166 - Spit! May 23, 2017

Welcome to Spit! with Scott Bass and David Lee Scales. It’s the exact same podcast you know and love (call it Down The Line, call it Surf News) where Bass and Scales spitball big ideas, spit vitriol, and discuss dudes getting spit out of waves. Spit! In today’s episode David sings the praises of the Baja roadtrip, Scott recaps the grom abuse story that created an Internet firestorm, they ponder what if the Fiji Pro is won by the event’s own sponsor (Kelly Slater/Outerknown), review Taylor Steele’s “Proximity”, Dukes and Kooks, and much more! Dang, it’s good to be back. Enjoy Spit!

BAJA OFFERS MUCH MORE THAN FISH TACOS AND SURF

David stayed in an AirBnB right at K38, dined in sophisticated restaurants and even toured their largely undiscovered wine region, Valle de Guadelupe. Despite the past decade’s instability and unsafe travel, David felt very safe and plans to return regularly.

Highlights of the trip include:

SurfBrewingCompany.com

Read about craft brewing in Baja here: Outside Magazine Article

And don’t miss the Guadelupe Valley. Phenomenal food and wine.

Read an LA Times article here

THE OK FIJI PRO

If Kelly Slater wins The Outerknown Fiji Pro, will that undermine the exact credibility that WSL is striving so hard to establish?

Filipe is out. Can we finally #GetClayInFiji ?

Yago Dora gets the wildcard

TAYLOR STEELE’S PROXIMITY

Click to find a local screening of “Proximity”.

Game changing surf films . . .

Endless Summer

Momentum

Let’s Be Frank!

GROM “ABUSE” TURNS INTO A FIRESTORM

The link to the OC Register article detailing the story.

And here’s the post that started it all:

DUKE

Dick Catri, R.I.P.

From Surfer.com, “East Coast surfing pioneer Dick Catri passed away at his home in Melbourne, FL, on Monday morning due to complications from a recent series of strokes. Sometimes referred to as the Godfather of East Coast surfing, Catri played a major role in steering the sport’s burgeoning popularity on the right coast during the 1960s and continued to shape its development over the course of the next half-century.”

I’m sure I’ve posted this pic before but yesterday my first surf coach, #DickCatri, passed away. Dick was a real character and taught me a ton as a young kid starting to compete. When I was 10 years old, myself and my brother (@sslatersurftackle), #ToddHolland, #SeanOhare (@shadowohare), #TroyPropper, and #RandySanders joined Shagg’s Surf Shop Team and did weekend surf training with Dick. We were to be the young challenge to the surf shop up the street, Spectrum, that sponsored a bunch of good surfers in the area. I remember him teaching us to keep our eyes open in the tube and to not always having to take off on the peak but maybe fade to where you wanted to be on the wave. He planted a lot of seeds about how to look at waves in our own unique ways. So many of the ideas still stick with me today. Those were fun times as a kid surfing high tide shorebreak at the Boardwalk in Indialantic. A few years ago I also learned that Dick named the Hawaiian surf spot Gums after a friend of his who lost all his teeth in a wipeout at the spot in the 70’s. Dick always told me, ‘Do as I say, not as I do’, which was explained to me when I got a bit older…there may have been a few skeletons in his closet. I remember him and my dad judging bikini contests at Canaveral Pier during the #NKF contests. Strange getting older and losing so many people I’ve known. Makes me appreciate the now. Thank you, Dick, for many fond memories from my childhood and for putting the first ‘TEAM’ sticker on my board. #RIPCoach ??????
A post shared by Kelly Slater (@kellyslater) on May 18, 2017 at 4:01am PDT

“Catri’s list of accomplishments is full of novel accolades. He was the first East Coaster to ride the Pipeline and Waimea. He appeared in Bruce Brown films. He opened one of the first surf shops in Florida and cultivated a team of East Coasters for Hobie Surfboards that could rival any Californian contingent of the day. He set the industry standard for surfboard shapers and helped kickstart the contest circuit on the east coast. In his later years, he mentored Cocoa Beach’s Sean and Kelly Slater, young up-and-comers at the time.”