Last month, we put out a piece entitled “One Of The World’s Best Air Waves Just Joined The CT”.

You’ve likely already heard that, due to some unforeseen geopolitical scuffles (Trump v. Iran), the WSL has opted to postpone the Surf Abu Dhabi Pro and replace it with the first-ever CT event at Cloud 9 on Siargao Island — one of the Philippines’ 7,461 islands.

And as you probably know, Cloud 9 is a ludicrously good wave — hence why we went there to film both for Zipper and Milk & Honey.

“I think we’ve all seen footage of it when it’s firing. It’s just like a super hollow, machine barrel,” Skip McCullough (former QS event winner at Cloud 9 QS) said. “But the underrated part of it is just a huge air section. You just fly out of these barrels into the biggest, most cupped-out air section ever.”

“The main barrel section is in the same spot every time,” Skip continued. “It’s basically who can be in the barrel the deepest and the longest. The barrel’s so square out there, you can stuff yourself so far back, and the foamball, for whatever reason, is so forgiving. It’ll just lift up your board from the back and push you out of these really, really, really deep barrels.”

What makes the wave so consistently cylindrical? The reef sits right at the edge of the 34,580 ft deep (third-deepest on Earth) Philippine Trench — that deep-ocean geography running smack into a two-foot-deep reef is what generates the forever-power behind Cloud 9.

In the video you see above, Roark surfers Koa Smith (of Resurfacing) and Harrison Roach (of Mysterious Affair) join with locals to sample a fun day at the 9. The interplay between Koa’s frolic and Harrison’s poise is worth the click indeed.

The crew also gets to take a ride home on a P Jet from a suspiciously moneyed financier. The boys didn’t ask questions…

On February 23, 1942 —Two months after Pearl Harbor was leveled—the Japanese bombed Santa Barbara, California.

Specifically, they bombed an oilfield 12 miles north, killing nobody and only inflicting $500 of damage. This little-talked-about micro-attack, understandably, put California on edge.

The very next day, an unidentified flying object was seen over Los Angeles. The U.S. Army fired 1,440 shells at it, air raids sounded all throughout the city, and a strict city-wide blackout was ordered (if you ask some real old-timers around Southern California, they might still have blackout curtains in their attic).

Turns out, it was a “false alarm”. In the end, there were five casualties — three in car crashes and two from heart attacks. It is known today, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as “The Battle of Los Angeles”.

Now, what does all this have to do with 30-year-old pro surfer-turned-açaí-entrepreneur-turned-YouTuber Koa Smith?

Well, by the time The Battle of Los Angeles happened, Southern California had already been militarizing for a decade. As part of this effort, there were many Army Corp Engineers stationed in the area, with plenty of time and lots of tax dollars at their possible.

So, 90 years ago, in 1936, the Army Corp of Engineers extended the Corona Del Mar Jetty by 900 feet due to a 15-year-old drowning in heavy surf in his fishing boat inside the “safe” harbor mouth.

In doing this, they not only made a safer harbor — they also created the refractional anomaly that is The Wedge.

In the video above, catch Koa Smith score a fun run of waves during the recent Hurricane Genevieve swell. Because of large swell and high tides, there was extreme erosion at the wedge, and Koa and friends uncovered some remnants of the original piers and train tracks that haven’t been seen for nearly 90 years.

Add archaeologist to the list of Koa’s diverse bona fides.

In partnership with Billabong.

There’s a fairly clean line between Tai ‘Buddha’ Graham’s two lives.

In one, he runs a Bali hospitality empire that includes Single Fin, The Lawn and roughly a dozen venues under Project Black. In the other, he gets on creaky stink boats with 6 identical surfboards built for going straight and looks for waves that can turn a human being into a meat crayon.

The latter version just produced a new clip — returning to the iconic, heavy Indonesian right he used to surf with the late Mikala Jones, armed with six Big Horses, his signature tube model with JS, and accommodation apparently selected on the basis that running water would constitute needless luxury.

Which is fairly on-brand.

Long before the restaurants and Sunday sessions, Tai was doing Indo strike missions “on an oily rag,” catching barely seaworthy vessels, sleeping on floors and surviving on pancakes. At one point he was living on roughly $200 a month, selling surfboards to stay afloat and getting around Bali on a pushbike because he couldn’t afford to rent a motorbike.

He’d moved there with $3,000 after growing up between the Gold Coast and Bali, learning to surf around Legian and Padma during school holidays. Before business boomed, he chased junior contests alongside the likes of Bede Durbidge, Luke Munro, Dingo Morrison and Joel Parkinson, and had a crack at the QS.

Later, Mikala became his great co-conspirator.

The pair shared a particular appetite for complicated missions with no guarantee of reward. Multiple flights, six-hour drives, four-hour boat legs, then potentially nothing. Tai reckoned Mikala’s forecasting helped them score around 80% of the time, but said the important part was that neither cared much about the other 20.

The spirit lives on.

Mikey surfs in Heat 12, around 12pm Costa Rica time. That’s 11am in California, 2pm on the US East Coast, or 4am in Sydney.

For those of you wondering what the hell is going on, click here to read Mikey C’s full piece on why he’s competing in his local QS.

In short, a few months ago the WSL decided to place a QS2000 in the front yard of our editor-in-chief. Having finished 515th in the world 12 years ago and nearing fatherhood at 32 yeas old, Mikey decided to set himself the goal of making a single heat at Playa Hermosa.

“That’s the goal,” he wrote in his original missive. “Advance out of the Round of 96 in my local QS2000 — a couple weeks before I turn 33, a couple months before I become a dad.”

Since the announcement of his participation, he’s shared some of his preparation for the event on his instagram.

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Alongside much of the Stab staff, surfers like Tom Carroll, Jadson Andre, Kanoa Igarahsi, Parker Coffin, Cory Lopez, Ross Williams, Logan Dulien, and more have gotten behind him in the comments.

“I’m more invested in this heat than any comp in 15 years,” wrote Brett Barley in the comments.

“Simple goal. Ride two waves at your finest…with a few moves like that clean forehand hack🔥🔥🔥🔥🙌💪bingo,” wrote Tom Carroll.

What board will Mikey be choosing from his seemingly endless quiver of Joyride selds?

Well, per a poll done with the audience, he planned on riding his Ben Webb Vault.

This morning however, he woke up and realized the board has a blown-out finbox. Tune in to see what board he settles on.

Mikey surfs in Heat 12, around 12pm Costa Rica time. That’s 11am in California, 2pm on the US East Coast, or 4am in Sydney.

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The Rip Curl Padang Cup was placed on ‘Red Alert’ two days ago. 

The same day the Southern Ocean was folding over Teahupo’o, and 54-yo Kelly Slater briefly made us believe in fairytales again. 

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Aside from the obvious negatives of eyeball cannibalism resulting from having two comps running in parallel, morning sickness and a 6-hour run time had contest director, Harry Mann erring on the side of caution.

“The swell was pretty south and pushing wide,” reported our on the ground correspondent, Josiah Amico in the early hours of the morning. 

The afternoon, however, was a different story — for about three hours, surfers in the sanctioned ‘expression session’ and ‘warm ups’ were treated to Padang Premium. 

Contest director included!

Feel free to hit his DMs with hate mail.

Pareidolia is the phenomenon of seeing meaningful shapes, such as human faces or animals, in random objects, clouds or patterns.

It’s why some cars, the Fiat 500 for instance, are cute. 

‘Lil round eyes, a smiley grille, a chubby bonnet you want to squeeze by the cheeks.

It’s just a baby.

Only it was conceived by a panel beater, iron ore, bauxite, crude oil, silica sand, rubber sap, copper, coal and several blast furnaces. Its soft little face was stamped into shape by hydraulic presses. Its windows began as sand, its tyres as trees and petroleum, its dashboard as ancient organic matter dragged from the earth and cracked into plastic. Then the whole thing was welded together by robots, filled with combustible liquid and released into traffic.

Look at the little guy.

Realising we’re just wigging out most of the time when we see faces in the clouds creates its own set of issues, however.

We overcorrect and dismiss all faces as yet another case of our senses leading us astray. 

Occasionally a croc-looking log is indeed a croc. 

Kai Hing explains: “We were up in the Banyaks on this big cat called Pulse. Super luxurious. Nicest boat I’ve been on. We pull up to this wave, I think it was called Camel Backs. Everyone was surfing this inside right, Rolo [Montes] and I were out the back, Snaz [Jimmy Jazz] was shooting water.”

“We’d surfed there all day. That afternoon, back in the harbour, Snaz looked at Rolo and I, points to a log floating nearby and says, “I swear I saw that log snort water. Water came out of its nose.”

We were like, “Logs don’t do that, man. You’re fucking tripping.”

He goes, “I reckon it was a croc.”

We were like, “There are no crocs here, man. You’re sweet. We’re all good.”

But low key after that, we kept seeing heaps of logs and wondering, “Is that a croc?”

Anyways, the waves went small, and we went around to another bay to snorkel and hang out. Jared [Mel] aka Bing Bong went for a little explore on land with an older bloke who was on the boat. There were ranger signs all along the beach because it was a reserve area where turtles come in and out.

Rolo and I jumped off the boat to burn some energy and flap around in this slightly murky water. It was still pretty clear, I guess. We had a little snorkel and a swim.

Suddenly, Bing Bong busts out of the bushes and starts waving down the boat with some urgency. Rolo and I were like, “What’s going on with these lads? Why are they tripping out?”

They got back on the boat and rushed over to pick us up. They said, “Dude, the sign on the beach says, ‘Beware: Saltwater Crocodile Sanctuary.’”

We were like, “Whoa, fuck. All right.”

We got back to the boat and Repo [Jason Reposar] put his drone up. Low and behold, there’s a fucking huge saltwater crocodile right where Rolo and I had been swimming. We’d basically been cruising next to a dinosaur.”

The following clip of Hingy was shot (mostly) over the past 6 or 7 months, while banking footage for the new Lazer Fins film. There’s also a couple reheated bangers from his Rage 5 part that deserve an encore. 

He’s been getting after it, Hingy, self-funding trips doing social work on the Northern Rivers of NSW, between regulating the Lennox Pub bank on his 10ft glider with his landlord Ozzy Wright (or Wrong). 

“Ozzy is 50 and has more froth to surf than anybody I know. It’ll be a one-foot left shorey and he’ll say, ‘Yeah, I surfed four times today. It was pumping.’ 

“That’s such a blessing to be around because it’s very easy to get bored and jaded on stuff. He’s always painting and always sewing. There’s good creative energy around him. He’s still so young in spirit and mind. Life can throw you curveballs, debt and all this other shit, but it’s cool to be around him and watch him stay positive through everything while sticking to his roots.

“Even at Stab High in Sydney, he was judging and said, “I’ll give Hingy an eight because he owes me 800 bucks.” I never thought Ozzy Wright would have a little personal joke like that.”

DIP also marks the end of Kai’s one-year contract with Afends.

If you wanna help him fend off Ozzy and his army of mozzies, give him all your money. 

Teahupo’o isn’t the only professional surf contest that is setting the internet ablaze this week. 

In both Stab’s Slack threads and online comment sections, the anticipation is palpable for Mikey Ciaramella’s return to the WSL Qualifying Series. Even a certain former coach to CT stars has signed on to help our Editor in Chief. 

Yes, Ross Williams, former coach to John John Florence, is giving (un)solicited tips to help Mikey achieve his grand ambition: making a single heat at the QS2000 in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica. Set waves, lip taps and fist bumps are in, straight from the Haleiwa leadfoot himself.

And it looks like it’s going to be a legit pulse from August 13 to 16. 

“I’m going for double digit points,” Mikey tells Buck on this week’s episode of The Drop. “I think that if I put up 10 points or above, I will feel like I did my job, and I hope that means a heat advancement as well.” 

Though the BetOnline odds haven’t dropped for Garabito yet, the heat draw has. I can only imagine what the coaches of Sebastian Mendes, Ross Adams and Raul Rios are telling them before they paddle out. Probably something like, “Just don’t lose to the Stab guy.”

As much as we appreciate the supportive comments online, maybe what Mikey needs is a personal nemesis who doubts him. Which brings us to Ronny Nelson and Kelly Slater.

In this ep, Mikey and Buck relive the WSL’s heat of the year, in which a semi-retired 54-year-old parachuted over reef (twice) at unruly Teahupo’o, then head-butted two 9-point rides against Gabriel Medina. Tough go, Ronny. Check more reactions from the surf world here, and be sure to forgo obligations to watch Kelly’s next heat versus Jack Robinson when competition resumes.

More topics discussed: SEOTY contender Michael Dunphy joins the judging panel at his home break in New Smyrna Beach for the Ep. 6 premiere of Surf100. He and Yadin Nicol watch Zeke Lau, Dimitri Polous split peaks on the grindiest challenge thus far, which decides the first of two finalists. Another step closer to $100K. 

On the topic of money, our investigation into a $24 million plan to remove eight local businesses for a lifeguard hub at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore has been divisive, to say the least. Proponents say this is what many local residents want and will greatly improve public safety. Others see it as a blow to the regional economy. Time will tell what transpires. 

Also not to be missed: A quick plug on how Paul Evans put Serial to shame with a multi-part deep dive into cocaine washing onto the beaches of southwest France and its ramifications for the surf world. More episodes from Stab’s first premium-only series are dropping soon.

When asked what her age was, filmmaker Agnès Varda responded: “There is only one age: Alive.”

“Young” is a relative concept and, from empirical observation, one that seems to be becoming increasingly flexible.

Quiksilver has taken this literally, reusing the title of its well-known, freely distributed (you likely haven’t forgotten the first time you gave that DVD a spin) team films from twenty years ago. If you already named three children the same thing, would naming the fourth be that confusing?

The Young Guns franchise introduced extraordinary talent such as Clay Marzo and Julian Wilson to a broader audience, along with a few others who by now are at the peak of their coaching and/or real estate mediation powers.

The formula consisted of bundling up Quiksilver’s global A-team, sending them out on luxury yachts staffed with private chefs, obscenely large televisions, helicopter pads, and unsupportive sleeping pillows to better and lesser-known corners of the Indonesian archipelago. The soundtrack, featuring several artists from Sydney’s Modular Records, inevitably entered pre-surf mixtapes for an entire generation. Instant winner, and we’d be willing to bet that many of you burned those DVDs out.

Twenty years later, during peak Mentawai season, Quik’s elite contingent returned to the islands, this time staying on land (luxe resort, mind you) and commuting by outboard-powered, single-log dugout canoe instead of the 112-foot Indies Trader IV, which has since transitioned to Ratu Motu.

The new Young Guns film runs Quiksilver’s ‘Impaired’ logo, which Natas Kaupus drew by hand, noncoincidentally around the same time the first YG film dropped. Rio Waida (26) and Kanoa Igarashi (28) are the first Young Guns to come up on screen. The opening section reuses the same Sizzla track as Kelly Slater’s Soup Bowl session in Sipping Jetstreams. A subtle nod to the original, ageless spiritual team leader of the original YG generation?

Kehu Butler (26) gets his own section, while Griffin Colapinto (28), who had to depart the boat trip before any significant swell arrived, has his put together from consistently stellar freesurf appearances elsewhere.

Perhaps that’s why Nalu Deodato (19) feels like the first appearance that truly satisfies the original brief. He is young young, and his silky, at times raw approach will have the curious wanting to see more of the Hawaiian.

Hughie Vaughan (19), also a legit YG, needs little to no introduction, but it’s very much worth introducing him to the shoppers at Boardriders stores worldwide while they have their graphic long sleeves neatly folded into complimentary mountain + wave tote bags. The contrast between his and Nalu’s performances at chunky but still playful Maccas is one of the defining moments of the film.

Golden Olympian Kauli Vaast (24) and Jeremy Flores (38) are paired up and represent one of France’s overseas collectivities, Kauli as a native and Jeremy as a resident. Jeremy effectively takes on the KS role here and steals a record from the oldest-ever CT competitor: the oldest Young Gun in history.

The straight-to-YouTube production was shot in sections collected over a few trips, rather than as a cohesive compilation from a single trip, a format that YG2, in particular, did so well and that remains worthy of several revisits.

Marco Mignot (25) and Mikey Wright (29) bring two very different styles and approaches to the screen, before Al Cleland (24) closes the entire thing with a part you probably didn’t see coming.

For lack of a better expression, Danny Johnson’s “surf films are hard” is good enough here. They’re also way harder to make with the speed at which big or independent productions hit the algorithms. Enormous resources and energy are poured into making something only for clips to be poached and reposted as “raw sessions” under accounts like “Surfers of [insert wherever].”

Young Guns 2026 is a good watch, and certainly something you’d want to play on repeat ahead of a Ments trip, or lean on to kill roughly 30 minutes of your Fast Ferry trip from Padang. The film is also backed by a Young Guns collection, which is currently available in Quik stores and online.