"If you are in the sun a lot make sure you get checked regularly by a qualified skin doctor."

Now, the BeachGrit peruser is no stranger to the various dangers present in this surfing life. Shark attack, rabid seal, rage-filled local, reef, sandbar, wetsuit rash, angry spouse etc. The fact that each and every reading these words have not hung up the proverbial leash, as they say, a testament to sheer stubbornness and low IQ. Yes, we should all quit surfing, but if we are going to keep on keeping on there is one most important precaution of all, according to surf icon Mark Richards.

The Newcastle, Australia native is a first ballot legend, changing the very game through the late 70s and early 80s. His “MR” surfboard logo becoming synonymous with progression and flair. Richards went on to win 4 World Surf League championships (circa International Professional Surfers) and is, to this day, an innovator.

Thus, when he speaks, we listen and the 67-year-old just delivered a hammer on, possibly, the biggest surfing danger of all.

That sun.

Bubbling and boiling, overhead, shooting radiation toward earth, the sun is nothing to mess with.

Richards explains:

A Basal Cell Carcinoma in the middle of my forehead which was cut out last week. 12 stitches including the internal ones. This one was picked up on my recent skin specialist check up. I hadn’t noticed anything on my forehead, no freckle, discolouration or raised reddish mark.

Stitches came out next week & I’m back in the water.

If you are in the sun a lot make sure you get checked regularly by a qualified skin doctor. Years of sun exposure & damage are catching up with me. Every visit to the skin doctor over the last few years has resulted in something being frozen or cut out. In my younger years the only sun protection I remember are Zinc & a Coppertone brand that seemed like yellow grease. In my later years I have always been good with sun cream or Zinc on my face but rarely anywhere else.

Thinking back I’ve surfed through a lot of summers in boards shorts with my back getting fried.

I now always surf in a wetsuit or Lycra sun shirt, also wearing a surf hat due thinning hair & having a “solar panel” on the top of my head.

Well, what are your thoughts on wearing a surf hat? Have you taken a position yet?

"Badass."

If there is anyone professional surfers adore, worship even, it is Meta founder-in-chief Mark Zuckerberg. If the world’s fourth richest person posts a surf adjacent video clip, you best believe top tier watermen come calling. Billy Kemper to Lauren Sanchez to Nic Von Rupp each and every one with hearts in their eye emojis.

You can be certain, then, that political watchers are zeroing in on the surf vote after Zuckerberg threw his light strawweight behind former president, current candidate, Donald J. Trump.

The tech vote, of course, has swung heavy DJT post assassination attempt and Zuck is right there lead following with his own hearty endorsement but hours ago. “At some level as an American, it’s hard to not, like, get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight,” Zuckerberg told Bloomberg about Trump’s response to the shooting. “And I think that’s why a lot of people like the guy.”

He later called him a “badass.”

With the 2024 presidential election on a knife’s edge, every jot and tittle count and with Zuckerberg influencing professional surfers influencing teeming hordes, might the surf vote actually sway the outcome?

Let’s say the aforementioned Billy Kemper, inspired, takes to the trail with Trump. Fair to think it could be all over, at that point, no matter who the Democrats select as their candidtate.

Unless it’s Matthew McConaughey.

Then the roof is a manmade thing etc.

"This watch was on your Daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured and put in a Vietnamese prison camp..."

Early last year, though it seems like an eternity ago, the World Surf League breathlessly introduced the Apple Watch as “the official wearable of the WSL.” Championship Tour surfers would strap bright mini computers to their wrists and use them to know who had priority in a given heat instead of looking back at that pesky shore.

“The unique capabilities, ease of use, and incredible water resistance of Apple Watch make it the ideal solution to support our surfers competing in the extreme conditions of our worldwide tour,” the now disgraced WSL CEO Erik Logan said at the time. “Surfers need critical information while they compete, and the WSL Surfer app we’ve developed for Apple Watch provides real-time data that will help the communication flow from the WSL Scoring System to the competitors in the water. We are so excited to roll this out and enable our Championship Tour athletes to focus on their performance and improve competition throughout the 2023 season.”

No telling what happened to the partnership. Much like Jeep, Barefoot Wine and Box to Box Films it was vanished, I think, without reason but those initial heady days were filled with glitch. Caio Ibelli almost missed his call because his Apple Watch “didn’t tell time.”

Italian heartthrob Leonardo Fioravanti went one further declaring in a post-heat interview, “I just wanna say, our freaking watches weren’t working and that’s pretty heavy. My watch wasn’t working. And nothing to take away from Apple or WSL. I mean, what they’re doing is great, trying to bring in some technology into our world. But if my watch doesn’t work from start to finish and I gotta ask for time, like, I’ve been used to having the time on me at all times in heats. And we’re fighting for our careers so I hope they figure it out because my watch didn’t work from start to finish. So that’s pretty heavy.”

Pretty heavy indeed with the tech giant’s reputation greatly tarnished in the surf world.

Though surfers, like most, love a redemption story and, here, we have it for days ago the smeared Apple Watch saved a surfers life. The New York Post is reporting Australian Rick Shearman, 49, was out in the waves when he suddenly became distressed out near Byron Bay. The currents were sucking straight out and Shearman… oh he was bodysurfing, so I guess not actually surfing, but, then he remembered he was wearing an Apple Watch and here he picks up the story.

“At this point, I was a long way out to sea, I was being buffeted by wind and big swells, it was actually quite difficult to utilize [the watch]. I had to hold it up to my ear to hear what was going on and speak to the respondent.”

It worked!

Rescuers came and pulled him to shore and Barefoot Wine bottles were popped in celebration. “If it wasn’t for being able to access that service in my watch I’d probably be bobbing out somewhere in international waters by now,” Shearman stated.

Leonardo Fioravanti yet to respond for comment.