"Heavy rainfall will lead to life-threatening flooding and mudslides..."

Hours ago, Hurricane Erick made landfall 100, or so, clicks north of Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Upgraded to a category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 205 kilometers per hour (127 mph) and gusts reaching 250 kilometers per (155 mph), it is the first to hit Mexico this hurricane season. Forecasters are predicting above-average activity from May to November, guessing that eight to eleven swirling storms will form.

The National Hurricane Center warned, “Heavy rainfall will lead to life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in areas of steep terrain.” Images coming out of the region show swamped streets and bendy trees.

Surfers, of course, best know Puerto Escondido as home of the “Mexican Pipeline.” A ferocious sand-bottomed tube.

Those wanting to visit, once Erick has left town, are advised to purchase a copy of Lonely Planet’s Epic Surf Breaks of the World.

The Puerto Escondido offering begins thusly:

There is likely no better feeling than sitting on a sweltering beachfront patio in Mexico, languid fan spinning overhead, sipping a still cold margarita, salt, rocks, nibbling shrimp tacos garnished with fresh pico de gallo while gallons of saltwater pour all over them from a sunburned nose. So why are my knees pulled to my chest like a frightened little kitty cat right now? Why is my heart pounding so hard that I swear it might leap right out of my throat on that next margarita sip?

The chair underneath me quakes and my senses return. Because this sweltering patio fronts Puerto Escondido and Mexico’s most notorious, dangerous, biggest, famous, superlative wave is just 500 yards away, thundering on the sand. Snapping boards in half, eating grown surfers whole.

I’d come to the Mexican Pipeline, as it’s called, to test myself. To push beyond what had become my comfort zone, namely soft southern California reef breaks, groomed Australian point breaks and warm, shoulder high tropical barrels. Becoming a surf journalist had opened up a world of ease and, as I looked myself square in the mirror one day, was disappointed with the softened visage looking back…

Enjoy the rest of this captivating tale here.

"I do not, nor never will, support SUPs, Wavestorms, Ben Gravy-branded soft-tops or foils around people."

Polarized times, these are, but I don’t have to tell you. It’s hard to keep up what with America-first anti-forever war United States President Donald J. Trump considering bombing Iran under pretenses that makes George W. Bush’s Iraq escapades seem downright considered, hard liberal Columbia University instantly capitulating on what it claimed to be rock solid values when barely pressed and Kraft Heinz declaring it will remove all artificial dye from ketchup and Jell-O.

Polarized, yes, but polarization jumping all over the dang place quicker than brave coward Filipe Toledo can sit out the back while scary waves pump over scarier reef.

Former Instagram surf comedian John Wayne Freeman, in any case, took to his new trad-wife vacuum in recent days to excoriate the failed shoe brand Vans for releasing a collaboration classic with Queer Surf.

The message that “nobody cares” might have been more “punk” had he delivered it in the height of those wild cancellation years when every company on earth was actively engaged in performative allyship, those with any sort of discomfort branded as dangerously retrograde and deserving of guillotine.

Something quite different, today, when the LGBTQIA+ community is back in the crosshairs, bullied, marginalized, etc.

And so I bought a pair of the Vans Queer Surf shoe in hopes of wearing it on the recently wrapped North Florida/South Carolina podcast tour to show support. Paying much extra for quick shipping.

 

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Vans, being failed, did not get they/them to me in time.

Package was waiting when I arrived back home, though, and I opened the box to a horror realization. They were pink, as promised and a color I love, with a fine triangle motif, but on the whitewalls two statements were scrawled.

All bodies.

All boards.

All bodies is why I bought them, any and everyone should be comfortable in the lineup and especially these ultra-bully days, but the all boards business sent me reeling.

I do not, nor never will, support SUPs, Wavestorms, Ben Gravy-branded soft-tops or foils around people. I also loathe longboards outside specifically designated longboard waves, Surftechs, rentals, gliders, eggs and… I guess all longboards anywhere.

What then to do?

I crossed out the “all boards” junk in hopes of a brave new future where only high-performance shortboards, mid-lengths on the right day, and mini-simmons are the only boards in the water.

Join me.

Buy here.

"This watch reflects everything I love—the ocean, nature, and the easygoing style I’ve always connected with.”

Kelly Slater has been a multi-hyphenate since almost the beginning. The young surf prodigy, blessed with knee-buckling good looks, quickly added model to surf. Next came acting followed by boy toy followed by singer, songwriter, inventor, astrophysicist and designer.

Wild to imagine that a boy from Cocoa Beach could become so much. Most specifically, and as it relates to design, that he could develop such a refined eye. I was just in Daytona Beach, a few clicks north of Cocoa, and can report that it is an architectural/sartorial disaster zone where bad taste is celebrated and worse taste elevated.

Slater, now 53, somehow, in some way, bucked his birthright. First came the very cool K surf accessory series followed by Outerknown, Slater Designs, the infamous turtle moon sandals based on the most unlikely relationship between chelonian and celestial body and now a luxury watched based on his Hawaiian home.

The Breitling Superocean Heritage B31 Automatic 40 Kelly Slater edition, which just dropped, features 200 meters of water resistance, a unidirectional stainless steel bezel, hands coated with glowing SuperLuminova and a date window at 6 o’clock. It is powered by the freshly invented B31 three hand caliber system which guarantees an accuracy of -4/+6 seconds a day and 78-hour power reserve.

More importantly, though, is the dial pattern, dreamed up by Slater himself to represent the filtered light and shadow that one finds underneath the Hawaiian trees. The 53-year-old new father told Men’s Journal, “This watch reflects everything I love—the ocean, nature, and the easygoing style I’ve always connected with.”

Retailing at $6750 (with metal band. $6450 with rubber), only 500 hundred are in existence. “One of 500” is engraved on the back along with “Kelly Slater Slater Limited Edition.”

Most importantly, though, is the note that comes with purchase written by Slater himself and reading, “From as early as I can remember, I dreamt of travelling to and living in Hawaii. It was this far-off land of amazing waves, perfect weather, and the ultimate surfing lifestyle. After living here, I realized it’s much bigger than that. The people, the community, the nature, all so intertwined. The respect Hawaiians have for their land, people, and culture runs deep. It makes Hawaii even more special than what I dreamt of when I was a kid. And now I call it home.”

I always pegged Slater for a “dreamed” man not a “dreamt” one.

Something new learned everyday.

Buy here.