My wetsuit is no longer hanging bone dry and stiff in the garage like a medieval suit of armor, no, it’s now damp and rotting in my SMOT (Super Massive Octo Tote) in the back of my car like it should be…because I have been surfing!

Holy shit everyone, it’s been fun. I’ve been carving; you’ve been carving; we’ve all been ripping I hope. Every car ride lately is me with the windows-down belting out Sprung Monkey’s “Good Times” like I’m a 17-year-old all-day wettie-wearing grom. Still amazed at the simple and pure joy riding waves and being in the water brings me. I’m convinced no amount of biohacking or life-elongating suggestions by the X/Twitter community or Joe Rogan can compete with the health and wellness that riding a few waves a day can.

When I wasn’t surfing this week(there were a few moments), I did some hardcore surf journalism and research. I drove I-5 from San Diego to Ventura and back again sniffing for clues, for anything that smelled of Sex Wax and not my soiled towel. Any signs of inspiration or excitement in our dearly beloved surf industry. I wanted to see young, doe-eyed interns ready to risk it all for surf culture. I wanted to observe the youth in the wild looking salty with neck tans, getting the girl/boy because they did an air in the shorebreak. On my journey, I conversed with the young and old. The creatives and the jocks. I people watched. On boardwalks. In surf shops. Even on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. All in the name of gonzo surf research. I have even been down the hallowed halls of both iconic surf brands and their new holding companies and licensees, looking to see how it came to be that Huntington Surf and Sport and Costco are slinging the same surf brands.

I’m afraid my overall findings are a bit grim for surfing. At least if you’re currently a professional surfer. Or hoping to be one (sorry San Clemente surf nursery). I am anticipating a mass extinction event in terms of both professional surfing and professional surfers. There just isn’t going to be any need for either of you soon. How you define what I mean — at least at this stage in my research — is up to you, but I'm convinced that like the soiled wetsuit in the back of my car, something is rotten in surfing.

Before we submit to being the least cool culture in the world though, let’s remember, beneath every rotten wetsuit and towel is a surfer who’s been surfing…so perhaps that stench coming from the surf industry is actually just the fertilization of a new bloom. A surfing renaissance of creativity and fun and great products made by psyched surfers. One can always hope — and keep surfing — because nothing is more refreshing than putting on a soiled and sandy wet-wetsuit for that second session of the day.—Travis Ferré

Are we headed for another surfing renaissance like the one that gave us Taylor Steele movies and zipperless wetsuits?

[Above artwork: Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, 1470-80]