"I am the kid taken away by the twister. Now I have no board to surf with my friends tomorrow."

Wild vision of a tiny surfer being caught up in a Wizard of Oz-style twister on Australia’s Gold Coast, his lil surfboard ripped out of his arm and sent to the heavens, went viral a few days back.

The kid is running along along the eastern facing escarpment at Point Danger, the ridge that overlooks D-Bah, as the storm cell hits at around nine in the morn. The wind is so strong, gusts hitting one hundred clicks an hour – 4500 lightning strikes would be recorded and a car would be crushed and trees felled, all electricity out etc –  the kid is lifted up and hurled by the invisible hand of god with his his surfboard torn out of his hands.

 

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The Instagram account Kook Slams, which is not to be confused with the original surfing wipeout account Kook of the Day, offered the kid in the clip a free surfboard at which point a bunch of kids put their hands up for the prize, deftly weaving tear jerker stories in an attempt to win the new stick.

Eventually, the legit kid, Benny Wineera, who bears a passing resemblance to on-fire women’s world champ Caity Simmers, was found and presented with a brand new five-o from Jason Stevenson’s house of shred.

The presentation can be found below, the lil man stunned by the verbosity of his interlocutor.

 

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"If I was still a junkie I would’ve thrown it in my wetsuit and run up to the car.” 

A BeachGrit habitué from San Diego has told of harrowing scenes at Ocean Beach after a vessel carrying illegal migrants flipped, trapping two inside the boat’s hold. 

(See photos here.) 

Boats filled with new Americans making audacious beach landings have become such a staple of everyday life in San Diego County, although Malibu is also popular, it now surpasses border town Tuscon, Arizona, as the hottest migrant hub in the union.

A short time after the Ocean Beach landing, the US Coast Guard intercepted two boats, each carrying 15 suspected illegal migrants.

Four days earlier, 26 new Americans were taken into custody after their panga-style boat ran out of fuel one mile offshore from Oceanside Harbour. 

And a few days before that, another panga was intercepted twenty five miles off Point Loma, with 15 new Americans from China, Uzbekistan, Mexico, Ecuador, Vietnam and El Salvador arrested.

Anyway, boats everywhere. 

And our BeachGrit was doin’ a little surf check this morn, seven thirts, when he saw a Mexican couple walking up from the beach, holding hands, broad smiles, completely soaked.

He looked further afield and saw a cabin cruiser, thirty feet or so, flipped over in the shore break after taking a wave broadside on the way in. His pal, who spoke a little Spanish, found out everyone had split leaving two souls trapped in the boat, an old man and a woman.

He says it took lifeguards six to eight minutes to top the boat back over . The old man was pulled out, hypothermic but ok, but the woman was dragged onto the sand where lifeguards performed CPR.

“I watched her die in front of me,” he says. “It was so heavy. I’ve never seen anyone die. They did CPR for ten minutes but couldn’t revive her.”

After, as fire crew and cops mingled on the beach, our reader and a pal picked up trash, gas cans floating in the water and a neat little plastic bag filled with heroin and a handful of needles. 

How’d he know it was heroin and not dirty coke? 

“Twenty three years ago I was a heroin addict. I know heroin when I see it. It looks like coke, basically, but heroin when it’s in really good form it looks like a tan version of coke. When it’s shitty Mexican tar heroin it’s gooey, when it’s in a good form it’s like a light tan powder.” 

A pause. I can hear our pal smile. 

“It was the good shit. If I was still a junkie I would’ve thrown it in my wetsuit and run up to the car.” 

A three-day retirement that bests even Kelly Slater's short-lived sabbaticals…

In the sort of semi-retirement switcharoo not seen since one of Kelly Slater’s many short-lived sabbaticals, John John Florence has been announced as the local wildcard for the Lexus Pipe Pro, which begins in two days. 

Unless your memory is shot, you’ll remember triple world champ John John Florence, who is thirty-two, quit the tour three days ago announcing, 

I want to create the time to explore, find new waves, and draw different lines. I intend to compete full on for another world title in 2026, but right now this idea of adventure and creatively pushing my surfing as far as possible is really exciting! The ocean is so big and there are so many different types of waves to explore. I’m stoked to be filming into some new projects and planning to share the amazing places we get to go along the way.

Now, and as announced by the World Surf League, previously in tatters after the announcement that John was out, along with Gabriel Medina and Stephanie Gilmore, fourteen world tittles between ’em, John John Florence will take the locals wildcard.

You think the WSL had to beg John John to have a hit out at Pipe or was the lure of what’s looking like pretty ordinary Pipe enough to get him fired up?

I would suggest first, although not unconvinced it was the latter.

Where does the reader stand on three-day retirements?

 

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