Hawaii is taking on water in a way it hasn’t in at least two decades. Thousands have been evacuated across the islands, with the North Shore of O‘ahu among the hardest hit.

Over the past few days, some regions have received between 40 and 50 inches (127 cm) of rain. Forecasts suggest further accumulation, with O‘ahu expected to take on an additional four to six inches, and parts of Maui potentially receiving up to 12 inches more. 

The financial toll is expected to exceed $1 billion, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who has urged residents to “take the storm as seriously as you can.”

“It just got so bad to the point where people just had to evacuate in the middle of the night,” says Kuio Young. 

Between Waialua and Hale‘iwa, the Wahiawā Dam became the focal point. It held, but not convincingly. Reports of failure came and went, confirmed, denied, repeated, enough to prompt widespread evacuation and a hell of a lot of panic.

“It was a really big scare… they announced a couple times like, oh, it failed, or it didn’t fail, so people are panicking,” says Kuio. “We all had to evacuate. A lot of people have lost everything. So many people have lost their whole homes.”

The water moved in and took what was there, including homes, cars, and small businesses. 

“I talked to Eric Arakawa… he sustained a lot of damage at the Old Sugar Mill, where he sells his boards,” says Kuio. “There’s a bunch of shapers, glassers, sanders there. I’m sure all these board builders are going to be feeling a big loss from this as well.”

Infrastructure failures have compounded the situation. Power outages remain widespread across the North Shore, with limited access to fuel. Water, the wrong kind, is everywhere. In some cases, evacuation orders arrived too late to act on.  

“A lot of people got stuck,” says Kuio. “They were telling people to evacuate, but they couldn’t because they were flooded out. They couldn’t drive vehicles through.”

Emergency shelters have been opened, and in some cases, abandoned again as conditions deteriorated.

“They ended up having to evacuate the shelters because the flooding was getting worse. They’re telling people basically just to leave the North Shore. My mom’s house got smoked. My neighbours all got smoked. I got lucky, just because of where I sit on a hill, but a lot of people have lost everything.” Kuio says. 

Jon Pyzel, along with Kuio, was among the lucky spared from severe damage. 

“I haven’t had any person problems with our house or the factory,” says Pyzel. ‘But many, many others have. It is a disaster.” 

There are early reports of missing persons, though details remain unconfirmed.

Against that, a more informal response has emerged. Residents, emergency services, and volunteers have taken on much of the immediate burden. 

“There’s been a lot of people going out of their own way to help their neighbours,” Kuio continues. “Driving tractors, heavy equipment, rescuing people. Ocean Safety, fire department, just everyday people doing what they can. But these people are going to be feeling the effects for a long time. It’s a long road ahead.”

For now, Kuio says there’s no GoFundMe or central fund in place, though updates will come if that changes. He does have a request for anyone currently in Hawaii.

“If you’re in Hawaii, keep an eye on social media for shelters or supply drives – toiletries, non-perishable food, clothes, blankets,” he says. “If you’re on O‘ahu and can help directly, call your friends in the affected areas and see where you’re actually useful.”

More as it comes. 

It’s still early 2026, and this rock we’re temporarily standing on is flying through space while simultaneously going through what feels like a new world disorder.

Unhinged heads of state, intense geopolitical competition leading into active armed conflicts, economic inequality, and mounting environmental pressure. Enough to turn even the most optimistic among us into nihilists.

Britt Merrick seems immune to that condition. Could he have found a solution to get the most overthinking, anxious, doom-scrolling brains to detach from their screens and go out for a wave, no matter how miserable the conditions?

The Solution is a surfboard-shaped pill you don’t even have to swallow.

“We were hearing from our friends on the East Coast that they needed a board for bad East Coast waves,” Britt says. “They wanted something more grovely. Even more grovely than the Happy Everyday or Better Everyday.”

In other words, they were after something for when you don’t even want to paddle out.

Its formula isn’t even a secret: a fuller outline, a more rounded tail, and a generous planing area. This thing is designed to skate through flatness with effortless glide.

Britt tweaked the rocker and outline following a research trip to Mexico, tuning it for both neutral and front-footed surfers.

Slip it at the bottom of your quiver, and if you’re already fluent in Merrickese, size yours two inches shorter than your Better Everyday.

Five fin boxes will appease most personality types. Reef Heazlewood likes his as a thruster and calls it “the best small-wave board I’ve ever had”. Big Britt prefers a quad, but says, “It’s equally fun as a thruster or 2+1 depending on the conditions.” Don’t overthink it. Or do.

Details that won’t make you surf any better include Bigfoot, aliens, UFOs, and other little conspiracies hidden in the logos and tail patches.

Which feels appropriate. Riding marginal surf with genuine enthusiasm calls for a willingness to believe in stuff that evidence doesn’t fully support.

PS: If you’re one of the commenters who thought the waves were too good in the original video, watch this…

Jacob Burke can’t be reached.

Getting him on the phone takes patience. He has been competing in the Barbados Surfing Association’s Surfer of the Year series, and for every heat he advances through, more time is spent in the water and less on land screening calls.

When his voice finally crackles through my speaker, I ask how the event went. “I won Open Men’s and Longboarding,” he says. I wasn’t surprised, especially after watching his new edit, Fish Out Of Water.

He immediately tells me about the waves he’s been getting on the south coast of the island. “Perfect, peeling lefts,” the 25-year-old Bajan regular-footer tells me. 

But The Bajan Queen is the real reason we’re having a chat. Sorry Rihanna, not you.

Soup Bowl faces northeast into the Atlantic on the Caribbean’s easternmost island, and according to Jacob’s older brother Josh, his little brother is one of the best surfers he has ever seen out there. That’s no small compliment considering Kelly Slater has called it his favorite wave and Taylor Steele has said it’s where he witnessed the best surfing he’s ever seen.

Jacob takes the praise, barely. “I definitely enjoy bigger waves,” he says, then pivots somewhere unexpected. “I’ve never touched alcohol or drugs in my life, so surfing big waves has always kind of been my drug. I like the feeling and the adrenaline, and naturally I guess I’ve gotten pretty comfortable in those conditions.”

Last year, Griffin and Crosby Colapinto arrived in Bathsheba after conditions aligned for proper Soup Bowl. Word is that Jacob was turning heads among the heavyweights he was sharing his lineup with.

“He’s a natural in the barrel and he isn’t afraid either,” Griffin said. “That wave is scary when it’s that big.”

After I try to dismantle Jacob’s wall of modesty, he concedes: “I felt like I surfed well and kept up with those guys.”

He quickly shifts back to the Colapintos. “Griffin impressed me a lot. Some stuff he did was just mental — like, how did he do that? Turns, barrels, airs, everything.” On Crosby: “Soup Bowl is a hard wave to read, and Crosby looked like he had been surfing it with us all these years. Like he already knew the lineup.”

While the way he surfs his home break isn’t so different from the way a world title contender would, Jacob remains largely unsupported — save for AJW, who has been making him boards (many, one can assume) for a couple of years now. To support himself, he’s been teaching surf lessons and coaching a group of local kids, which still keeps him in the water, where he prefers to be.

Edits and film matter to Jacob. The one above is his first, cut entirely by himself, as was his brother Josh’s upcoming SEOTY entry. “I had a bunch of clips from a few different swells and I wanted to do something with them,” he says. “I’m always the type of person that if I want to get something done, I find it easier to just buckle down. It’s so much easier to put my idea into action than to talk about it.”

He recently bought an iPad for exactly that purpose. “They’re just easier to use. I’m not a big computer guy.”

Asked about the future and whether he sees himself following his older brother’s path, he answers: “The last couple of years I’ve really focused on training and competing more. But if I’m honest, my real dream is about making surf films, traveling, and surfing crazy waves. Contests are part of it, and I enjoy them, but that’s not the whole picture.”

The crazy wave box seems to have been well ticked.

Related: The Stab Interview with Israel’s first CT surfer, Anat Lelior.

SRF Park TLV opened last April and, despite a challenging backdrop, has been operating at capacity.

“We’ve been open for a year now officially and we’re packed,” says park manager Lior Zamir. “We’ve been fully booked most days, which is crazy because it’s been winter. We have a huge surf community in Israel, and everyone has been super enthusiastic about the lagoon.”

Earlier this week, that lagoon was temporarily shut after debris from an intercepted missile punctured its liner.

“Two days ago, there was an alert for missiles coming into Israel,” Zamir says. “We have a system here called the Iron Dome, which intercepts missiles by blowing them up in the air.”

Israel’s air defense systems are designed to intercept incoming rockets and missiles before they reach populated areas (see above). While interception rates are reported to be high, somewhere around the ~90% mark, the process still produces falling debris, an often overlooked consequence for people on the ground.

“Basically, Israeli intelligence knows how to detect missiles from Iran at the time of launch. Even before, in most cases,” Zamir continues. “So, we get a pre-alert that there are missiles incoming. We usually get these alerts about 10 minutes before they reach us.”

For civilians, that warning triggers a routine shaped by necessity.

“When you hear the actual siren, it’s time to go into the safe room,” he says. “Everybody has shelters in their homes and buildings, and they’re always in public places. At the wave pool, we have a safe room that can house around 60 people. We limit the number of people that we allow into the park to ensure our customers are 100% safe.”

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And go figure: they needed it.

“About seven minutes after the interception in the air, debris from the interception reached us,” Zamir explained. “So, we stayed in the safe room for about 15 minutes just to be protected from the debris as well. We have cameras in the room, so they could see debris falling straight into the lagoon. Everyone there heard a loud noise as well. And, yeah… it burst the liner of our lagoon and made a hole.”

No injuries were reported.

“The damage wasn’t as bad as the headlines would suggest,” Zamir says. “We needed to take some water out so we could get to the actual hole. Today we fixed everything. We just put another liner, sealed it, and now we’re in the process of filling up the water that we pulled out of the lagoon. We’ll be able to run in another day or two.”

The broader context is complex, contested, and ongoing. “We’re being targeted from two different places,” Zamir says. “One is Hezbollah… they have short-range rockets… The second kind is pretty big rockets from Iran… which is far, far away.”

Israel has faced sustained rocket and missile fire from multiple fronts in recent years, while the wider regional conflict continues to carry significant human cost across multiple populations. The frequency and intensity of attacks, and responses, fluctuate, but for civilians on all sides, disruption and risk have become part of daily life.

“The situation varies from day to day,” Zamir says. “But this happens around four times a day… Some people don’t care and think nothing will happen to them, but I’d say like 99% of people get to safe rooms every time.”

Related: The Stab Interview with Israel’s first CT surfer, Anat Lelior.

Yesterday, around 5pm at the entrance to Big River in the town of Mendocino, an unidentified 39-year old surfer was attacked by a shark. 

The man is currently in the hospital with injuries to both legs, after getting himself to the beach and being assisted by three off-duty lifeguards. His current condition has not been made public. 

Per Mendocino Coast News:

“A witness described the shark as “gigantic.” Several reported that the shark struck the victim, and then circled both him and other surfers. It appeared the shark returned more than once to bite its victim.

“According to early reports from emergency communications, the victim made it out of the water and was located at the extreme north end of the beach. Emergency personnel responding to the scene requested an ATV to reach the individual more quickly across the sand.

“Scanner traffic indicated the injuries, while serious, did not involve arterial bleeding.”

Onlookers who watched the chaos from the bluff have estimated the shark to be anywhere from 15-20 feet.

This attack comes on the heels of a recent attack just a handful of miles south in Gualala — and continues the trend of 2025; a year where California recorded the most shark attacks it has ever experienced in 12 months.

Of course, this trend is being mirrored even more tragically in Australia, where more than a handful of fatal attacks recently occurred within just days of each other. 

Update: The surfer in question has been identified as James Eastman, and you can click here to support his GoFundMe.

Waco, Texas, 2019.

A simpler time. We were in town for our second-ever Stab High, and we were trying a new concept called Ladybirds. At that time, it was incredibly rare to see someone land an air on the women’s CT. We, however, decided to hold an air comp for U13 girls.

And it worked. 

Sky Brown, who was 10 at the time, duelled with Sierra Kerr while a sweaty collective of intoxicated professionals cheered louder than they’d cheered all weekend. It was easily the high point of the event. 

Since then, Sky has won two bronze medals for skateboarding in the Olympics and took out gold in the World Skateboarding championships. She’s also made the final in a QS event, and it’s quite likely she’ll become the first person to compete in both skate and surf at the aforementioned games. 

“I surf when the waves are good and skate when they’re not,” Sky once said. Yeah, that seems to be working out.

Sky, who is still only 17, became the latest surfer to join the Swatch team. The Swiss watch brand’s new signing also includes her brother, Ocean, who is more focused on skating but is still handy enough in the place he’s named after. 

The Browns join Coco Ho on Swatch, who has been with the brand for over ten years and has even designed her own watch. More recently, Swatch picked up Noah Beschen and Hughie Vaughan. Noah has already created a short film with their help, and whispers suggest there’s more on the way.

“I honestly can’t say enough good things,” reckons Sky about joining the team. “Coco Ho has always been one of my favorite surfers because she brings the best vibes and so much radness to surfing, and Noah’s style and progression are just so sick.”

“The watches are super functional, light, and there are so many different styles,” she (and/or her media person) added. But, she ain’t lying.

Sky concluded by adding: “I love that Swatch is creating events outside of the normal competition scene and helping push action sports to a whole new level.”

A read between the lines suggests she’s all but a lock for an appearance at Swatch’s Nines Surf event, which will recreate its enchanting brand of chaos in Waco this October.

Click here to purchase Thicker Than Water and here for September Sessions.

A few months ago, Jack Johnson sold out a handful of theaters with 25-year old surf films.

Thicker Than Water and September Sessions… ever heard of ‘em?

It’s been a quarter century since their release and, on the brink of Jack Johnson’s impending biopic documentary SURFILMUSIC, Jack, Emmet and Chris Malloy took it upon themselves to restore and remaster the films.

“September Sessions was a movie I watched over and over when I was young,” said John Florence, when he found out about the remastered versions. “The dream of Indo and getting to see those guys all go there, that was everything.”

Throughout the end of last year, Jack Johnson, Hermanos Gutierrez, the Malloys, Rob Machado, Kelly Slater, and friends premiered the remastered films around California. On the heels of that tour, they’re now making them available for purchase on YouTube.

“These films were shot on 16mm,” explains Rob Machado. “So when you see them on a screen, they look so crisp and so colorful. And there’s something about film that’s so special. The younger generation who didn’t grow up with these films are watching them like ‘Whoa, what app is that?’” Rob laughs.

“Jack shot September Sessions on a little Bolex camera and had to change each roll while 20 waves were being ridden. It’s so rad. Not to mention, the surfing, what’s being done in the films is still totally relevant, and it’s something that we’ve seen people still connect with,” finishes Rob.

Chris Malloy offers his own perspective.

“I had a kid in Santa Barbara say to me, ‘It’s cool how you put those orange flares at the end,’” says Chris, grinning.

“I was stoked, but mad at the same time. We had no money, so we had a very limited amount of film canisters in a little cooler. When you see those flares, it’s because the fucking film ran out,” he laughs. “That’s a film flare. That’s not a post effect. And we tried to hide those as much as we could. I remember getting chastised by Jack McCoy for it, because it was unprofessional. Now it’s an aesthetic the younger generation actually tries to emulate.”

For many people, their only encounter with either of these films has come through blurry bootleg versions, ripped and dropped onto burner YouTube or Vimeo accounts. Chris laughs when I ask him about these.

“I mean, it’s rad that they’re ripped on YouTube. I didn’t even know that,” he says. “Honestly, the films are about the editing and about the music and how they work together and the textures and the color that comes through. So many surf movies are about the tricks you’re doing. This film was a reaction to that. We really put a lot of time into the textures and the feel and the experience of it. So if kids are interested in that full experience, if people want to sit down and really enjoy the textures, I think the remastered films will be appealing. Otherwise, I mean, I don’t care how you watch it, the bootleg option might be sick,” he chuckles.

Click here to purchase Thicker Than Water and here for September Sessions.

Whenever you see those “Applications open for the best job in the world” clickbaits it’s always some solitary $200k Gov-gig where you have to cut the grass around a lighthouse on some forgotten Atoll in the middle of east Jesus nowhere. 

Perfect for a very select number of introverts, sure. However, most of us need a little inter-human connection and an occasional endorphin hit to edge towards elusive happiness.

Riku Matsumoto doesn’t have to cut the grass on his beautiful tropical island, he takes paying customers to surf the waves of their lives. And, gets to sneak a few of his own in between obligations, video evidence of which can be seen in COEXIST.

Part guide/part pro surfer/part Alaia Mentawai (Riku’s employer) poster boy = best job in the world.

“I’ve been working here for like three years this year,” Riku, fresh off the boat from surfing with shoulder season guests, tells me. “Nat, one of the owners of Alaia, is Japanese and is one of my Father’s best friends. My Dad encouraged me to come to the Mentawais four or five years ago and then I started working and managed to stay here longer.”

Currently Riku’s year consists of the majority of the year in the Ments (he’s there until October), then a short visit back to the family in Japan (ironically, considering how competent he is on a surfboard, Riku lived two hours from the ocean until he hit his mid-teens), then a month Hawaii stint, before it’s time to head back to the Ments. 

If that didn’t sound dreamy enough, Riku’s also got another gig: testing and refining various Haydenshapes models in the world class waves of his semi-permanent home. 

“I’ve been riding the Holy Hypto, which is kind of high performance board that I really like,” Riku says of his early season exploits. “Then I’ve also been riding the Nova, which works in any kind of conditions. When it gets to peak season and there’s barrels everywhere then I ride the Black Noise as it’s just so stable in the barrel.”

Riku tells me that the whole point of him pitching up in the Ments was to get used to said heavy reef break barrels, and taking his tube riding in COEXIST into account, it seems like it’s working. 

His favourite wave among his now considerable list of locals is EBay, the mechanical left point that churns out life-goal tubes and de-barkings in equal measure when it’s on. 

Riku’s relationship with EBay has been largely harmonious, although he admits that they got off to a shaky start.

“I only checked the waves for 15 minutes or something, didn’t see a proper set yet, then paddled out,” Riku says. “I had one of Craig Anderson’s old boards that was a 5’7. Straight away an eight foot set came and no one paddled for it so I thought I should go. I was a little bit late on the drop, but somehow I made it and tried to pull in, but the lip, the big lip hit me in the head, and then I got smoked. That was pretty scary.”

When asked if his experiences surfing in the Ments — where, in peak season in particular, “mellow” options aren’t really an option — has made him miss the humble beach breaks of home, he earnestly says: “Not really.” Before going on to admit that the last time he tried to surf a gutless beachbreak at home in Japan it felt so foreign that he could barely catch a wave.

One thing that the soft spoken Riku definitely credits his guiding career with, however, is improving his people skills alongside his tuberiding skills.

“I’m not good at talking with people or, like, in front of them and stuff, but I feel like I’m getting better slowly, kind of,” Riku says humbly. “We get guests from so many different countries and everyone has their unique personality here, so it’s good to spend time with them.”

Surfing’s improving, interpersonal skills on the up, equipment increasingly dialled; that’s the kind of career progression we can get behind.