60 days in jail for second offense.
We surfers, we sliders of the seas, know that placid conditions are not very fun. Certain regions around this beautiful globe are, of course, more placid than others. Places like Florida’s gulf coast that require weather events like hurricanes or cyclones in order to wave.
Now, all of Florida has a “two red flags a flyin’, don’t go surfing and risk a dyin'” policy but it is usually enforced with a stern finger shake. The city of Panama City Beach, on the aforementioned gulf, has decided to up the ante and slap a $500 fine on first time offenders and $1000 plus a possible 60-days in jail on second time offenders without any warning.
Beach safety director Daryl Paul declared, “So, our mission here at Panama City Beach is to stop drownings … We want you to come here and enjoy Panama City Beach. We want you to make long-lasting memories with your loved ones and friends and we want you to go home and be with your family,”
Bay County sheriff Tommy Ford added he is “beyond frustrated” watching “strangers die trying to save their children and loved ones.”
Locals, though, are ticked, calling the enforcement change “gross overreach” and “a tourist trap.”
But let us ponder, together, for a moment. Let us say that a hurricane comes a blowin’ and those two flags are run up the mast though the barrels are churning. Now, Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, there in Lemoore, is said to cost roughly $50,000 for a day. Panama City Beach’s $500 fine, if it was effective in clearing the water, a mere 1% of that (if my math is mathing).
Here is Surf Ranch.
Here is Panama City Beach on a two red flag day.
Seems kind of a deal, no?
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hey kids, let’s open up our book “Darwin and Natural Selection…” Next week, and with our coming 250th b-day, we’ll be studying the Declaration of Independence…your god-given rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
at the time of these teachings, I was more interested in Playboy and MAD magazines. but the message of our forefathers seem a bit appropriate right now.
Surfers are exempt from the fines in PCB as long as they are tethered.
Never let the truth get in the way of a clickbait story. Even better it’s based on something that happened almost two years ago.
They could attach a Marlin fishing lie on a collar in case the Florida Surf was hazardous or Seals were nibbling..!??
Defund beach grit!!
Oh, you’re late to that game.
I know, just wanted a react quote.
As a youngster I was fined $150 after being caught leaving a supermarket with a butterflied chicken hidden in my trousers.
Though not as bad as a friend who got caught with a salami and a block of cheese in his pants, and in addition to a fine, his case was featured on page 1 of the Otago Daily Times (readership approx one hundred thousand at the time)…
You can steal 200 chickens in Dem cities, no fines either. And positive news coverage.
That’s a pretty good deterrent
Only 191 days till Pipe Masters!
This only applies to swimmers, not surfers. You can absolutely surf in PCB in double red flags.
chas has had a rough week with fact checking….
Nope, not paying attention to that shit.
“two red flags a flyin’, don’t go surfing and risk a dyin”: perfect lyrics for a CW song.
was hoping for some lovin’, lil’ woman held up a red flag that lef’ me a cryin
so I grabbed my board, went down to the shore and saw two red flags a flyin’
back in the trailer, lil’ woman axed: thought you went surfin’…
so I told her: two red flags a flyin’, don’t go surfing and risk a dyin
now on my back I’m a lyin’, lotion in hand ready for applyin’
what else ya’ gonna do when the red flags are a flyin?
load is blown after 5 minutes of DIYin’….maybe I should have gone surfin’
……….and just paid the fyin.
Speaking of Florida; What’s the last thing you ever hear a Redneck say?
“Hold my beer….watch this!”
Something like that.
In other news….
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Just because I’m not going to really influence anybody to go anywhere, Mexico etc have been getting clean solid swell and good winds for a while now, and it looks like it is going to continue over this next weekend and well into the next week. If you ever wanted to set up a strike mission for yourself where you’re going to be able to experience smaller and more relaxed crowds, be somewhere to surf Monday 6/8 to Thursday 6/11. It should be pumping, and everybody who lives there is going to be already totally satisfied if not no longer able to take the daily paddling. Second straight weekend of great waves will be behind you and people will need to be getting back to work.
It’s too bad that it’s not pointed enough at the Hawaiian Islands after Sunday, even on Oahu I think you could score some of the busier spots pretty quiet.
I’m in Costa Rica again June 12th to 14th range–should hopefully be something still around?
I’m not sure, but the storm train is definitely out of the station at this point. And Costa Rica kind of always has surf, even when you’re not seeing much swell on the charts. Pretty high up on the list of places where you can throw a dart at the calendar and probably not get skunked
central CR
100% you’ll be surfing.
Yeah but the wet season is upon us now so winds are suspect and models calling for a system to make a close approach, almost a repeat of last years hurricane.
Never know though, it might never happen or it might end up a Cat 5.
Fun times!
Hurricane is hard to account for this far out. Places farther north less likely wind problems
Hard part here is being so close to the generation zone there is very little time from when it forms to when it hits, so most of the preparing has to happen in the forecast stage.
It may be like being stalked by a turtle on the east coast, but here it is like being ambushed by a snake.
But the way the last few have been it’s better to assume it is going to be stronger and hit faster than what the models say.
South Shore Oahu 8-10 ft. Tuesday.
Shark attack yesterday at Diamond Head
Two aggressive Tigers spotted at Bowls
No fun, Hawaii so much worse than it used to be
Your old spot will be cooking before the trades kick in…. giddy up Camper
Just seen Durban Poison as I drove by, so I snapped a photo. No sign of Pauly, though.
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It’s nice to see they know a little geography…
Is there a bridge up the road that says “Water is wet!”
What people fail to realise, including Beachgrit, is that constant agitating about shark attack threat will only lead to the same government overreach. If loud voices demand for government to make the naughty oceanic safe for splashing around, then the government will eventually go for their default position of eroding freedom.
Sure, maybe there will be the mass killing of innocent fish to satisfy the afraid-of-the-world mob. But it’s just as likely that when the loud voices finally convince the broader population of their irrational fear, the responsibility to remain safe will be placed back on the Individual.
As it stands, drone observation of sharks is becoming more common.How long before there will be a fine issued because surfers failed to exit the lineup after the shark alarm has gone off for the fifth time in a day?
Thats just the logical extension of what is already happening at surf spots here on the east coast of Oz. There’s an official shark drone operator who spots fish and sets off an alarm. Currently you can choose to ignore the alarm. Knowing that there is sharks fucking everywhere, that everyday swim around and don’t attack people. Eventually the endless demands that government keep us safe will destroy your choice to accept the tiny odds of shark attack and, just like the ludicrous Panama City beach making it illegal to surf in two foot waves, the government will make it illegal to surf when the shark spotting industry spots a four foot shark.
What do you think about closing hiking trails after a grizzly attack which just happened in Glacier National Park? Kind of a similar situation.
Reminds me of a story my buddy Eli told me about him and his old friend, Russ. Turns out Russ and Eli were way deep in grizzly country, super back country. Probably type of location ‘ol Otto would be up in arms to get to so he could fire bullets. I digress. Anyway, they’re a few days in on a trail, just them, no one for miles around. And about 1000 yards away on the trail coming at them is a big grizzly–catches sight of them and starts chargin. I’ll let Eli take over from here: “So I drop my pack, sit down, dig out my running shoes, and start putting them on. Russ says to me, ‘What the fuck? You think we’re going to outrun that grizzly?!?’ To which Eli responded, ‘No, I just need to outrun you.'” They never did find Russ’s body.
When I was about eight years old I was camping in Yosemite and was using my duffel bag full of candy as my pillow sleeping outside. Woke up in the middle of the night with a bear hovering over my face five feet away drooling. I could even smell his bad breath.
Ever since then I’ve been more scared of bears than sharks.
Maybe years ago backpacking with a bunch of buddies in the grizzly infested Bob Marshall Wilderness I fell asleep in my tent with the leftovers of 4 huge roast trout a couple feet from my head. I wasn’t going to go to sleep but went back to my tent to get something and figured I would just lie down for a minute to look at the map.
we were kind of dispersed, but one of my friends happened to be passing my tent coming back from a piss and saw the sack of roast fish leftovers, took it over to the bear hang or canistered it or whatever like you’re supposed to.
it’s likely nothing would have happened. And on the other hand next weekend a huge grizzly literally ate a guy fishing at the same lake. I guess if you live you learn hopefully …..
Starting when I was a kid four different families here would pay mule packers out of mammoth lakes to drop our two weeks of food and supplies over the big passes and into the John Muir wilderness area. We would hike in and take day hikes to different creeks and lakes to fly fish.
We never had any bear problems. The last time it was organized they dropped off the supplies and a bear showed up. Wanted the food and wouldn’t leave. Everyone had to hike back out and the whole trip was canceled. I guess bears are common now in the high sierra.
Grizzlies obviously are a whole other problem.
Yeah, grizzlies are a whole different level. But a black bear also not to be fucked with, I’m not a big fan having them in camp
Be the crane
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY_G4-8qZoF/?l=1
That beak would go through the eye into the brain.
We drew straws and I came up short. A river separated us from the dunes that fed sand to a right point in the jungle and the Surf Report (RIP) cautioned due to gators. You could see the offshore spray as the waves funneled down the point, I was delirious and jumped in. About half way across, I realized that I was waking up the gators and my two buddies were more vulnerable following.
None of us were eaten that day except for running caverns mauling a bad rail transfer or bad tube positioning.
I understand the desire to close a location in the immediate aftermath of an attack but still think the choice should be up to the individual.
Maybe some people can’t assess risk in situations where they aren’t experienced ? I don’t know anything much about bears and wouldn’t know if another attack was likely. Was there a reason the bear attacked that might make it prone to attacking again, despite it not attacking a week, month or year earlier? Was it injured or overprotective of cubs?
The actions surrounding actual events are different from the general reduction of freedom in everyday life. You wouldn’t close a national park whenever a bear was sighted going about its business. But attacks are different.
I personally would avoid going in the water for a while in an area after an attack. For one I’d find it psychologically traumatic enough to make surfing there unappealing. And I also believe that individual sharks do perhaps view humans as an alternative food source, even if they attack humans infrequently. The scientific community’s outright dismissal of the theory that a shark may consider people viable, though probably unattractive, prey has no evidentiary basis. It’s all just feels, bro.
But I think if a shark has eaten one person then it might eat another and many people aren’t informed enough of shark behaviour to make that assessment themselves. They might turn up at the beach with no knowledge of the event and expose themselves to the potential higher risk. So perhaps closing a beach for the period immediately following an attack isn’t the worst idea.
PS I think sharks that attack people should be dispatched immediately, if possible.
agree, if you can fish you can shark
send out the boats