“This is the real Dream Tour right here…it sure
beats watching the WSL!”
The three-time world champ John John Florence, currently
on tour with his little family, wife Lauren and bebe Darwin in New
Zealand, has stolen the show from a world surf tour that
has dwindled into an irrelevance not seen since its inception in
1976.
No John John Florence, no Gabriel Medina, no Carissa Moore, no
Stephanie Gilmore, no firepower, no waves, no interest. In El
Salvador, where little waves lap on a brown sand beach and where
it’s so damn hot the pro surfers are forced to mask their odours
with flowery perfumes as sweat pours down their faces like
raindrops, the biggest story has been whether or not Chris Cote is
back on the drink.
The image on the left – from a late 2024
podcast – shows Chris Cote, discussing his sobriety with @wsl‘s Dave
Prodan. The other image, taken today, shows Cote, in the WSL
commentary booth, clutching a promotional beer. A (purely
speculative) bit about this… pic.twitter.com/QyusCPDviq— Full-On Steez IV (@DoubleEpskiSesh)
April 7, 2025
Anyway, no one’s watching, no one cares. Instead, surf fans have
pivoted to John John Florence and fam, currently in New
Zealand.
Four months after making it official that he wasn’t going to hit
the tour in 2025, yeah he’d take a Pipe wildcard but that was it,
John John split to go exploring in New Zealand, a decision made
easy by the fact his forty-eight foot gunboat Vela had
been sitting dockside there after listing it for sale almost two
years ago for $1.3 million American dollars.
John John’s latest couple of posts has the Hawaiian-born
multi-millionaire snorkelling with big friendly fish, dolphins,
maybe, surfing a riotous sand bottom right-hander, carrying bebe
Darwin around on his shoulders, eating cold sandwich meat and
watermelon and, at day’s end, sipping Bourbon toddies on the deck
of Vela.
A popular refrain in the comments is “This is the real Dream
Tour right here” and “The real Dream Tour” and “What a dream life”
and “This sure beats watching the WSL.”
Meanwhile, his little brothers, Prince Harry lookalike Nathan
and daddy clone Ivan, are back on the road, this time in Chile,
singing their own hymns and saying their own prayers.
There are no gloomy silences, no cantankerous Brazilians weeping
about a half-a-point spread.
Just the Florences bursting into glory.
RIP WSL.
