Koa Rothman and a jet-ski step-off at a wave Shane Dorian says "gives me a lot of anxiety."

Watch: Koa Rothman and Nathan Florence in “Tahiti ain’t just Teahupoo!”

Derek Rielly

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Four days of boredom followed by some blue-water boom boom!

I wonder, with the passage of time, whether North Shore pals the Florence bros, Koa Rothman, Eli Olsen, Kiron Jabour and co will be regarded as a sort of Momentum Generation.

Of course, apart from John John, and Kiron’s HIC win last week, none show any interest in WCT careers. But when shipped to significant waves, Teahupoo, Jaws etc, the little gang claw at the monsters with an impatient passion.

In this, the latest vlog post from Koa Rothman, the handsome son of Eddie Rothman with the sunny brown curls and slow-twitch muscle fibres, demonstrates an easy ability to carry a dozen minutes.

The highlight of episode 26, Surfing Secret Spots in Tahiti, is a session where Koa, Nathan, Ivan (Florence) and co use a jetski to step-off in eight-foot waves at a righthander that has notes of P-Pass.

Some years ago, I interviewed Shane Dorian and Alex Gray about this wave after one session.

Dorian said the wave gives “me a lot of anxiety.”

Alex said of a set Dorian caught, “It’s the craziest wave I’ve seen ridden ever.”

“Bionic, bionic barrels,” said Shane.

And it’s pretty as hell.

Watch!

Zeke's sullen fury is wonderfully pretty.

Watch Zeke Lau in “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut”

Derek Rielly

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Muscle and moaning and crippled waves…

The Hawaiian rookie Zeke Lau is, unlike most tour debutantes, neither wispy nor weak.

At Bells this year,  Zeke was a “lion” who “monstered John” .

“It was thrilling and almost wincingly painful to watch, like a David Attenborough documentary where the elegant ruminant gets savaged by a lion then has its insides ripped out by a pack of hyaenas,” wrote Longtom. “The champ looked so helpless. All that insouciance at the Gold Coast was gone and in its place was a  lonely blond-haired kid being frowned upon by an older man on the stairs who shook his head sadly as the siren sounded.”

Zeke. Zeke. 

The European leg of the tour, the most strategic of all, when the contenders close on the summit, was a little below par for Zeke. A thirteenth in France; a ninth in Portugal.

He is rated eighteenth in the world post-Euro leg, two spots above the fancied Griffin Colapinto and four above Yago Dora.

This three-minute short emits a tremendous effort, rails and fins pushed, amid the ramparts and so on of ancient Europe.

Watch if you feel suffocated by airs.

Wade Goodall, thirty one, throws away the textbook.

Watch Creed McTaggart and Wade Goodall in “My libido depends on the size of my glands!”

Derek Rielly

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Swinging tubes with location of dreamboat wave kindly revealed at end!

This is a two-and-a-bit edit that won’t mutilate your work day and is a joy ride you’ll thrill to.

It features the Australian surfers Creed McTaggart, Wade Goodall and Ellis Ericson (who didn’t make the headline for space reasons) vigorously dissecting a wave in northern NSW, where all three now live.

Did you know of Australia’s great surf migration? All roads lead to Byron Bay and surrounds. Wade recently sold his house in nearby Bangolow as he searches for even more deluxe digs and Creed followed the songlines from his home in Western Australia.

When he isn’t surfing or performing in his band Wash, Creed makes an excellent interview.

On coaches: Coaches fucking piss me off. I did four ISAs and I just fucking hated it. It’s such a weird vibe. So intense. It didn’t feel real. It felt fake and I hate coaches telling you where to put your arms when you surf. I’ve always want to surf how I wanted to surf.

On driving cars: It’s really scary for me. I feel like I don’t belong on the road. If there’s someone tailgating me, for example, I freak out and speed up. I’m semi-dyslexic and I always to forget to fucking turn on the lights and the windscreen wipers. All that pressure! Once you’re on the road, you’re part of a family, a whole family, but no one likes you and everyone gets road rage. It’s this one giant seething organism trying to get to this place and that place and  I’m stuck in the middle cutting people off, totally oblivious, just trying to learn. I just fuck with my own head, really. It’s probably not like that. I get really nervous and anxious.

On heaven: There’s a heaven I enjoy by myself where I’m lying in bed and it’s thunder storming outside and I’m all cosy and I’m reading a book or listening to music and there’ll be moments where I think, fuck this is heaven. And then there’s the other type of heaven with your friends, having beers in the afternoon. I get a lot of flashes of heaven. More heavens than hell, I try to make it.

Now hit play…

(Almost) Discovery in India: “It was the best lineup I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Derek Rielly

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"No tourists go there because it's a bizarre place!"

Spain must be in more economic strife than I could’ve ever imagined given the wanderlust of its people.

In this episode, which must be the sixtieth or so short featuring Natxo Gonzalez, Kepa Acero and, or, Aritz Aranburu surfing an empty righthand sandbar, we are on an island near India. Dressed in the costume of the late twentieth-century surfer, jaunty cap, boxy tee, rough cotton shorts and plastic backpack, the trio hire a fishing to make the illegal crossing to the island.

It is the biggest swell in twenty five years to hit the joint, thanks to a cyclone, but…just as they’re about to leave the harbour…a cop shows up.

Bust. 

Cops tell ’em they can get a permit for the next day, after the swell.

What happens? Do they find the wave etc?

Watch, watch, watch.

It’s beautiful, even as disaster throbs.

Watch: Russell Bierke in “The Perilous Magic of Nymphets!”

Derek Rielly

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Barely a man, Australian big-waver thrusts himself to the hilt at Cloudbreak!

In this four-minute film, which I regard as something worth nuzzling, we see Russell Bierke returning to Cloudbreak, Fiji, for the first time in four years, since he busted his foot in three places.

Russ has been surfing Hawaii’s outer-reefs since he was thirteen, won 2016’s Cape Fear contest at Ours and is one of only two Australians (the other is Jamie Mitchell) on the WSL Big Wave Tour.

Last April, Russ, who lives in Ulladulla in between his dragon-slaying adventures around the world, survived a two-wave hold-down at Port Campbell, in Warrnambool, Victoria.

The waves were fifteen-to-eighteen feet, clean as anything, the sun warm, and after a day tooling around with his pals Tom Carroll, Ross Clarke-Jones, Ryan Hipwood and Kelly Slater, Russ stole into a smaller insider.

Took off, got hit by his board, knocked unconscious.

“It’s super vague,” Russ told Warrnambool newspaper The Standard from his hospital bed. “I remember seeing a wave coming and then I was on the beach on all fours spewing (up water).”

In a world of tough kids, he impresses.

Photo: Jack English
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