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Here is some surf news as heard on Down the Line - Surf Talk Radio, March 27th.
Top Five Stories, March 27th, 2011 :
1) An infected Torrey Pine at Swami’s is slowly taking the shape of an Easter Island Tiki Head. Tim Richards, an Encinitas woodworker, is replicating what is known on Easter Island as a MoAi. He works on the sculpture every day, and has transformed the tree using a chainsaw to mold its basic shape, while now he is chiseling out the finer details and the nose and eyes are beginning to take shape.
2) A huge round of swell ploughs through the North Pacific just in time to see copious amounts of big-wave riding footage to flood the web as well as the judge’s headquarters for the Billabong XXL Award. The cutoff date to submit footage for the contest was March 21, and plenty of swell had the Western Coast of the US firing a week before that date. Most notably was the footage of Shane Dorian and Ian Walsh paddling into Jaws, a feat that is considered on the cutting edge of traditional paddle-in surfing. “It looked like there was disaster written on every take-off, and they just pulled them so gracefully.”
3) Also attracting a lot of attention was the short clip put together by Ken “Skin-Dog” Collins, of Scion Milosky’s last ride. It details the accounts before Scion and Nathan Fletcher paddled out into the huge surf at Mavericks. The pulse of swell that was set up over the last week was generated very close to shore, with a lot of power, meaning that the sets would stack up, being stronger and more consistent –the result being the death of a friend and renowned big wave rider – after Scion endured a three wave hold down. Despite the fact that there were skis and other surfers in the water, they could not get to him in time. He leaves behind a wife and two kids, bringing up the question, “Is it worth it.” The big wave guys put themselves in extreme amounts of danger – Scion Milosky was regarded as a hardcore charger, even amongst the ranks of other top echelon chargers, from Shane Dorian down. Scion’s death illuminates the danger involved in this arena, especially since he was fit and in form. “If Scion is gonna pass away and die at Mavericks, then other people are gonna die at Mavericks.” Technology may be able to give big wave surfers a fighting chance as we begin to see the emergence of blow-up vests that can be worn under your wetsuits. In the most dire of circumstances you can easily find the rip cord located around your chest, pull it, and be up to the surface within moments. There is still risk of injury when wearing one of these vests, but it gives you much better odds to remain alive is the worst case scenario were to transpire.
4) “Hollywood Don’t Surf” - The premiere of Soul Surfer, a film starring Bethany Hamilton, was held on Saturday, March 26th, at the La Paloma Theatre in San Diego. The mid-day showing entertained a huge amount of fans, with the star of the film also in attendance. Soul Surfer is a film about Bethany Hamilton, a young woman from Hawaii, whose arm was taken by a shark when she was thirteen years old. The movie details how she has overcome diversity in the water and in life, continuing to surf while impacting the lives of others. Her story is very touching and through this film you gain a greater sense of the humanitarian that Hamilton is, as she looks past her own disability, using it as a motivation to go out and change the way people view a handicap, and ultimately transcending surfing altogether. It was an emotional moment to have Bethany there receiving a standing ovation from the full house at the end of the film with many in the room becoming teary-eyed. Bethany said after the movie that, “Since it happened to her at such a young age, she took to it and adapted, and has been able to use that mentality to effectively help others. The sneak peek was held to contribute to the Challenged Athletes Association, and the movie will be released in April. “The next time your surfing, try doing it with one arm, it’s incredibly difficult; try duck-diving.”
5) The number five story is a New York Times article about ASP Women’s Professional Longboard Champion, Cori Schumacher, and her boycotting of the ASP event in China, due to political and social reasons. Unfortunately, the ASP seems to regard longboarding, and especially womens longboarding, as the lowest rung on the ASP totem, and seems to lend little credence to Schumacher’s casuse. Shumaker makes her living as a waitress, and is not sponsored. She is holding her ground on not attending the event.
Bonus Shark Talk. It seems that sharks have come to the mainstream and it is the normal conversation now a day, as opposed to the hush-hush nature the topic maintained before. During the Snapper event there were up to thirty first-hand accounts of shark sighting, and even the webcasters would begin the shark frenzy if anything grey was seen in the water. How do we as surfers rationalize the real danger that sharks present?
[Bassy] “For Instance - when I was in Santa Cruz. For some reason I seem to think that If I’m inside of the kelp line there’s no sharks. ‘For some reason this is a fence, this kelp line’. And that’s one of the rationalizations that doesn’t make sense…” “I literally paddled in one time. Probably thirty years ago, I paddled in; at Cherry Hill there in Solana Beach.”
[Baldy] “Spooky area.”
[Bassy] “I’m by myself, grey, overcast, I kid you not, four dolphins did a SeaWorld jump right in front of me, and I thought to myself, ‘Okay something’s out to get me. If it’s not sharks, its dolphins, but I’m outta here.
[Baldy]”There’s no real rationalization, your just there and I think that once everyone confirms the sighting and the size and the attitude, they’re outta there.
[Bassy] “It’s interesting, I mean, everyone’s got their own way of dealing with it psychologically.”
[Baldy]”I thought I was gonna get hit by a shark at Fingle one day - which is right across the Tweed River from Duranbaugh - and I saw this mullet jump. I was out with a buddy of mine, Matt chatbolt from Electric; this mullet jumps about a hundred yard out from me in a swell, in a set that’s kinda coming, so I’m watching the set, the mullet jumps, it jumps again, and I see this big black shape, this missile, following the mullet, and it jumped three times. I kept going right, then left; everywhere I went the mullet kept jumping my way, like it was coming to me for protection. So finally I paddle left towards the jetty and the thing jumps a final time, goes right under my board. By now, this black missile, which is going mach speed, is coming straight at me. I lift on my board, as if I’m gonna float in the air to be out of the water, but I can’t really get anywhere. I just was on my tippy toes and my fingertips and this thing went right under me. My friends laughing because I had shiseido on, the white sunscreen, and he said I looked white through that. He’s crackin’ up; these three other kids on the inside were like, ‘What was that?’ Turns out it was a dolphin, another guy saw it jump down the line, but I didn’t know. It was going straight and fast and scary and you’re thinking about sharks anyway. Two seconds after that we look out and see another grey shape in a set, this one is much bigger, and ya, I just went in.”
[Bassy] “Another rationalization is the stand-up paddle guys who seem to think they’ll be safe because they are standing up.”
[Baldy] “How about the one in San Onofre, that bumped the guy and he fell on it and rode the shark. How about the other guy, in what, Kuai or Maui; the shark bit the back of his longboard and he actually slid onto the head of the tiger shark and was sitting on it, riding a bull or something.”
Just goes to show you that everyone has interest in hearing about sharks.
Adam Wright from solspot.com tells us about the upcoming week of surf. We have some more swell and a high pressure system that will bring in warmer weather. It should be more attractive than last week, which had some really good swell, but with the stormy conditions it was hit or miss, and water quality remained low all week. “ It shouldn’t be a full on eddy, but it should be kinda offshore, glassy in the morning, with the on-shores picking up later into the afternoon. Look to Aril 1st - rd for the next big swell to arrive from the North Pacific.”
From an e-mail: “Slater now has to compete at 90%of the tour competitions, otherwise he is doing a disservice to the rest of his competitors by pulling a ‘just won ten so I’m going to cruise’ season. The reason is, if he doesn’t win the title, most likey due to him not competing in enough events, then whoever wins will have an asterisk championship, a la Hobgood, because Slater wasn’t on the complete tour.” Of course, the answer to this question remains to be seen, but it is likely that Kelly will participate in the entire tour, possibly using it as his farewell tour.
Within the same vein, the new ASP format is lending itself to the fans, since we are now seeing most of the top names compete at smaller events in order to ensure their position come the mid-season cutoff. Last year it seemed like after the first event the guys simply disappeared, but this year, they are all out competing for points and keeping the fans happy.
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