"This is one of the most cosmic experiences I've ever had!"

Almost one month ago, Texans were gifted a front-row seat to that most profound of celestial experiences, a total solar eclipse where the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, temporarily blocking the Sun’s light.

BeachGrit readers, all of whom would electrify the interior of any room with sex appeal, will correctly point out a total solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon phase when the Moon is positioned directly between Earth and the Sun.

Throughout history, much consternation from terrified humans who believed the gods or, in the case of the Choctaw Native Americans, a squirrel, had eaten the sun. Ergo, end of the world etc.

Anyway, on April 8, Dylan Graves, whose pursuit of the strangest waves on earth have been well-documented in his ongoing series Weird Waves and whom we almost lost to a cliff fall in Brittany, France, visited the Waco tank so he could surf during the eclipse.

“Everyone you hear of who’s seen a total solar eclipse says things like ‘Words can’t describe it man you just gotta experience it’’. I’m that person now,” writes Graves, the surfer who smashed the Guinness World Record for most turns on a wave with a leg-trembling forty manoeuvres, which he achieved on a tidal bore in Indonesia.

“This video is my attempt at trying to assign some words. As well as add some visuals to help understand this WILD experience. In our case, obviously there had to be surfing involved, and it just so happens that there was a wave pool right smack in the middle of the line of totality in Waco Texas. I was with a group of scientists. Some eclipse chasers. And just happy go lucky surfers at the right place at the right time. This is definitely one of the most cosmic surf experiences I’ve ever had…”

“But,” says Dylan, “it almost didn’t happen…”

Essential.

"We're going to see if we can stand up on a wave…"

Like a red-hot balloon ready to pop, Nathan Florence ain’t gonna die wondering if a wave is surfable.

And, here in a video from his recent holiday in Western Australia, we find the almost thirty year old finger-stroking a wave he says had only ever been surfed by bodyboarders.

“Love surfing waves I’ve never surfed before,” says Florence. “This one may have only been surfed by bodyboarders previously, but we did our best to get to our feet… Big ones hard to find an entry but they were beautiful to watch gurgle through.”

Nathan Florence was previously on your screens one month ago when he quit his 100-ish percent sponsorship with Vans to ride for big bro John John.

Significant cameos in the include the teenager Ned Hart, a Nazare-Shipstern-The Right-charging super kid whose ability to ride waves that give other men bulging, terror-bright eyes has made him a media sensation.

And pointing the camera at the event is Chris Whitey, a literal Ninja warrior and bodyboard legend who came into the wider world’s focus almost a decade ago when Kelly Slater saved his wife and kid from drowning in Hawaii.

The pair had were swept across the North Shore’s Kam Highway by one of those great North Shore pulses. The kid, who was strapped into his pram, was separated from mammy and deposited upside down, drinking water etc.

Now, if your kid and gal were washed across the Kam Highway by a rogue wave, who’d you want to be there to scoop ‘em up?

How about Kelly Slater, who just happened to be around ‘cause he couldn’t get out at giant Waimea?

A ludicrous dream, no?

But there he was, talking to a pal at the lifeguard tower at Rockpiles when he saw the catastrophe about to unfold: women in headphones, with pram, on bike path, about to be belted.

So he runs over, gets to the pram, flips it upright, gets the kid’s head out of the water, scoops sand out of his mouth so he can breathe, helps out mammy, gives ‘em a lift home.

Ever since, Chris and Kelly have been buddies, “He’s a surf Jesus,” says Chris

And, so, it must be said, is Nathan Florence.

Essential.

For a man whose immutable sadness is masked by vivacity, Dane Reynolds is still worth all the pro surfers in the world combined.

The Bakersfield surfer Dane Reynolds, known for his intuitive and explosive style of surfing and who was rated fourth in the world thirteen years ago, has showcased his dramatic weight loss in a new film released earlier today.

The almost-forty-year-old, a father of three and a millionaire a few times over, is famous for his daddy body, massive like the country that gave him birth.

Yet when he surfs, and as I’ve previously noted, he becomes like a cowboy of the Westerns: ready to fire his guns at the drop of a hat, getting into a rage at the least provocation.

In his latest video, filmed six months after he was nearly killed after a blow to thread left him hospitalised, we see a leaner, sleeker Dane Reynolds, down to 200 pounds or thereabouts, surfing freshly and originally.

For a man who turned the simple act of pro surfing into a metaphysical tragedy, and whose immutable sadness is masked by vivacity, Dane Reynolds is still worth all the pro surfers in the world combined.

Essential.