"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our 3 - 4 ft mechanical rights and lefts!"

Many centuries ago, in the 1200s to be more precise, there lived a brave knight up in Scotland’s highlands named William Wallace. Little is known about his background, only that he came from noble stock. Scotland was enjoying a relatively peaceful period but then the king died thus breaking all hell loose. England’s king, Edward I, saw an opportunity to rule the north which led to Wallace gathering troops and fighting back for their sovereignty. After a stirring victory at Stirling Bridge, things took a turn for the worse at Falkirk and the brave Scots suffered heavy losses. Wallace was eventually captured and taken to London where he was drawn, quartered, emasculated and eviscerated before being beheaded.

His dream of Europe’s largest wave pool being built in Scotland dying with him.

You can imagine the thrill in Alba today, then, with the official opening of the Lost Shore Surf Resort but days away.

Located just outside of Edinburgh and featuring Wavegarden Cove technology, Lost Shore’s owners are hoping to see some 160,000 visitors come and barrel and also, possibly, the development of gold medal talent.

Founder, Andy Hadden bullishly declared, “We believe Lost Shore will make surfing accessible to everyone, whilst also showcasing Scotland as a top destination for adventure tourism. I can’t wait to see more people realize the mental and physical benefits of surfing. Who knows – this could be the training ground for Scotland’s next Olympic surfing champion.”

Paul Stark, the chief executive of the Scottish Surfing Federation, added, “Not only will this facility support our Scottish athletes to excel on a world stage, but it will also open up the sport to a much wider audience, safely encouraging more people to give it a try and experience all mental and physical benefits that surfing can bring.”

Brave and free Scots coming to surf can stay in Hilltop Lodges, Waterfront Lodges or Waterfront Pods while mocking their hated southern neighbors who don’t have a surf tub, much less Europe’s largest one.

The memory of Wallace’s last powerful speech floating in the air.

“Aye, surf and you may die. Run and you’ll live — at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our 3 – 4 ft mechanical rights and lefts!”

Freedom.

Book here.

"It takes 15 of the world’s largest container ships to equal all the pollution created by cars on earth."

The winningest professional surfer of all-time, one Robert Kelly Slater, found himself Instagram, yesterday, as Americans flocked to the polls and decided it was time to share a bit of information about climate change. The autodidact is, of course, widely knowledgable across multiple fields. Slater is smarter than most doctors, a mathematics whiz and an expert in Sino-American relations just to name but a very few.

Regarding the climate, though, the legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones had posted a carousel of images highlighting the differences between Trump’s policy positions and Harris’s and urged his many followers to vote with the climate in mind.

Slater, in any case, teed off, “So you think Harris winning is gonna change the planet’s climate in a noticeable way? It takes 15 of the world’s largest container ships to equal all the pollution created by cars on earth. And there are thousands of those ships. Any policy they can get her to memorize and speak on is not gonna change anything in any tangible way and surely not stopping avalanches, as old as time itself. But if we all fight about it here it might just fix it.”

Nobody at the time of his comment was fighting though the floodgates certainly opened thereafter with many Slater fans praising the 11x world champion’s intelligence and fortitude.

The only small problem, Slater was spewing misinformation like a coal fire. Jones, a climate activist for many years and founder of the non-profit Protect Our Winters thanked the 57-year-old Pipe Master for joining the conversation though pointed out that “The CO2 output from all the cars on the planet in a year is approximately 3.05 billion tons of CO2. The 15 largest cargo ships in the world collectively produce 4.13 to 4.96 million tons of CO2 annually.”

Hmmmmm.

Slater’s skepticism, and smoke blowing, might have been borne from sincere confusion even though, as mentioned, he is smarter than most doctors. It might also have been borne from the fact that he is actively trying to sell energy-hungry wave pools to Middle Eastern petro-kingdoms. Do you have any thoughts on that?

If we all fight about it here it might just fix it.