A wild three-day surf and snow bender, Pacific Coast, Sea of Japan and mountains!

The adventures of Puerto Rican Dylan Graves in his pursuit of the strangest waves on earth have been assiduously documented on BeachGrit, a website that may be counted as Graves’ biggest fan, first in his ongoing series Weird Waves and, now, as he traverses the world solo.

One year ago, the almost-forty-year-0ld with his trademark balayaged Manson Family hairstyle smashed the Guinness World Record for most turns on a wave with a difficult to believe forty manoeuvres, including one air, and which he achieved on a tidal bore in Indonesia. 

“We thought we’d opened another dimension in time!” he said.

In this episode, we find Dylan Graves in the once imperial nation of Japan. It was the west’s mortal enemy a few generations ago. History buffs will note that it was a foolhardy attack on a Hawaiian naval base in 1941 that sewed the seeds for its downfall and, ultimately, for two cities getting flattened by Oppenheimer’s whip.

The US, deftly led by General Dougie MacArthur, transformed the wretched joint from a defeated enemy to a key ally by dismantling its military regime, giving em a democratic constitution that limited the emperor’s power and brought in the vote for gals and helped ‘em out with a bag of cash.

It’s quite a country, houses are dirt cheap, waves pump, some of the best snow in the world and if you’ve ever wanted to eat the fatty meats of a whale or dolphin, Japan is the place for you.

Graves joins Keito Matsuoka and Tosh Tudor “for a whirlwind 72-hour strike mission across Japan—scoring pumping surf on both coasts (the Pacific Ocean and the Japan Sea) and fresh powder in the snowy mountains. Japan is always special, but experiencing it like this was WILD! From perfect waves to deep powder, this trip captures the magic of chasing swell and snow in one of the most diverse and dynamic places on Earth.”

Essential.

"As I walk my journey through the turmoil of people that want to spread misinformation, I’ve found myself wondering why do people hate me for existing!"

It’s been several months since BeachGrit last reported on the inspirational trans surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson neé former men’s longboard champion Andrew Egan. 

You’ll remember, last year, when Sasha Jane Lowerson, who turns forty-seven in August, was banned from surfing in the women’s div of a longboard contest after the founder of American Longboarder Todd Messick got wind she’d entered the HB Longboarding Pro.

Messick, a former pro surfer hisself, didn’t fuck around.

“Right now, we’re going to support biological males and biological females in their divisions respectively,” he said in a video posted online, which quickly earned four thousand likes.

“If you were born a female, you enter in the women’s. If you’re born a male, you enter in the men’s.”

He added, nothing personal to T-Girls but,

“I want to offer an equal playing field for all athletes and that’s the stand we’re taking so I hope that everybody respects that and allows us to just do our thing. This whole thing is about traditional longboard surfing and supporting that so that’s what we’re here to do.”

Messick’s dream of bio-gals only in the women’s div was overturned by the California Coastal Commission, with the LA Times’ Hanna Fry writing:

“Sasha Jane Lowerson just wanted to surf.”

In response, and fresh from facial feminisation surgery in Cordoba, Argentina, Sasha posted a lengthy screed on Instagram calling Messick’s decision “shameful and shady”.

As I walk my journey through the turmoil and the implications of people that want to spread misinformation, I’ve found myself wondering why? Just why do people hate me for existing!

Anyway, water under the ol bridge, as the saying goes, and today, we can celebrate Sasha Jane Lowerson giving hell to the Melbourne wave tank on a shortboard before bolting across the Tasman to join John John Florence and Kelly Slater in New Zealand. 

Sasha goes to a single-fin contest in Christchurch while tour truant John John Florence and the forcibly retired Kelly Slater frolic up north. 

Essential. 

The film’s biggest surprise is none other than Harry Bryant, who was once a pro surfer too, until he saw the writing on the wall.

The world’s greatest-ever female surfer Stephanie Gilmore and the Chinese-Hawaiian surf superstar Mason Ho, along with little sis Coco, have been filmed together in an all-star “sandbar party” at Rocky Point on Oahu’s North Shore.

Also involved in the session are Dion Agius, a man who makes enough hive in his honey to support a nomadic lifestyle, Harry Bryant, an Australian with a bushy hairdo and albino moustache that twinkle like glitter on a burlesque dancer’s corset and Mason Ho’s boy buddy Baby Bear.

Wafting around the edges of Kai Neville movies since his initial impact in the early 2000s, Dion is a heartbreaking study of the dreams and disappointments of a disillusioned, washed-up former surfing sex symbol. Whatever he had when he was fresh and beautiful is gone.

The film’s biggest surprise is none other than Harry Bryant, who was once a pro surfer too, until he saw the writing on the wall.

Mason, Stephanie shine, naturally, and leave the viewer panting for more.

Essential viewing.