Fatherhood is just around the corner for the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater. The 11x champion and his longtime girlfriend, Kalani Miller, announced, months ago, that they were going to have a little baby boy. It is, of course, the second go around for Slater though questions remain as to his involvement in raising his daughter Taylor.
Bygones be bygones, though, and Slater was just filmed strapped with baby, carving, barreling, even airing at his Surf Ranch.
Now, it must be assumed that the baby is false but the joy of watching an older father-to-be really leaning into his role, this time around, is inspiring.
Like Robert Di Nero and Al Pacino.
Autumnal fun.
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Jade (pictured) at Pipeline.
Brave influencer praised for surfing “most dangerous wave in the world” with no experience!
"Thank you for showing the mental struggles of your Pipeline journey."
The confluence of surfing and influencing has been one of the most delectable bits of our modern epoch. Surfing, itself, is generally pointless. Feed a river of half-baked narcissists with even less value right into it etvoila… a bouillabaisse of embarrassment so delicious as to require a Michelin Star.
And let us meet Jade who decided, at 19, she wanted to surf Pipeline.
Jade’s inspirational video journal opens with a call to her surf coach in which she asks, “Say a beginner, and that beginner is me, wanted to surf Pipeline?” It is unclear why she has a “surf coach” at all but he answers that she would have to train very hard, discussing how deadly the wave is etc.
Maybe ignoring his advice, she leaves her father then travels to Oahu’s iconic North Shore in order to do vlogger things, discusses her “training,” which included surfskate, then finally she was ready. Jade paddled out on a Rob Machado model surfboard, “body fully shaking” and eventually rolls into a 2ft burger, achieving the dream, as it were.
A few rude apples pointed out that she did not surf Pipe but, rather Gums, and offseason with no swell, though the general flood was filled with praise and awe.
Son of the sun declared, “Thank you for showing the mental struggles of your Pipeline journey. I feel like the frustration with setbacks is oftentimes just ignored on social media, and seeing you go through all of that is soooo inspiring!!!”
Annie McCoy added, “I don’t know you but when I saw you surfing pipeline, I was beaming from ear to ear. That was awesome! Good job Jade!!!!”
Roam with Reda shared, “Recently surfed Pipe for the first time maybe ~6foot faces was terrified just being out there lol but had a blast once I got over the fear.”
R. Goodrich simply said, “You’re gnarly for surfing pipeline!! Keep up the good work and can’t wait to see if you get sponsored eventually.”
On and on and on it went which brings us back around to Filipe Toledo. Will Jade surf Teahupo’o with no experience next?
More, certainly, as the story develops.
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Surfers come to the aid of a fellow shredder, hurt after being speared into the shallow bank at Lovers. | Photo: @mrmysto
Dramatic scenes on Gold Coast as surfer suffers suspected spinal injuries after being “speared” into sandbank
“Good lesson no matter how comfortable you are surfing a wave, always have to be extremely mindful."
A surfer has been airlifted to hozzy after a dramatic rescue at D-Bah, that remarkable little beach around the corner from the southern GC points and which is actually in NSW, this morning after he was, by all accounts, “speared into the sandbank” on a two-foot wave at around 8:45.
The photographer Mr Mysto was there for the subsequent group rescue at the northern end of the beach on the bank in front of Lovers’ Rock there and describes it thus:
“A group of surfers immediately stabilised the surfer in distress and signalled to me there was a problem. I alerted emergency services calling the ambulance at 8:57 to assist with immediate care. It took over fifteen minutes for Rain Beach Surf Life Saving to stabilise the individual before safety transporting him to shore where ambulance personnel then conveyed him to the hospital.”
And, last year, the former top New Zealand pro Max Quinn was forced to crawl for twenty minutes in “intense pain” and get airlifted to ICU after he belted his spine on one of the South Island’s heaviest waves.
“Good lesson no matter how comfortable you are surfing a wave, always have to be extremely mindful,” he said.
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Kelly Slater and apparent new-born give hell to Surf Ranch.
Watch as Kelly Slater goes surfing, even riding the barrel, with baby strapped to his chest!
“This could be Kelly Slater's Michael Jackson-baby-dangle-off-the-balcony moment.”
Hot on the news that Kelly Slater has been gifted a lifeline to a twelfth world title, is footage of the champ apparently giving an infant the gift of barrel-riding.
(As readers of this site who are parents will attest, the BabyBjörn harness is indispensable as it allows parents to carry their babies in various positions, including facing inward, facing outward, and on their back, as they grow. I have so many fond memories of babies asleep on my chest as I strolled the beaches examining the state of sandbanks and the tides.)
In the short reel hosted on Red Bull producer Johnny Decesare’s Instagram account, Kelly Slater coolly takes the child on a first-hand tour of his famous made-made wave, Surf Ranch, riding the barrel and, at the wave’s end, even introducing him, or her, or they, it, to the never-gets-old pleasures of a throwaway air.
“Could be Kelly’s Michael Jackson’s-baby-dangle-off-the-balcony-moment coming up,” writes one commenter although, I think, as one commenter correctly puts it, “some might say it’s a doll.”
"Holding it at Lower Trestles year after year turned Finals Day into a low-stakes hostage situation."
It’s possible to agree, I think, on the following two matters as superficially contradictory as they may seem at a first pass.
One, the sudden-death Finals Day format is a terrific way to build the fevers of spectators and push surfers into hitherto unseen levels of performance.
(Think Stephanie Gilmore, unbeatable, as she mowed through the top five to win an eighth world title and scramble Carissa Moore so hard the five-timer quit the tour shortly after.)
As fans, we’ve been frog-marched to Lowers. The pros, I’m guessing—apart from Toledo who lives in nearby San Clemente, is scared of big tropical reef waves, and knows Lowers better than you know the opening lines of your favorite Taylor Swift song—hate Lowers Finals Day even more than we do.
The long overdue change to Finals Day will have a profound and lasting effect on the tour.
Toledo, for one, ain’t ever gonna win a world title ever again.
And it opens the door not just for Jack Robinson and John John Florence but, incredibly, to an old man in his fifty-third year and three decades after he claimed the first of his eleven world titles.
The road to Kelly Slater 12 needs a little grease, of course, wild cards, bigger than usual swells, and it’s improbable as all hell.
But, when has improbable stopped Kelly Slater?
Cue, eight-to-ten-foot Cloudbreak, and the last meaningful swell of the 2025 season.
Who would bet against a man who’s been surfing Cloudbreak for almost forty years, whose artistry quivers even the limpest organ?
Dare you to dream?
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
