A devil’s bargain if there ever was one.
As any surfer knows, it has become very
difficult to surf without hordes of VALs, blow-ins, transplants
etc. utterly clogging heretofore manageable lineups. What used to
be ten surfers enjoying a dawn patrol has ballooned to fifty or
sixty and not just fifty or sixty on modern performance shortboards
but fifty or sixty on fifteen foot gliders.
Surfing in the apocalypse.
You can understand, then, how core lords and ladies up in
Bolinas, near San Francisco, have pounced on a devil’s bargain
allowing them to forgo crowds by surfing in sewage.
According to The San Francisco
Standard, “Marin County officials were alerted to the
issue when a permit inspection revealed sewage leaking along a
bluffside property. A subsequent investigation and E. coli testing
revealed ‘at least a few dozen’ locations across a 1.5-mile stretch
where sewage was flowing onto the beach at a rapid clip, according
to Sarah Jones, director of the Marin County Community Development
Agency, which handles environmental health services.”
Grumpy locals reading and licking lips.
Mickey Murch, described as a second-generation farmer and
Bolinas surfer, told the paper, “I really don’t know much about
this except that the surf is nice and empty. I go in the water even
during the biggest storms in the winter, when people’s septic
systems are overflowing, so maybe I have a good immune system. I’m
a nonbeliever.”
Others, standing nearby, nodding along but also holding fingers
to lips, not wanting the secret to get out.
Residents are, of course, frustrated by the environmental
breakdown but beggars can’t be choosers, these days. An empty wave
even filled with poo worth much more than it was five or six years
ago.
Over to you, now. Would you, like ol’ Mickey Murch, brave your
immune system and paddle or fear the diarrhea?
More importantly, what would Kelly Slater do?
