Greta Thunberg (left) wondering how she got environmentalism so wrong.
Greta Thunberg (left) wondering how she got environmentalism so wrong.

Greta Thunberg left gobsmacked as World Surf League releases annual “Purpose & Impact Report!”

"Two bushes, one world."

There is making a difference and then there is MAKING A DIFFERENCE and notable environmentalists from here to there, including the very famous Greta Thunberg, are reeling, today, as the World Surf League released its much-anticipated 2023 annual Purpose & Impact report.

Mic stinkin’ dropped.

You certainly know that the “Global Home of Professional Surfing” is forever pushing the envelope when it comes to saving this Global Home. Bushes planted etc. But even the most locked in surf fan couldn’t image the vast extent of the purpose nor impact.

Per the unverified claims of the World Surf League’s One Ocean initiative:

-45,374 hectares of land protected or restored, including the protection of surf ecosystems in Hawaiʻi, Australia and Brazil and long-term reforestation projects in Uruguay through the surf league’s carbon offset portfolio

-100,000 corals planted through efforts with Coral Gardeners

-2 tons of plastic removed through river intervention projects in Latin America

-1,635 volunteers engaged across all One Ocean activations

-3,041 youths educated on cultural and environmental stewardship

I would, personally, like to know how to get in on the  “surf league’s” carbon offset portfolio.

Why Uruguay?

Shut your gross polluting mouth.

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Chris Hemsworth (pictured) being perfect. Photo: Instagram
Chris Hemsworth (pictured) being perfect. Photo: Instagram

Australian hunk Chris Hemsworth flashes muscles, fatherly pride during surf at Kelly Slater ultra-exclusive Middle East wave tank!

Oh to have it all.

Oh to be rich, powerful, handsome, fit, adept, popular, healthy, connected, happy, loved, friends with Kelly Slater. In a word, or two, to be Chris Hemsworth. The Australian hunk seemingly has it all, the world on a string, and in the latest bit of unadulterated good fortune we see the star taking his talents to Abu Dhabi.

The United Arab Emirates second fiddle, as you certainly know, is home to Kelly Slater’s exciting, and ultra-exclusive, new surf tank. Clips have been dribbling out from the desert for a few weeks, now, but none outshines Hemsworth’s where perfection and fatherly pride collide.

“Watching my kids progress through the day until they were backhand tube riding better than the adults was all time,” the 40-year-old penned under his video presentation, thanking the aforementioned Kelly Slater and former CT surfer Mitch Crews along with the Abu Dhabi emirate. Leaving out the precious Pakistani slaves who received their portion of gratitude by getting to ride in a jail bus to and from the site during their fifteen hour shifts.

Hemsworth’s children, a daughter aged 11 and twin sons aged 9, certainly live a blessed life and do appear to be ripping, becoming barreled etc. whilst facing out as opposed to in.

Very cool and everyone was very impressed save Ann Wander who declared, “Go to La Union Philippines we have natural waves good for surfing.”

Ok.

Now, what do you think the more you see of Slater’s Abu Dhabi Surf Ranch? Would you trade your local for a poolside condominium plus one one hour session a week?

Be honest.

Thankfully, Chris Hemsworth will never have to choose. He’s rich. He can do both plus a New York pied-à-terre.

Suck it, Ann Wander.

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British man suffers debilitating incurable disease after surfing country’s sewage-sotted waves

"When Mr. Salter was in Egypt's land, let my people go..."

There are many troubles and travails in the life of surfer. Being cold, becoming frustrated at self and others, finding parking. Leaving a wetsuit drying outside and it raining, walking barefoot on rocks, losing the wax comb. Saltwater dripping out of nose onto computer keyboard, blowing the takeoff while the lineup is watching, etc.

None of these, though, are as troubling or travailing as the very sad case of Reuben Santer, a teacher who described surfing as his life. Mr. Santer, enjoyed the watery game so much that he moved to Devon, there on the pendulum’s westernmost tip and surfed and taught and surfed and taught until one bad day he developed a a nasty ringing in his ear. He went to the doctor and was told the problem was likely caused by surfing in sewage and to take a month long break.

He did, eventually felt better and swung again after the time was up though failed to notice signs warning of even more sewage. Out he went only to land back in the doctor’s office with even worse symptoms. “Extremely loud tinnitus, this time followed by an attack of rotational vertigo, deafness and vomiting.”

Ugh.

Things devolved from there as he writes in The Guardian:

My recovery began smoothly, but then it kept coming back, again and again. I was completely debilitated, never knowing when an attack would strike and forced to spend days in bed recovering from each episode. It lasted for months and I became scared to go out on my own in case I’d have an attack and not be able to get home. I spent months on the sofa and eventually lost my job.

A specialist eventually diagnosed me with Ménière’s disease: a chronic inner-ear condition with no known cure that causes progressive deafness, roaring tinnitus and loss of function of your balance organ leading to rotational vertigo. The doctor thought it could have been due to sewage but said it would be impossible to prove.

Now poor Mr. Santer is trying to hold gross polluters and politicians to account, imagining his story of woe will move them to act. Hope springs, I suppose, though, in my experience, gross polluters and politicians don’t really care about much except lining filthy pockets with fresh inner-ears.

Bastards.

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Mick Fanning on the cover of CEO magazine and the 2015 Great White attack at Jeffreys Bay.
Mick Fanning almost in the jaws of a Great White shark at Jeffreys Bay in 2015 and, inset, Fanning the biz man on the cover of CEO magazine. | Photo: CEO magazine

Mick Fanning amasses $13 million fortune following crippling bout of depression and near-death encounter with Great White shark

So rich he can lift his delicate fingers in the air, click them like castanets and be handed anything he wants!

It will come as little surprise to regulars on this page that the proprietors have had no meaningful contact with the three-time world champion surfer Mick Fanning in a decade and a half.

(If you’ll recall, Chas Smith faithfully reported his encounter with Mick Fanning at a party in December 2009 to celebrate the Coolangatta surfer’s world title, the story Tales of a Fucking Jew, appearing in the January-February, 2010, issue.)

Therefore the immensity of his net worth, somewhere around thirteen million American dollars, and the revelation Fanning was so depressed he struggled to get out of bed following his premature retirement at the end of 2015 following his Great White encounter, a world title loss to Adriano de Souza, the death of his brother Peter and divorce from wife Karissa, comes as a terrific surprise.

At the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Melbourne, Australia, Mick Fanning described the year as the worst of his life.

“By the end of that year, I felt like I had nothing left to give, but had no idea what I was going to do. My fun barrel was empty so I had to figure out ways to fill it back up,” Mick Fanning told the annual four-day gathering of investors, startup founders, investors and general sorts of biz people.

“I tried some things that were outside my comfort zone, and hoped I’d find myself again. That feeling of being uncomfortable helped me learn a lot about who I was and what I could pour into my fun tank.”

First, Fanning co-founded a craft brewery with some pals and called it Balter. Two years later, seven hundred venues were slinging it at their patrons and a year after that Carlton & United Breweries gave ’em US$128 million for the brand, Fanning pocketing a sweet two-and-a-half mill.

“It helped me think about my ‘afterlife’, when I’d no longer be competing. It wasn’t easy because surfing was everything, and the ocean had always been my healing place. But stepping back for those few months had let me think about the fact I was getting older, and realize that I wouldn’t lose my entire identity when I was no longer on the tour,” Mick Fanning told CEO magazine.

“It also made it easier to finally quit because I could see there were still fun things to do in the corporate world and lots for me to learn.”

And still the money kept rolling in. He is now so rich can lift his delicate fingers in the air, click them like castanets and be handed anything he wants!

Rip Curl signed Fanning to a ten-year deal, worth many millions, in 2019, Red Bull and Mercedes sling him cash and if you want to get Fanning to speak at your corporate event you ain’t getting change from a hundred gees.

Lately,

Mick Fanning has parlayed his cash into a wildly diverse series of businesses, including “ethical” dog food brand Scratch, biotech company Sea Forest, a burger chain Fritzenberger, a Byron Bay yoga studio as well as myriad forays into the real estate game.

“My advice to an entrepreneur starting out is to find people you really trust and admire, and ask them a million questions. Then just go for it and believe in yourself. There’s always going to be someone saying you can’t do it, that it won’t work, but if you have belief you can make things happen,” says Fanning.

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Surfer of the year Nathan Florence the surprise hero of eight-hour-a-day office Joes!

"We’d all like to be Nathan Florence, surfing around the world and being handed out full-body cardio workouts like they’re a morning coffee."

So I’m in the garage,  sweating away on a half-broken elliptical, my Chromebook balanced precariously on the office chair sitting in front of me, watching the latest Nathan Florence clip.

Have you seen it?

MULLAGHMORE GOES XXL: THE INSANE RIDES, BARRELS AND BEATDOWNS OF NOV 9TH 2023

It’s nuts.

Nathan Florence and his coterie attacking what has to be one of the scariest, most fuck-off waves in the world. The jagged, kunji-covered jewel in the crown of Atlantic surfing. Mullaghmore. 

It’s hard to imagine how Nathan Florence can raise the bar any further.

Yet here, I think as my spindly legs thrash away on the rusted piece of exercise equipment that my wife won’t let me bring into the house proper, he’s done it again. Side-slipping down the face of cartoon-like portals. Treating spine-crunching Mullaghmore like it’s three-foot Bingin.

It’s easy to hang shit on the YouTube generation and their hamster wheel of cheese-grade content creators. But Nathan Florence is inscrutable. An institution. Like Thanksgiving dinners or Christmas puddings.

Like Thanksgiving dinners or Christmas puddings.

That’s a good line.

I’ll have to write it  down before I forget it. I click the elliptical into a lower gear. Up the resistance. Imagine I’m a dedicated, elite athlete. Just like Nathan Florence.

This fucken elliptical. I’d prefer to be surfing.

But it’s another one of those cold, bleak November afternoons at home. Soft rain dribbling across the windows. A strong nor-east wind has been blowing for days, causing another cold water upwelling. Spring time water hovers at icecream-headache temperatures. A weak, long interval south swell has a couple of little ones wrapping around the Point every ten minutes. Objectively, it’s not worth getting wet.

I decide for a quick session on the elliptical instead.

You tried one before? They’re pretty regular in gyms, I am led to believe, though I have never stepped foot in one to verify. Like a treadmill, but with handles attached to the footing so you get a full body workout.

Because, fuck it, I’m closing in on  forty. And this is the shit you need to do to yourself sometimes. When you’re an office worker, sitting down eight hours a day. We’d all like to be Nathan Florence, surfing waves of consequence around the world and being handed out full-body cardio workouts like they’re a morning coffee.

But this was the hand I was dealt.

I found the thing on the side of the road only a few doors down from my place, the elliptical, about a week or so ago. A “Free” sign hanging jauntily off its handles. The electrics were cooked, so no calorie counting, but the pedals and apparatus itself were all in tact. You could even still manually adjust the setting.

This is it, I thought to myself as I surveyed its weathered frame. This is my ticket to fitness. I imagined myself on it 24/7. During work meetings. Watching tv. At family events. At the end of the aisle at my daughter’s wedding, popping away. I’ll be the fittest man alive.

The cunt was heavy, but. Too much to carry back up the road myself without scratching the fuck out of it. All I had on hand was the wife’s hatchback. I ran back home and grabbed the keys. Rolled the car back down the hill, and reversed up next to it, like a snake sizing up its prey. It was going to be tricky. But I popped the boot anyway.

Some inspired thinking and I had it in the car. Then it was in the garage. And now here I am, bopping away on it like the fuckwit I am.

It’s funny.

I can run for an hour and not break a sweat. But twenty minutes on this thing pumps me. It gets boring, though. I burn through the podcasts. Only so many spotify soundtracks I can listen to.

Which brings me back to this afternoon in question, and the entire reason I am watching YouTube on my Chromebook, resting awkwardly on the side of my chair.

I’d seen a clip of the new Nathan Florence video on Insta and just had to watch it. I cued it up on the lappy before I started my run. A 25 minute episode. Perfect.

He drops in on one. Crouched, his hands fused in place to the rails, body and board locked into a stupendous free fall. He looks like one of those toy plastic soldiers I used to throw from the upstairs balcony.

He lands in the foamball. Is annihilated.

What runs through your mind when you’re throwing yourself into something like that, I wonder as I slow my rhythm on the elliptical back down. Surely there’s some sense of self -preservation flickering somewhere?

I know my automatic instinct. My deeply ingrained fight-or-flight response, proven time and time again on the countless waves I could have went, but didn’t. Pull back. Save yourself.

I guess that’s why I’m here in a garage, on a broken down elliptical, and Nathan Florence is the Content King of the Surfing World.

Content King of the Surfing World. 

That’s a great line, I think to myself as I begin to speed back up, the elliptical groaning and shuddering under my weight. I need to get it down before I forget.

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