“This is the real Dream Tour right here…it sure beats watching the WSL!”
The three-time world champ John John Florence, currently on tour with his little family, wife Lauren and bebe Darwin in New Zealand, has stolen the show from a world surf tour that has dwindled into an irrelevance not seen since its inception in 1976.
No John John Florence, no Gabriel Medina, no Carissa Moore, no Stephanie Gilmore, no firepower, no waves, no interest. In El Salvador, where little waves lap on a brown sand beach and where it’s so damn hot the pro surfers are forced to mask their odours with flowery perfumes as sweat pours down their faces like raindrops, the biggest story has been whether or not Chris Cote is back on the drink.
The image on the left – from a late 2024 podcast – shows Chris Cote, discussing his sobriety with @wsl‘s Dave Prodan. The other image, taken today, shows Cote, in the WSL commentary booth, clutching a promotional beer. A (purely speculative) bit about this… pic.twitter.com/QyusCPDviq
— Full-On Steez IV (@DoubleEpskiSesh) April 7, 2025
Anyway, no one’s watching, no one cares. Instead, surf fans have pivoted to John John Florence and fam, currently in New Zealand.
Four months after making it official that he wasn’t going to hit the tour in 2025, yeah he’d take a Pipe wildcard but that was it, John John split to go exploring in New Zealand, a decision made easy by the fact his forty-eight foot gunboat Vela had been sitting dockside there after listing it for sale almost two years ago for $1.3 million American dollars.
John John’s latest couple of posts has the Hawaiian-born multi-millionaire snorkelling with big friendly fish, dolphins, maybe, surfing a riotous sand bottom right-hander, carrying bebe Darwin around on his shoulders, eating cold sandwich meat and watermelon and, at day’s end, sipping Bourbon toddies on the deck of Vela.
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A popular refrain in the comments is “This is the real Dream Tour right here” and “The real Dream Tour” and “What a dream life” and “This sure beats watching the WSL.”
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Meanwhile, his little brothers, Prince Harry lookalike Nathan and daddy clone Ivan, are back on the road, this time in Chile, singing their own hymns and saying their own prayers.
There are no gloomy silences, no cantankerous Brazilians weeping about a half-a-point spread.
Just the Florences bursting into glory.
RIP WSL.
Gonna be me soon.
“ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED FOUR HUNDRED EIGHTY SEVEN” this is one heck of a statistical number.
here’s statistic for ya’
“With over 400,000 deaths in the US as a result of COVID‐19, at the time Trump left office, this assessment appears tragically prescient. Multiple studies have concluded that many of the deaths in the US were avoidable.”
straight from the NIH National Libarbary of Medicine.
That’s about “ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED FOUR HUNDRED SIX HUNDRED EIGHT HUNDRED EIGHTY SEVEN” less than your stat.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9115435/
that’s a great movie. Bruno in fine form.
Iconic!
Pointless self serving meandering in nowheresville.
I was concerned for you so I checked. looks like you’re good. I’ve attached the article, but you don’t have to read it, as I read it for you.
In Summary it says: Thailand was concerned for Jen See and her wetsuits, so they decided to increase U.S imports to Thailand and decrease tariffs to remedy the $45 billion trade deficit they have with the U.S.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2998591/thailand-sets-out-tactics-for-us-tariff-talks
you bring up a good point, and a point that the President is trying to make. unfortunately, because we moved almost all manufacturing off shore, we are almost completely reliant on other countries to make everything for us. like, when was the last time you purchased an American made product, made from the ground up in the U.S.?
yep, wetsuits and surfboards all imports, but look at this from 2020:
“Beijing bragged about its handling of COVID-19, a virus that originated in the city of Wuhan and has spread quickly around the world, killing nearly 5,000 people and infecting thousands more. The article also claimed that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge America into “the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
“The last American manufacturing plant to make a key component in penicillin shuttered in 2004. Since then, Chinese pharmaceuticals companies have moved in and taken over, supplying between 80 percent and 90 percent of U.S. antibiotics, 70 percent of acetaminophen and about 40 percent of heparin, according to Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.”
Remember the big fear that China would shut off the pharmaceutical pipeline? Remember when people were absolutely freaked bc there was a mask shortage (all made in China)? President Trump does.
Maybe it would be a good idea for the U.S. to become more self reliant. turn on the energy spigots, retool and fire up those vacant factories, innovate and build things, create some new jobs and employ Americans.
wouldn’t it be great to roll up to a Santa Barbara wetsuit factory and get your custom, neatly folded on the cut and glue table?
just a thought.
BTW- how’s the girls surfing been in El Sal?
Anyone here from Hamilton?
how do you keep becoming more of an asshole? I thought you’d maxed out on the LA deserved the fires comment to channelbottom. But you keep doubling down on being a complete fuckhead, its amazing to watch. lol rofl ? who the fuck writes that shit, after a heavy comment. you dont need blocking you need a fucking bashing.
He’s never coming back and I couldn’t be happier about it
When the trip is over you come home to Hawaii. That’s living the dream….
Wonder what will be the impact on the retail prices.
Either way,
– Perfectly good excuse to rack up some more debt on the credit card and fetch some fancy imported rubber ASAP
– Second-hand wetsuit market is gonna be (very literally) taking the piss out of this situation.
I’d love to float around the Pacific with Tugger, and Russell Crow.
You’re right. But to indicate that slater doesn’t deserve the right to do what he wants as well, is a bit judgemental.
Obviously Kelly is a strange person. But he’s not out there actually causing much harm (other than his likely donations to the politician from Hawaii who’s big in the Trump admin).
nate’s silverbacks clips will be epic
That place is weird. You been?
no, have stayed on the pacific side every time I’ve been in that region … that particular wave looks crazy, appears you basically have to backdoor that peak to have a prayer at making it
Silverbacks is a bit of an anomaly, doesn’t break that often and sits out in the middle of nowhere making lining up super difficult. Curren supposedly body surfed the place once and ended up lost in the jungle. One of the camp operators thought he killed Curren by letting him bodysurf out there. Ended up finding him walking back along the coastline.
Nice info
No doubt. Getting close to end of the season for that area?
He’s there. Like you said, kinda weird timing being end of season but before summer mini season hits. But it does look like they got waves.
yeah, the Caribbean side more like the USA east coast season
Actually, not at all. Bocas gets waves from trade winds and storms off the coast of Columbia, hence the 2 different seasons. Nothing like the east coast in terms of season or waves. You wouldn’t guess it but the waves are hefty at many of the spots there. Just need to know where to go and when.
interesting, re season had been under impression would match the rest of the Caribbean and basically fire during the winter and when the tropics heated up … did not mean to suggest waves were anything like east coast, obviously lots of heavy Caribbean spots.
have you spent a lot of time there? other waves in that region look fun
Not a lot, but been there. I believe it most resembles what Salsa Brava has in terms of seasons. Plenty waves in the general Bocas region. Some known like Bluff, Paunch, Dumpers, Silverbacks but plenty other uncrowded spots around with a half decent boat. Worth a trip and definitely a family friendly spot, just a bit of a trek to get there.
Waves are so fun over there.
Got recommended this video, which is amazing. Regular Ecuadorean surfers scoring, massive perfect waves in the Galapagos. Nothing like warm water, double overhead barrels at an unknown (edit: lesser known) break
https://youtu.be/aYAYkjf8vV0?si=3XGNJO20uEqMQm9R
beautiful
Not “unknown” – rather well-known.
That was the “Eddie Swell”, so Punta Carola doesn’t break like that all the time – quite rare to have a norPac swell that big in the Galapagos.
The Eddie swell eventually delivered a 22 second period swell to the Antarctic Peninsula!
That wave gets good for about two hours of tide swing quite fickle but good.
Been there quite fickle lots of Brazilians
Looks thick
that video freaked me out, days of pumping, and those guys were charging.. I couldn’t share it. Still digesting a couple of those waves.
Save your inane points about Israel… for an article on Israel.
believe me Gila, JJF……is NOT blowing up every underexploited surf break he could find.
you should see some of the waves he doesn’t post.
Pretty sure he’s talking about Callahan and all his bullshit travel claims, not JJF.
Oops. I didn’t see the deleted comment that started the thread.
Oh it’s not deleted. “Content unavailable” means that little bitch Callahan has blocked both you and me, if that’s what you are seeing (deleted would say comment deleted). Seems to be his go to for anyone who might be able to combat his bullshit statements. Just logout of Disqus and you will be able to see all his narcissistic comments. I have a sneaky feeling the guy is no longer welcome in the Islands as he seems to embody anything but aloha.
too bad. he and I grew up together.
we were photography partners in high school. I was actually the first surf photo he ever shot. we used to build boards in hs garage. He was a pretty fun guy to hang around and surf with and had a great sense of humor.
be nice to see a glimmer of joy that he used to have, come back to him.
he seems so pissed off at the world these days. sad.
Wait… you are Obama???
I was a classmate of Barry at Punahou School 1841 Buff and Blu, brah but I am not Obama –
Just waiting for the official announcement of the death of the WSL. Must suck working for that place constantly wondering if this is it. But hey, I’d much rather be in el Sal so maybe joke is on me.
Just saved 25% on my fuel bill just now, because of Trump
Trump lowered fuel prices in Australia?
Oil prices are tanking worldwide due to recession fears, so yea he’s lowering gas prices by destroying everyone’s net worth.
Equality baby!!
That’s not why oil prices are going down.
Well that’s what they’re saying on the news. What’s your theory? Google oil price drop and every news article says it’s due recession fears.
This is not a theory. This is why
Eight members of the OPEC Plus oil cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, said Thursday that they would accelerate their previously planned schedule to gradually add about 2.2 million barrels a day to the oil market.
This article in fortune magazine says that the increase from opec exasperated the situation but was not the cause, but whatever.
https://fortune.com/2025/04…
More supply than demand. Shipping will be moving back through the Suez Canal bc Trump is dealing with the Houthis, finally. There was an 80% drop in traffic. All going around Africa and avoiding the Red Sea. That will be changing and shipping realign their crude oil commitments to demand required by more economical route.
If you think a couple of air strikes has ended the threat from the Houthis you’re dreaming. All their missiles and drones are in underground bunkers. Trump hasn’t hurt them at all.
https://nationalinterest.or…
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