"It's huge!"
We, of course, know Kelly Slater as one of the most environmentally conscious people on the planet. He is a surf champion, yes, 11 times over and the greatest to ever do it. He is also earth first in nearly everything. His sustainable clothing brand OuterKnown produces warm shirts and comfortable pants made from used fishing line. His sustainable sandal, inspired by the great romance between the moon and turtles, are made from algae.
In four words, green to the max.
Those who call The United Arab Emirates home know Kelly Slater differently. To them, he is an industrialist of old. Chewing up the earth in order to create monuments to man’s primacy over it. Bulldozers rumbling, diesel smoke filling the air. A giant pool filled with water emerging in a desert.
Kelly Slater Wuz Here
Whispers of his grand Abu Dhabi Surf Ranch have been percolating for some time now but they were only that. Whispers. How did it look? Like Lemoore or different?
Thanks to an Emirati Air Force pilot, we now know. It looks like this.
And this.
Big.
Though did I ever tell you about the time that I almost went to work for the Emirati Air Force? It’s true. I flew to Washington D.C. to interview and it went very well. They offered me a job almost immediately and I was supposed to move to Abu Dhabi where I would be put up in a new project, have a food budget and a fine salary. I decided not to take the position for some reason and look at me now.
A very cool surf journalist and also one half of a long-running podcast that discusses surf adjacent themes.
I suppose if I had taken that job, though, I would soon be surfing Kelly Slater’s monument to himself.
Alas.