"Look at you!! Wow incredible," writes Kim Kardashian.
It’s one of the loveliest rags to riches stories in surfing. A poor Tahitian surfer, Raimana Van Bastolaer, raised by his grandparents and who was a bodyboarder thrashing around at a tame black sand beachbreak north of Teahupoo until 1996, now earns his keep as the ultimate celebrity surf coach at the WSL-owned Surf Ranch.
Raimana is a man of early middle age, let’s say forty-nine although his timeless island beauty means he could pass for thirty, and didn’t stand up on a surfboard until he was twenty and the Gotcha Surf Team, which included Brock Little, Rob Machado and Martin Potter, left behind a fleet of boards.
Now, Raimana will surf behind the beginner at the Slater pool, steadying them with his hands, issuing instructions, support, and as the wave moves onto the shallow part of the bank at Surf Ranch will compress their hips into the correct lowered stance before pin-dropping off the wave allowing the learner to enjoy a vision that used to be reserved for a wildly select few.
The supermodel Cindy Crawford, whose career peaked in 1987 when she appeared alongside the other OG supermods Christy Turlington, Linda Evangalista and Naomi Campbell on British Vogue, has previously described Raimana as “the Big Blue Pill. He can get anyone up! Even me!”
Recently, Ivanka Trump, the statuesque forty-two-year-old daughter of Donald and Ivan Trump (RIP), and whom you last saw on these pages when she savaged “violent, manipulating” windsurfers on a Lex Fridman podcast, has, too, fallen under the spell of Raimana during a recent trip to the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch.
In a post that was eagerly gobbled up by her eight million followers, Ivanka Trump posted several rides alongside the Tahitian Pep Pill, describing Raimana as “incomparable.”
“Look at you!! Wow incredible,” writes Ivanka Trump’s bestie Kim Kardashian, with subsequent comments from American patriots echoing the sentiment.
View this post on Instagram
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
Watch this MC….. think you will enjoy it.
Celsius and Rice…..
My thought was, they were all independent Indian tribes that were forced into nationality by the conquering Spanish.
So nauseating! Does surf ranch (the salad dressing is also revolting) have no shame as to whom they siphon cash I ask. Maybe the Drown Prince bin ssssssSS next.
Wait.. is that kushner ripping? dang.. daddy’s money paid for some lessons in Costa at surf simply or some place… wtf?
The Tahitians still haven’t gotten over the Royal Navy sending out the “Bounty” to collect breadfruit, but instead, Fletcher Cristian and his crew abscombed a bunch of the best looking babes to run off together to lonely Pitcairn Island. Now they’ve sent Raimana over to do likewise to American women, so don’t be surprised if beauties from the central valley start disappearing.
is this the guy that annoyingly yells from the ski constantly at Slaters pool? Surely someone must have told him to STFU by now
Question SN:
” What surfer would relocate from Tahiti to Leemore?”
good point!
A family gotta eat.
Doesn’t pencil out.
The central valley is a dump, hot AF and how much could they pay him anyway?
Pretty sure it’s Dirk that’s doing the paying.
So $$, $$$, $$$$,???
Who knows?
But I’m guessing it’s a fairly good amount.
the ultra simplied, easy access way to our hard earned respite for rich people, her pose literally looks like AI
Did not know the two most despicable women in the country were friends.
No such thing as Mexican’s at that time.
Educator with Mex experience should know that.
It happened way back when Pancho Villa was young.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
His story is a bit like Pocahontas.
I wouldn’t touch Kim Kardshian with yours.
Nor that Trump whelp.
Correction: she is daughter of Donald and Ivana, not Melania. The disrespect
Now I know why tigers eat their young
And what triggers Maga to make corrections to the “truth”. Some things are so disrespectful
You mean Melania wasn’t a mama at twelve? (For the sake of whatever might left of my reputation I’m gonna correct the story.)
Vomit.
with multiple sides of plastic surgery.
Get her a medal of honor.
this deserves a pin
Participation trophy
Heartwarming to see that class consciousness exists in the US after all. Even if it’s just among nepo babies…
Is it a rags to riches story or a throwback to the slave trade?
Claudia Schiffer was my favourite super model.. 👌
The only thing that would make the new middle east environmental disaster wave pool/ wsl contest remotely interesting is if Raimana gets to kneeboard behind the pros screaming at them for every mistake they make
Chas gets to kneeboard behind Felipe and provide “motivation”
…at Teahupoo.