A devil's bargain if there ever was one.
As any surfer knows, it has become very difficult to surf without hordes of VALs, blow-ins, transplants etc. utterly clogging heretofore manageable lineups. What used to be ten surfers enjoying a dawn patrol has ballooned to fifty or sixty and not just fifty or sixty on modern performance shortboards but fifty or sixty on fifteen foot gliders.
Surfing in the apocalypse.
You can understand, then, how core lords and ladies up in Bolinas, near San Francisco, have pounced on a devil’s bargain allowing them to forgo crowds by surfing in sewage.
According to The San Francisco Standard, “Marin County officials were alerted to the issue when a permit inspection revealed sewage leaking along a bluffside property. A subsequent investigation and E. coli testing revealed ‘at least a few dozen’ locations across a 1.5-mile stretch where sewage was flowing onto the beach at a rapid clip, according to Sarah Jones, director of the Marin County Community Development Agency, which handles environmental health services.”
Grumpy locals reading and licking lips.
Mickey Murch, described as a second-generation farmer and Bolinas surfer, told the paper, “I really don’t know much about this except that the surf is nice and empty. I go in the water even during the biggest storms in the winter, when people’s septic systems are overflowing, so maybe I have a good immune system. I’m a nonbeliever.”
Others, standing nearby, nodding along but also holding fingers to lips, not wanting the secret to get out.
Residents are, of course, frustrated by the environmental breakdown but beggars can’t be choosers, these days. An empty wave even filled with poo worth much more than it was five or six years ago.
Over to you, now. Would you, like ol’ Mickey Murch, brave your immune system and paddle or fear the diarrhea?
More importantly, what would Kelly Slater do?
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100 percent
Everybody talking about getting the shits but there’s a real concern for all of the chemicals that drain into the ocean on a daily basis. I’d be more concerned with longterm exposure to whatever the fuck they spray on the flower fields that is draining into the ocean.
https://youtu.be/hnbGqqO_XJ0?si=Mrxq9bpItVFR-DbO
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Worn with honor.
Can I have a badge for that?
Pfffft! It’s packed with pros every time its on monkey.
What would Kelly Slater doo-doo?
BeacWh(itesupremacy) Grit
Did you change your account again Chase?
yes the old one got caught in the disqus whackery so it wouldn’t log in.
did you draw me the map to the place i’ve packed kegs at since the winter of 92 when I was 12?
lemme buy you lunch one day – I’d love to hear your finest Indo tales and maybe you could draw me a map after all – to a bend in a reef somewhere far, faraway from here?
i’d love it, for real.
I would surf in dirty water, but it would have to be overhead.
See you this fall.
Tyler must have threatened legal action
her layback is covered in shit anyway, litigation be damned
And you’d think with all those taxpayers we could get water treatment but oh wait, gotta bomb somewhere
There’s sewage….and then there’s SanFrancisco sewage. whole nother level.
…..although that oil slick could just be the runoff from Gavin Newscumbs hair.
the last time you were in the city?
news for ya: right now is the sorta time that incubates genius. it was destitute and rents collapsed and the heart of the city downtown, union square, streets taken over by zombies and pimps and immigrants and those who grow in cracks.
history shows the creative ones with funky souls have a chance to pounce, reclaim, and make something bleeding edge there right now. then when the world sees it’s grimy beating creative heart it’ll be cool and rents will improve and the artists will get priced out and gentrification will occur and it’ll be unaffordable and Hurley Men’s Plastic Razors will open modern looking shops on hot corners and……until the next pandemic cleanses it all with fire again and the zombies come back out like roaches to crawl thru the detritus of capitalism and cultural rot.
haven’t been back to San Francisco in two years. the exquisite Mrs. Camper (who is from San Francisco) was there a couple of months ago, and FaceTimed me from Union Square and China Town, that were desolate, except for the homeless and a few Chinese shopkeepers. so sad. it is such a beautiful city.
Hopefully it comes back to it’s glory.
artists and the wild ones will revive it; then re-re-gentrifiers will take over and pay exorbitant prices at which point I hope the Tenderloin set re-emerges and empties it out once more. in CA style, fire cleanses once growth becomes abundant and chokes out the native soul.
like the Tenderloin…it’s not really gon’ kill ya. it’s quite fun by day and if you don’t wanna risk feeling your blood spark and your balls tighten a bit in case of an unpleasant encounter, don’t fuckin’ come. it ain’t for you. let the testicled set enjoy its raw death energy. in a weird way I thank God everyday for places like it in gloosy-patina’d America, and of course the dense & squalid immigrant & broke down bum quarters of LA in the Westlake/Pico Union/McArthur Park/downtown/flower district/fashion district. I like that shit. I crave it. I think it’s important in profound ways to have places like this in the world’s wealthiest nation, 15 min drive away from unimaginable excess. it’s important for EVERY American to see. and for the wild ones, it ain’t scary at all. it is us.
get that stench in your nostrils and dirt under your finger nails. I love the parts of our inner urban cores that remind me of say, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. maybe i’m weird but I feel fucking 100% alive crawling those destitute American streets like a viper at night.
my mama grew up in the City too after coming up from Mex. it is an absolute jewel on its day.
Unbelievably crowded.
Every time I fly into LAX, I’m amazed by the extent of the population sprawl, viewed from high above. Fucking people and cars everywhere, 24/7.
You seppoes are full of shit!
Maybe seppo was the wrong nickname after all
lol!
23.75 million in 2020. Safe to say it’s close to 25 million now. LA metro area alone is 18.5 million.
Brings a new meaning to the term ‘poo stance’.
Poo en sai!
Great day and age we live in where you can be a Sewage Spill Non-Believer.
Seppo
Post flood surf in Hawaii was pretty nasty but good waves. Hardly anyone out and didn’t get sick … Paddled past a syringe at a NorCal rivermouth. But SoCal may be the worst after any significant rain. Street drain runoff and posted beaches everywhere. And new promises of fixing the Tijuana River / Imperial Beach situation?
RJ’s in Newport is one of the worst.