It’s been an interesting week, hasn’t it? Here in California, we’re a month into the governor’s stay-at-home order, many cities have completely shut down their beaches under threat of $1,000 fines and huddled masses are protesting in the streets as part of “Freedom Rallies”. Some of these protesters are surfers, much like last week’s headline-grabbing Encinitas local who posted up under the Cardiff Kook with signs that said, “Commies can’t surf,” and “Give me waves or give me COVID”. Truly mind-boggling stuff.
In the past week, it seems that many surfers have turned a corner in their feelings about how we should approach the COVID-19 pandemic. And a lot of that probably has to do with the cumulative effect of a handful of viral videos on social media: police shooting at…