Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wants people smugglers put to the state sword…

Boat landings sure ain’t new on the sands of monied beach towns from Malibu through Laguna and down to San Diego.

Surfline cams often capture the inspired sight of migrants beaching their panga, those familiar flat-bottomed skiffs that originally designed by Yamaha for a World Bank project back in 1970 and named after the panga fish and disappearing into the hills for new lives etc.

The latest, two nights ago, wasn’t so pretty.

A panga overloaded with migrants capsized off Torrey Pines State Beach, San Diego, killing three people, including a 14-year-old Indian boy, and leaving his 10-year-old sister missing, presumed dead.

The tragedy, which unfolded fifty clicks north of the US-Mex border, has led to federal charges against two alleged people smugglers, with prosecutors and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seeking the death penalty—a rare and severe measure in human trafficking cases.

The vessel, carrying 16 to 18 passengers, overturned at six-thirts, spilling migrants into the 63-degree water. The San Diego County Medical Examiner identified the deceased as the Indian boy and two Mexican nationals, an 18-year-old and another man. Four survivors, including the boy’s parents—the father now in a coma—and a 16-year-old Mexican girl, were hospitalized.

Eight of nine initially missing migrants were later located in Chula Vista, 50 clicks away. Hikers, a doctor, and lifeguards attempted CPR on the shore, but rough seas thwarted rescue efforts. The US Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and local agencies quit searching for survivors late Monday.

Julio Cesar Zuniga Luna and Jesus Juan Rodriguez Leyva, arrested at the scene, face charges of smuggling aliens for financial gain and causing death, which carry a maximum penalty of death under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Zuniga admitted expecting $3,000 for the operation, while Rodriguez received 4,000 pesos (~$200) for expenses.

Three others—Melissa Jennelle Cota, Gustavo Lara, and Sergio Rojas-Fregoso—face charges for transporting migrants.

Noem called the smugglers’ actions “callous,” emphasizing a hardline stance as maritime smuggling rises, with 287 incidents in San Diego County since October.

How you feel about icing crooks? I think, excellent in theory, at least for premeditated murder and kid killers, but very  flawed in practice.

“I’m rebuilding a relationship with surfing because of the drastic and extreme circumstances that I was raised in.”

“His leg rope broke and wrapped around her neck.”

It’s long been the bitterest of pills to swallow for the non-contest surfer.

You roll up to your local on the one or two days you have off each week from schlepping drywall or, if you live in Australia, pushing NDIS funded cripples around, and you beach is closed for a surf contest.

Dare to enter the cordoned off area and the megaphones will roar and jet skis will hunt you out of the water. It’s a conflict embedded in the culture and a source, often, of comedy and, or, violence.

(Note: Here we see Kala Alexander of the Wolf Pak administer a classic BJJ takedown-to-mount, before the obligatory ground and pound some years ago at Pipe. Wait, no we don’t. All videos of the scrap removed.)

The latter was wrenched into the open at a New Zealands surfing contest over the weekend when the Benchmark Canterbury Women’s Surf Champs was overrun by non-contest surfers.

The competition welcomed everyone from beginners to experienced riders and showcased a wonderfully diverse range of ages and surfing techniques, with the smooth-faced, head-high waves providing ideal conditions. Very surfing 2025.

“It was incredible,” said Emma Clarke, an organizer from Coastal Wāhine, the women’s surf collective behind the event. “You rarely get waves like that all day long.”

It was these conditions that attracted not only participants and onlookers but also numerous other non-competing surfers, some of whom encroached on the competition zone.

Co-organiser Laura Bennett reported an incident where a competitor was struck by a male surfer’s board.

“His leash snapped and got tangled around her arm. It was hazardous and damaged her board,” she said.

Despite multiple loudspeaker announcements urging non-competitors to clear the designated heat area, surfers remained defiantly in the zone.

And here we ask the obligatory philosophical questions: what are the ethics behind the shuttering of a wave for a contest? Should it ever be allowed and do the rules apply equally to a grand slam and a kid’s school event? Should contest areas be respected?

Beyond all that, is it just too much fun to taunt contest organisers by catching a few little wedges under their noses?