Mick Fanning just posted this on his social media. We can’t wait to see what wild trips Mick gets stuck into once he’s done with tour responsibilities. Thanks for everything champ, an honour to witness your career so far and for being an all round good human.
It’s time.
I’ve decided the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach will be my last event as a full-time competitor on the World Surf League Championship Tour. The tour has given me so much but I need a fresh challenge. I still love the game but can’t find the motivation and dedication required to compete for World Titles anymore.
My time on tour has been incredibly rewarding and I have so many amazing memories, all of which wouldn’t be possible without some very special people…
My Mum, Dad, Sister and Brothers. I love you.
My sponsors that have stood by me and continue to back my goals.
My shaper Darren Handley and his entire team for the care and hard work they put into every single one of my boards.
My fellow competitors on tour, you are like brothers and sisters to me.
My very tight support crew that have been there in good and tough times, thank you for always being honest with me.
And thanks to the fans and everyone that has encouraged me and cheered me on for all these years.
I’m looking forward to life away from the tour while keeping a close eye on things. I’m so proud of our sport and the way it continues to evolve. The performance level on the Championship Tour and the Big Wave Tour is remarkable. I can’t wait to watch it all go down as one of the sport’s biggest fans. I’m also looking forward to evolving my own surfing in new ways, visiting unfamiliar places and taking on different experiences.
I will be competing at the opening event at home on the Gold Coast and then wrapping things up at the Rip Curl Pro. Bells Beach is where my Championship Tour career really kicked off, I’ve always loved the place and it seems a fitting stop to finish things up. It’s gonna be a big fun party and you’re all invited to come. Hope I see you there.
The Masked Ball has been granted Cornwall’s first 24-hour license.
This spring, the sun rising over Mount’s Bay no longer signals the time the hardy souls still dancing must retire to their tents and vans. Instead, the music won’t stop, because the Masked Ball celebrates the right to get its groove on all night.. and all of the day.
Masked Ball director Kelvin Batt said: “Being on the Masked Ball dancefloor when the sun begins to rise is a special feeling.. that moment when night becomes day and light cracks over the horizon and steadily floods the sky with a life-giving glow is hard to beat.”
This year, guests at the Masked Ball – which features a dozen themed areas, designed to entice and enthral – are being encouraged to explore the locality and venture into Porthleven, just a short stroll away, and discover some of the picturesque fishing port’s hidden gems.
Kelvin added: “The Masked Ball is not one of those festivals where you’re confined to a site. We welcome people to explore this beautiful area.”
The Masked Ball kicks off on Friday, with the traditional warm-up, meet, greet and catch-up, music playing until 2am.
On Saturday it’s time to dress up and get down for the main Masked Ball – and rock right around the clock, before rolling into the infamous Sunday Service, where highly-trained hedonists with the stamina of endurance athletes, can get invariably twisted.
The mighty Underworld is back – a highlight of last year’s ball – but with an enlarged Coney Island, the micro-club that celebrates the excesses of New York’s underground gay scene in the late 1970s.
In true Masked Ball fashion, there are also three new areas that are sure to surprise those who are, well, not easily surprised.
“We’ve got some amazing acts this year. Artists like Joe Goddard, of Hot Chip, and Optimo have been tearing up dance floors across the UK,” said Kelvin.
Also new to the Masked Ball is the Baller’s Pass that, for £150, allows full entry to all three Masked Ball events; the Spring Masked Ball, the Halloween Masked Ball and the New Year’s bash and a new ‘members-only’ area (rumoured to be an Easy Rider inspired biker bar) – at each event.
The 24-hour venues will be confined to the Lower East Side of the Masked Ball, with music for those who want to wind up after an early start and those who want to chill out and rest their weary feet. The Enjoy Chill Out Café will be on hand with refreshments.
“Over the last 10 years, it’s usually just as the sun rises that the music stops. So for 2018, we are very pleased to present a 24-hour area on Saturday through Sunday which will include The Grand Ball Room, The Terrace and more,” said Kelvin.
“So, you can start your ball later and finish late, or get some rest and wake up and get stuck straight back in.”
The Masked Ball takes place on May 25-27, at Beacon Crag, Porthleven, Cornwall.
Original ball tickets are available for just £50, or stay the weekend from Friday to Monday for just £75 or secure either for £10 deposit. Both tickets include camping.
And there’s also the previously mentioned Baller’s Pass that, for £150, which gives VIP entry to all three Masked Ball events.
This Mavic Air Drone footage was captured near the Fort Pierce Inlet and Vero Beach, Florida during the Shark Migration 2018.
The footage of sharks near surfers and one surfer actually falling on a shark shows the sharks being spooked by the surfers. The sharks were never interested in the surfers and they never showed any aggression towards them.
Many of the sharks appeared to be Blacktip Sharks and Spinner Sharks. The sharks swim very close to the manatees too.
While we wait for a British Wavegarden v2 (known as the Cove, as opposed to the v1 at Snowdonia, which is doing rather well for itself) to give a definite dig date the Aussies have beat us to it with a site near Melbourne. The build starts next month aiming to be open a year later. Main takeaway is it’s way bigger than the test facility in the Basque hills and has two sides. Question now is will people play nice and form an orderly queue?!?
PRESS RELEASE
URBNSURF, the company behind Australia’s first surf park and the Australian licensee of Wavegarden technology, yesterday announced it has recently secured $28.3 million in funding to develop URBNSURF Melbourne at Melbourne Airport, the world’s first full-sized Wavegarden Cove surfing lagoon.
With planning consent already obtained, and construction scheduled to commence in March 2018, URBNSURF Melbourne expects to be pumping out up to 1,000 quality, 2.0m high ocean-like surfing waves every hour by Easter 2019.
Located just 16 kilometers north of Melbourne’s CBD, URBNSURF Melbourne has been designed to be an innovative surf sports, leisure and entertainment facility centered around a world-class surfing lagoon. At 2.1 hectares in area, the Wavegarden Cove surfing lagoon will host up to 90 surfers per hour across 6 different surfing zones.
The next-generation surf facility will deliver authentic, safe and convenient surfing experiences for all skill levels, year-round. With a modular, minimalist design in keeping with surfing’s roots, URBNSURF Melbourne will also feature a multi-outlet food and bar precinct, concept retail store, fully-equipped surf and hire shop, night surfing, a surfing academy, high performance coaching and training options, fitness classes, festival and event spaces, a beach club, and relaxing, landscaped open spaces.
URBNSURF’s founder and Executive Chairman, Andrew Ross said “we are delighted to be bringing the southern hemisphere’s first surf park facility to Melbourne, the traditional home of Australian sport. Melbourne’s 200,000 or so existing surfers, plus all of those who want to give surfing a go, will now be able to enjoy high quality surf, year-round, and all within a 25-minute drive of the Melbourne CBD.”
He added, “URBNSURF Melbourne unlocks the geographic limitations of surfing, by bringing the beach to your backyard. We are aiming to provide surfers of all abilities the opportunity to engage in their sport more frequently, more conveniently, and more safely – allowing them to simply ‘surf more’”.
$28.3 million in development capital was recently secured by URBNSURF from a range of Australian-based, well-known high net worth investors and private-equity sources. These funds will fuel the company’s construction activities in Melbourne together with activities associated with its other two surf park projects in Sydney and Perth.
The Cove is a revolutionary technology created by Wavegarden, an innovative Spanish engineering company and market leader in the man-made wave sector. Two commercial surf park facilities featuring Wavegarden lagoons are already operational around the world – in North Wales and in Austin, Texas – both of which have attracted keen tourism interest, regional investment and high guest attendances. URBNSURF Melbourne will be the first commercial surf park in the world to feature the Wavegarden Cove technology, which occupies a smaller footprint than Wavegarden’s earlier technology, but delivers increased wave frequency – up to 1,000 per hour – and expanded guest capacity.
“We are excited to be working with URBNSURF to bring the world’s first public Wavegarden Cove to Victoria, and create Melbourne’s first surf break” said Josema Odriozola, Wavegarden’s Founder and CEO. “Australia has a large population of active surfers, plus many people that would like to learn to surf and we’re confident our technology will satisfy everyone’s expectations and demands.
We look forward to collaborating on URBNSURF’s other planned developments in Sydney and Perth.”
In addition to the incredible surfing experiences on offer in the Wavegarden Cove lagoon, URBNSURF Melbourne will regularly host a variety of cultural, food and music festivals, action sports events, “expression sessions” with elite athletes, and amateur and professional surfing competitions. With surfing now confirmed as an Olympic sport for the 2020 Tokyo Games, URBNSURF Melbourne is uniquely positioned to assist the Australian surfing team to train and prepare for their campaign.
The development of URBNSURF Melbourne is expected to generate over 300 jobs during the construction phase, and another 50 full time positions will be created once the facility opens its doors. Accessible by 2 million Melbourne residents in under 30 minutes, URBNSURF Melbourne is expected to inject more than $267 million in gross economic contribution to the Melbourne region over the life of the project.
URBNSURF is currently developing surf park facilities using Wavegarden’s Cove technology at Sydney Olympic Park (“URBNSURF Sydney”), and in Perth at Tompkins Park, Alfred Cove (“URBNSURF Perth”), and aims to develop up to ten world-class surf parks in Australia by 2028.
Tom Curren, Mason Ho and one week spent scouring the coastline of a wave-drenched, storm-ridden island in the North Pacific… Full story in the new Carve.
The sixth typhoon of the year looked promising. Like its geographical brethren, the southern cyclones and northern hurricanes, typhoons may deliver the yin or yang of nature: joy to some and devastation to others, depending on your location and desires.
Should surfers stay out of politics? Feck no! Surfers are political animals, number one in fighting big corps to preserve the environment – think sewage, plastics and the protection of surf spots/coastal environment and broadly speaking the most travelled surfers have a good handle on the madness of racism and religious prejudice.
So now to guns…
A few years back I was left pretty stunned with one high profile surf industry figure’s view on gun control, the victims, causes and solutions. It would appear he’d be quite happy living in land where everyone strutted round with loaded AKs. His view was ‘more guns means less deaths’ which was hysterical considering the global stats and the amount he had travelled.
Anyway Garrett has bravely put his head up above the trench talking common sense, but opening himself up to pops from bots, trolls and the NRA … and we are with him. I’ve got friends with kids and godkids in the US and I would hate it if I stayed silent and anything happened to them.
Yes people can safely own guns, hunting is huge in the UK, France, Spain and may other countries. But this madness with automatic weapons in the US, the right to bear arms and the ease of access to weapons of mass murder has got to end.
We are all fed up of hearing about kids being shot in school.
“I do my best to maintain political neutrality on my social media because as most would say I’m a surfer… stick to surfing. says Garret.
“BUT this time enough is enough.
“My wife was a school teacher and she still refers to her students as her “kids.” What occurred the other day in her old school district and what those students and teachers had to endure and will continue to endure for the rest of their lives is completely and utterly unacceptable!!!
We as a nation, as society, as humans need to demand change!! For this situation and many others occurring daily. We need to unite and be one voice that puts human life before any material object and before money!!!
If there is anything you feel called to do to support this young voices showing us adults how it’s done please don’t hesitate to act!! @marchforourlives @nationalwalkout #safetyforallchildren #bethechange#demandchange
Go big man. Politics, hell yes. Let’s have it. Enough is enough.
