfing as upright as a dart, Kelly Slater demonstrates the blue-water wave to perfection, even treating his fans to a little alley-oop at the wave’s eventual conclusion.

“It’s hard to believe that this thing exists,” says Kelly Slater. “We knew if somebody could build something to the best quality it would be here in this part of the world… I think we made a pretty spectacular wave here in Abu Dhabi.”

Surfers, you’d think, would be in thrall to the man-made marvel. It’s the first commercial version of the famous Kelly Slater tank and eight years since the Lemoore prototype’s spectacular debut.

Of course, surfers, inflated in ego, low in intelligence and perspective, are difficult to predict,

And to the masses who swarmed various Instagram pages and below the line on BeachGrit, the Kelly Slater pool represents a cruel absurdity, with some even linking it to Gaza’s invasion of Israel.

(The UAE ain’t afraid to loose the hounds on its brother Muslims: “The military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen has killed thousands of civilians in airstrikes, tortured detainees, raped civilians and used child soldiers as young as 8,” reports the NY Times.)

Yeah! Go “surf” in a fossil fueled cess pool in the midst of a Palestinian genocide! Genocide rhymes with Ecocide! Go Kelly Slater!

How appropriate: “surfing” in a fossil fueled cess pool in Arabia during the midst of Palestinian genocide!? Kelly Slater is such an inspiration! More carbon emissions per “wave” than the 20 hour flight (first class of course) from the white trash capital of the universe (Florida — or is it California? Same thing). Oh wait – Genocide rhymes with Ecocide! Go Kelly!

Did they try and just google a place with even less available water than Lemore and say 📍 that’s the spot?

Are women allowed?

I’m so fed up with hearing about all these fucking wave pools being built where either A) the location produces world class waves already on the regular by Mother Nature or B) in a location where no one cares or knows absolutely nothing about surfing in the first place. Guess I’ll either be 85 years old or dead by the time they makes surf parks more accessible like skate parks are now. For fucks sake.

Ugh. A shame he’s doing business in that neck of the woods.

and only 45 Nepalese slave labor workers died of heat stroke building it just so Kelly can surf while avoiding the common peasants taking his waves. what a modern marvel!

Elites making waves for other elites. They are destroying the oceans so they have to build these so they all have somewhere to surf. Good luck poor people…

Who the fuck wants to go surfing somewhere where you can’t smoke a joint without getting beheaded

Yeah let’s make wavepool on the desert, take the most flights possible and call us in harmony with nature 🔥 that’s radddd

The Matthew effect. Who cares about woman’s rights? Who cares about freedom of speech? Who cares about human rights? Who cares about how others are suppressed by bigotry, and patriarchy? Why care when you are filling up your pockets with millions of dollars. I have lost all respect for this guy. It’s all about their personal interest.

Dang Kelly Slater, oil money and their ‘shaka spirit’ towards women speaks to you…smh

We’re effing up this planet with nonsense crap like this. Ronaldo should go, I won’t.

I guess building pools is his gig now. This is not going to end well for his career. All of that hard work and building his reputation to throw it out for a stupid pool where Women, Gays, and the Lower class people are treated with 1400’s year old le laws. Nice going Kelly. This time you out did yourself.

Now, nobody’s shoving a muzzle under anyone’s jawbone to go, so why the envy and hatred?

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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