Sean Davey and wife Lane
Sean Davey and beloved wife Lane at Pipe.

Help wife of surf photography legend Sean Davey fight stage 4 colo-ovarian cancer

"They say that Lobsters mate for life. Lane is my Lobster. Please, please, please help me save my lobster."

One of the more likeable figures in the loosely strung together world called the surf community is the Australian photographer Sean Davey.

I met Sean when I was a junior editor at Surfing Life magazine many orbits ago.

And, then, long before the eyes became jaundiced, the limbs weary, the marrow cold, I would thrill to his submissions, which were noted for their vivid colour and a fanatical attention to detail in his exposure of transparency film that made technicians weep for their beauty.

Later, when I got the reins to the magazine, I made a point of throwing every bone I could at Sean Davey, enjoying his company on myriad trips. This included a wild sortie to the Philippines as we hunted the ghost of Mike Boyum.

During this time, Sean met and fell head-over-heels in love with an American gal who was one of the few women who would ride Pipeline. Pretty soon they married and carved out a life on the North Shore together.

Fast forward twenty seven years and Sean and his wife Lane are dealing with the two-pronged horrors of cancer and America’s cruel healthcare system.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sean Davey (@sean_davey)

As Sean explains in a message to his friends, fans and surf family,

Friends and family all over this beautiful world of ours, I have some crushing news to share with you all. My wife of 27 years ; Lane has been recently diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer. She is in the fight of her life right now.

Lane had her first infusion of chemotherapy yesterday. The procedure went better than expected but she was awake all night with nausea, which I guess is to be expected.

Though we both have had decent health insurance, Lane’s is about to finish due to the fact that as a professor, she is only employed on a semester by semester basis, and so Lane’s insurance might run out any time now. On top of that is the very likely scenario that Lane will need to go to the American mainland to get specialized care. She would have left on New Year’s day, but her condition has been deemed too serious to fly right now. So hopefully the chemo can shrink the cancer to a point where we can reach the next step in this process. Meanwhile, we are looking at some pretty major expenses coming up.

Some of the specialized care that Lane requires is not covered by the insurance and so it’s looking to be very expensive. Given the need for the specialized care, flights and upcoming operations, we are looking at an initial figure of $90,000. We really need all of your help to make this happen. Those of you who can contribute, please go to Lane’s GoFundMe page to donate, if you are able to. Any amount helps. For those of you who can’t afford to, PLEASE do what you can to spread the word to others. We really, really need ALL of your help right now to help Laneski beat this insidious disease. From the bottom of my heart, please know that we appreciate each and every one of you. Please help save my Laneski!

In the subsequent GoFundMe, Sean goes into a little more detail.

My wife, Lane “LaneSki” Davey is in the fight for her life against a Stage 4 colo-ovarian cancer associated with a 6cm mass that is blocking her intestine, causing a lot of pain and making it hard for her to eat. In the 6 months it took us to get a diagnosis, the cancer spread to her liver and lungs so at this point the only option for treatment is chemotherapy which she will start on Dec. 26, but since it is unlikely to cure her cancer, Lane is researching cutting edge facilities such as City of Hope (Az), the Burzynski clinic (TX), and the Turtle Band Clinic (NV) who specialize in advanced cancers. Costs of treatments at some of these centers run up to as much as 140,000 plus travel costs. We are also looking for a reasonably priced rental close by in Kahuku so Lane’s Mom can come and help out which will free up more time for me to work especially since Lane isn’t able to work at this time.

Lane and I met back in 1995 and were inseparable from the get-go. We married in late 1996 and I moved to Hawaii in 1997, where we’ve remained ever since. We were a great match with Lane being a pro surfer/ clothing designer at the time, while I was photographing for surf magazines all over the world.

The news has been so devastating to Lane who has spent the last 12 years serving as a full-time college lecturer and also acting as a part-time caretaker for her father with dementia while earning her Ph.D. that she finally completed last May. Lane is so dedicated to her students that she will stay up into the wee hours of the night grading resubmissions from students to make sure everyone has a chance to succeed in her class. This past semester, she spent a lot of time curled up in a ball on the floor before she would transition back to her computer to grade papers, answer emails, and prepare her lectures which often proceeded each worsening scan and diagnosis. You may have seen her out surfing with a smile on her face but that was after being up crying all night in pain. I know if anyone can beat this, my wife can.

Lane is a courageous and devout woman of faith who has always followed God’s call despite enduring a lot of opposition and difficult circumstances. I remember her paddling out to second and third reef Pipe when no one had ever seen women go anywhere near that. We would all sit on the beach and gasp as her 115-pound frame feathered on top of 12-foot sets and sometimes we watched her get annihilated by them but somehow she always found her way back to the beach. I remember Lane traveling the pro circuit with a surfboard under one arm and a sample bag under the other which contained her one-of-a-kind women’s surf line that she sold to 50 stores across the U.S. and Japan. Of course, everyone told Lane that women’s surfwear was a ridiculous idea and then they all eventually followed suit anyway, laying the groundwork for the amazing opportunities that women surfers enjoy today. In the 90s, Lane also began writing about the female surfing experience for a range of international magazines that I was shooting for and this eventually led her back to school because she wanted to document local legends in a lasting way. Her doctoral dissertation is one of the most extensive works on he‘enalu (surfing), detailing epic swells at Pipe and Bowls that Lane surfed daily for over thirty years and documented rigorously for about 20 in a blog she wrote for the Honolulu Advertiser and Oceanic Cable. She hopes to continue her research and publish them as books.

The cancer diagnosis has been a shock, to say the least since Lane, just 53, has no family history of cancer, eats healthy, exercises daily, and doesn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs to the point where she will rarely even accept an Advil. According to statistics, Lane is currently looking at a 2-9 month life expectancy if she doesn’t get help quickly. I can’t conceive of losing my soulmate and the mother of our three beloved dog babies Paumalu, Tazzy, and Kai Boy.

We just celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary just last week. I remember telling Lane way back in the mid 90’s that we would grow old together as a couple and I intend to stand by that pledge.

To be honest, I know Lane feels let down because she gave up a life of material gain to serve as a teacher and community activist for over 20 years, and in her time of need, neither the education system nor the health system has been there for her. Similarly, the surf industry largely refuses to recognize her contributions. So we sincerely ask for your prayers and your support. Any amount, big or small, not only funds Lane’s chances at life but fuels her fight to live because it shows her that people care and appreciate her service.

They say that Lobsters mate for life. Lane is my Lobster. Please, please, please help me save my lobster. 

Jump here if you want to kick the Daveys a shekel or two.

Load Comments

Australian surfers reenact a scene from Silver Strand of old.
Australian surfers reenact a scene from Silver Strand of old.

Silver Strand shreds last bit of fearsome reputation as hardened local saves boogie boarder from certain death!

Not a dry eye in the house.

Silver Strand, tucked right there in the “least fun city in America” Oxnard, California, has long harbored a reputation for its fierce surf locals. Daring to surf there, and not living there, was met with the fiercest windshield waxing, angry looks, being ordered to “beat it.”

Alas, those hardened days have receded what with everyone’s penchant to record everything on telephones then call the police. And  a human wave of adult learners so thick that the ranks of grumpy locals would have to be filled in twenty, thirty, forty times over in order to have enough window waxing resources.

And in the latest disheartening news, it seems as if an icky cloud of benevolence, care, love has descended on over the argenti shore for, yesterday, reports came out that the son of a local, making him local twice over, saved a drowning boogie boarder.

The local Ventura CBS, ABC, FOX affiliate shared the story of a husband and wife out for an evening beach stroll when they saw a distressed boogie boarder in real trouble. The husband attempted to call 911 and the harbor patrol but accidentally dialed his son Noah, instead.

Now, Noah’s dad had received a new surfboard for Christmas after snapping his during the just-wrapped California super swell event. Very core. Noah, in any case, didn’t feel like waiting for 911 or harbor patrol, grabbed dad’s gun (or maybe soft topped Beater), sprinted across the sand, jumped into the water and saved the sponge.

Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Not only the selfless heroics but father accidentally calling son when he tried to call emergency numbers?

Son being up for the challenge?

It can only be hoped, anyhow, that the boogie’s windshield was waxed while he was being saved.

Load Comments

Albee Layer almost dies on Maui
Albee Layer writes, "Idk how I woulda handled another set into the rocks. Ended up puking up some salt water for a while in the channel and some whiplash and other soreness…"

Hawaiian Albee Layer almost dies in New Year’s Eve tow surfing accident!

"Ended up puking up some salt water for a while in the channel and some whiplash…"

Albee Layer is a surfer who will dance a rigadoon in waves four feet or forty. Little surfboards and monstrous guns.

But even big-waver Albee Layer, who is thirty two, pronouns He, Him, Hottie, can find himself in strife as was evidenced by his brush with death on New Year’s Eve. 

Albee Layer takes up the story.

Had to give it a go yesterday. Couldn’t find anyone to come out (they were elsewhere scoring) but @annie__starr was there to watch over me. 

Went on the third wave of the set cause no sets had more than three waves till this one of course. Annie was right there ready for the pick up before the following wave but I waved her off to protect the ski and figured wave number 4 HAD to be the last wave of the set, in retrospect not my best call. 

After two more waves she was there again but we were so close to the cliff and I saw the next wave closing out into the worst area ever so I waved her off again (my bad again) then she was able to swing back in and get me. Right after we were back outside more waves came and idk how I woulda handled another set into the rocks. Ended up puking up some salt water for a while in the channel and some whiplash and other soreness but all in all pretty much fine. 

Very thankful all we lost was a board and a hat. Very thankful you were there @annie__starr you are a fucken insane ski driver.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Albee Layer (@live.fast.die.old)

The footage is wild.

Albee Layer’s gal Annie Reickert, noted for her bravado in Maui’s big waves, comes in to scoop him out of the impact zone. Albee waves her off multiple times. 

Not everyone was thrilled by the bravura performance, howevs.

Four-time runner-up to the world surfing title, Cheyne Horan writes,

“Wouldn’t be my partner , came in and missed with the sled twice , consequences could have been serious… lucky this time.”

Albee Layer ain’t afraid to put it in on the line, as they say. In 2019, he suffered a brain injury after wiping out on a thirty-footer at Jaws.

Four years later, Albee Layer was still feeling its effects.

“A lot of people have told me how stoked they are to see me back to normal since the concussion in 2019. I really appreciate that but the truth is I’m not and never will be whatever I considered normal before. It’s been over 3 years. I’ve been through lots of treatments, tried prescribed meds, meditating, therapy, fucken spirit quests you name it. I’m still a bit different. I can be shorter to anger (directed at myself), shorter to negative assumptions (very anxious), and even worse than I was at social interaction, which lead to a lot of self medicating that made things much worse.”

Load Comments

Beloved Australian TV presenter Dave Hughes suffers tragic shoulder dislocation while surfing the Gold Coast on New Year’s Day

"9 out of 10 level nerve damage."

We, here at BeachGrit, have regular conversations surrounding the abject danger of this surfing life and I don’t image that will change now that its 2024. It is important, a duty even, to inform adult learners of the various and sundry ways they can damage both their bodies and psyches whilst out for a playful dance upon the waves.

There are:

Surly locals, beginners on longboards, “experts” on longboards, SUP pilots, cranky sea otters, side eye when the wave of the set is blown, rock jumps, reef, sharp surfboard fins, three or more Brazilians, rip tides, sneaker sets, willful under-called “swell events,” flying fish, to not even mention the obvious ones like shoulder dislocations.

Well, the beloved Australian television presenter Dave “Hughesy” Hughes, suffered the aforementioned pop while enjoying Australia’s glorious summer. Taking to Instagram, the 53-year-old penned, “Happy New Year. Had my least sober NYE in 30+ years. Green whistle came after two hours of worst pain of my life, plus morphine and the rest of them. Shoulder dislocation while surfing. 9 out of 10 level nerve damage. Shout out to wife, Surfers Paradise SLSC, and Gold Coast medical professionals for their much needed help! Will be in a sling for a while, not sure when my next right-handed high five will be.”

The “Green Whistle” is street jargon for the painkiller Penthrox.

But in any case, I, like Hughesy, have had my arm violently ripped from socket many times while surfing. Tens upon tens upon tens. The latest, at Surf Ranch some many years ago. Unlike the Australian funnyman, I never whined or whinged or demanded morphine. I’d just tug on it until it slid back in and that was that. I will say, though, after that Surf Ranch rip, wherein I hit the bottom with shoulder, I became so furious that I went to the doctor who x-rayed etc. and then performed the Latarjet procedure which I preferred because it sounded French.

Rehab took forever, my shoulder is still cranky and weird but it has not popped out since.

Recommend 10 out of 10.

Load Comments

Candace Owens and Ricky Basnett

Conservative firebrand Candace Owens dumped over “surfer-like” anti-Israel stance

Genocide for beginners!

The political pundit Candace Owens, a firebrand adored by the right because…lookee here she black and conservative…has been dumped over her comments on Israel described as being “surfer-like” in their naivety and ignorance.

Candace Owens first revealed a stunning ignorance when she claimed Muslims were being held under slave-like conditions in Jerusalem. 

“When I’m walking through Jerusalem, and you see, and they say ‘these are the Muslim quarters, this is where the Muslims are allowed to live,’ that doesn’t feel like a bastion of freedom to me,” Candace Owens said on her own podcast. 

It took Candace Owens’ guest, Jewish comic Ami Kozak, to explain that there were four-quarters in the Old City, Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, and that the Muslim part of town wasn’t for enslavement. 

As your ol pal DR can attest, the Muslim quarter is abuzz with mercantile pursuits with many opportunities for gift-giving including toy machine guns adorned with photos of tween gal jihadists and polyester outfits for women covering crown to ankle bone and available in olive and black. 

Happy Muslim tweens pose with machine guns
Happy tweens pose with machine guns in Jerusalem’s buzzy Muslim quarter. Photo: DR

Anyway, you’ll remember when October 7 came around the surf community, with the notable and obvious exception of Shaun Tomson, was quick to hoist the Hamas standard, celebrating their brave resistance. 

Shortly after Hamas gunmen put bullets into hundreds of unarmed civilians in the Israeli towns bordering Gaza, including kids and their pets, and raped the hell out of the cute festival gals before executing ‘em, our own surf feminist and trans-in-sports-activist Lucy Small posted a series of stories about the conflict.

These included a reel  from Al Jazeera showing Hamas terrorists landing in Israel in their paragliders and about to murder hundreds with the caption, “Palestinians in Gaza made history as they escaped the world’s largest prison”. 

Yay!

Small explained the contradiction of a feminist supporting a religious fascist group that killed gays and subjugated women with, “The end of occupation may allow for healing. It is common in communities affected by armed violence, rates of domestic violence and violence against women are higher – it’s a tragic part of war.”

In another salvo, Small described Israel as being “at the nexus of colonisation, white supremacy, capitalism and (the) military industrial complex…”

And there was a blizzard of support for the South African surfer Ricky Basnett after he claimed Israel’s response to a medieval slaughter of its civilians by the Iranian-backed forces of its neighbour was genocide.

Basnett, who is a seven-time South African champion surfer and was a Championship Tour surfer in 2007 and 2008, followed a well-worn path of progressive surfers towing the line that every damn Israeli citizen got what they deserved.

But back to Candace Owens, who is as dumb as a pack of Queers for Palestine activists.

The Dave Horowitz group, which helped launch Candace Owens’ career, has officially cut ties in a statement titled, “Goodbye Candace.”

Six years ago, the David Horowitz Freedom Center invited the then little-known Candace Owens to its annual Restoration Weekend gathering of conservative movers and shakers.

“This really is the conference where everything started for me,” Candace later said. “I started my career, my political career on YouTube making just funny, satirical videos, and I got an email from David Horowitz inviting me to this conference, and let me just tell you what a big deal it was for me. I had no connections whatsoever.”

At this conference she met Charlie Kirk, and connected with his nationwide student organization Turning Point USA, and became a national figure.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center went on promoting Candace, honored her with an Annie Taylor Award for Courage in 2018, and hosted her at multiple events.

That’s why we are so disappointed in what she has become.

Back then she laid out an ambitious plan to “move the black vote 20 points by 2020”. It’s not clear what happened to that. Instead of liberating the black community, Candace began giving platforms to anti-Israel voices like Andrew Tate, a Muslim convert who said that “ISIS are the real Muslims because ISIS do exactly what the book says.”

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has previously criticized Candace’s promotion of Tate. But because of our history with Candace and our hope that she would pull out of this spiral, we did not make an issue of it.

The atrocities of October 7, the appearance of ignorant mobs in the U.S. chanting “Hitler was right” and supporting the Hamas terrorists, and Candace’s moral equivalence about these neo-Nazis have changed the stakes. We have decided to issue the present statement because of her recent promotion of Hamas’ genocidal lies.

For example, she has falsely compared Israel to the “segregated South.” This is the sort of ignorant ‘Apartheid State” slander that we expect from Black Lives Matter – and the Jew-killers of the Middle East.

When Candace implied that Israel was engaged in “genocide” for defending itself against the atrocities committed by Hamas, that’s the kind of genocidal lie we expect to hear from Hamas.

And when she suggested that to remove the Hamas auxiliary — Students for Justice in Palestine — from campuses would increase antisemitism, that’s what we expect to hear from the New York Times.

It’s not what we at the Freedom Center stand for and it’s not what the patriotic movement we have been helping to build over the last 35 years represents.

Instead of focusing on the meaningful activism and defense of American values that brought her to our attention, Candace Owens has become obsessed with her own fame, stirring up drama to compensate for a lack of real achievement. Her comments about Israel and her promotion of people like Andrew Tate are part of a pattern. Candace tackles a subject she knows nothing about, never bothers to learn anything about it, and then rides the backlash by playing the victim to generate more fame and money.

What a tragic misuse of talents.

In 2018, Candace tweeted that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was clueless. She’s “programmed to hate Israel and she has no idea why.” Now she has become AOC. Candace hates Israel for the same reason that AOC does. Fame. She proved that she knows as little about Israel as AOC does when she falsely claimed that the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem is the only place that Muslims are allowed to live, thus “proving” the Hamas canard that Israel practices apartheid. It does not.

But this is not just about Israel. It’s about the survival of western civilization which the Islamic jihadis have been working to destroy. And it’s about the sad caricature that Candace has become, and the end of the promise we saw in her.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center wishes to express its deep disappointment with Candace’s ignorant, hateful and morally obtuse remarks about Israel and the Jews. But, of course, it’s not just about the Jews. The Jews are the canaries in the mine. The West is next and America above all.

It’s one thing to have been alive in the Thirties and not realize where the Nazis were heading. It is quite another to be alive during a 75-year campaign by Islamic jihadis to “finish the job that Hitler started,” and fail to stand against their open campaign to create a second Holocaust.

Here is the irony that the so-called pro-Palestinian left and Candace fail to grasp. For nearly two decades Israel and the West sent millions in humanitarian aid to Gaza, which was used instead by the Hamas government to build 300 miles of terrorist tunnels and turn Gaza into a military base, sending thousands of rockets into civilian areas in Israel – war crimes. Where were the protests in Gaza and on college campuses then? They were demonstrating in behalf of the war criminals.

We are in a civilizational war and Candace is either on the sidelines or actively supporting the crusade against the West.

We at the Freedom Center remain committed to finding and supporting the activists who will do the work, rather than chase the clicks, who will stand up for freedom and the sanctity of human life, who will refuse to compromise with evil and retreat into a delusional isolationism that says if the evil doesn’t affect me immediately, I don’t really care about its victims or the future that it intends.

Goodbye Candace, we will continue to support those who truly strive to raise up the movement for liberty and life, not selfishly tear it apart. 

Where do you fall in this terrific battle of ideas?

Load Comments