This seems like lunacy. I’ve surfed maybe 10 times in my life and even I can tell this should have begun and ended with a simple “fuck you” and “eat shit” exchange.

Then the rest of the rest of the rest of the story comes out. My best thinking is it was not a good day for the sport of surfing on a sloppy 2 foot day with everyone showing their collective asses. Oh my.

Problem is, too many people have watched Point Break and think that's how they need to act. Accidents, ignorance, inexperience is ignored. If you're new to the sport and you f**k up, too bad. I'm not big, but can handle myself. I've had many potential altercations in the surf and/or on the beach. And I say potential, because 99% of the time, the surfer that is aggressive pushing for conflict very quickly changes his tune when he's not surrounded by his mates, when he's met with rationale and when he has someone that looks him in the eye with a smile on his face. Most of these guys are cowards. I had a run in with some guy last year, I dropped in on him, I just didn't see him, my fault. I apologized, he went ballistic, screaming at me to meet him on the beach etc etc I just paddled off. 2 hours later, I saw him 500m down on the beach as I paddled in. Put the board in my ute and drove down to him. I walked up to him and he looked down at his feet pretending to fiddle with his legrope, like an ostrich with his head in the sand. I pulled him up on his bad attitude and he apologised. He was a good bloke. We shook hands and I walked off. So it's not really a problem with the individuals, more of a problem with how the sport is portrayed, how surfers are encouraged to act. It's a shame, because to some extent it's ruined the sport or at least the reputation of the sport. Gromms and noobies are too scared to go out at certain breaks in Western Australia because of localism. Most of these cocks, never grew up in that area anyway. And people that would never normally be aggressive or combative act that way, because they think they need to or they should do. Or some shit.

In a typical surf break there is a finite zone where waves are going to break. There are a finite number of waves coming through, and the set waves are the good ones. So there are a limited number of opportunities to catch a wave. You might be out there for a couple of hours and get 5 waves and each wave might be only a few seconds long. If it's slightly bigger and a bit punchy then it's much more fun and worthwhile but it's also somewhere that newbies should respect the pack and their limited position in the pecking order because they can ruin someone's chance of a waves or, worse, do something dangerous.

As someone else said though - it is a meritocracy.

Rhonda Harper, Danielle Lyons, and Khadija Sambe show up at the Venice Pier to meet with a crew from NBC.

Once there, the group of women became “bossy”, “territorial” , “acting like they run the place”, “telling other surfers they can’t surf here because they are going to film”. They were snaking several other surfers repeatedly. (This is coming from several surfers questioned about that day, all were asked separately about what happened and all were saying the same things.)

Wagner Lima, noticing the film crew, went up and asked who they were filming. “The pro surfer out there,” he was told by the cameraperson. Being told she was a pro surfer and with her own camera crew, Lima watched to check out her surfing. Not impressed with her level of surfing, Lima laughed it off as being a “joke”, which he told the camera person. (This is coming from Lima.)

Lima then hits the water to surf. Once in, he starts getting the same treatment the other surfers were getting from the women. Getting snaked too. After putting up with it for awhile, the wave with the leash pull happens.

Lima mentions how her leash went around his board, so he yanked it.

He attempt to say sorry right after, but she wasn’t having it.

They all go on about there day, Lima leaves the water, gets smoothie, does some business. He sees the women again in the parking lot and goes up to them to apologize again. He gets cursed out and sprayed head-to-toe with water from the women’s rinse kit.

Soon after is when Harper starts her ruthless online vendetta against Lima. She shows up at the Venice Pier the next day and tells Lima she is going to ruin him. (This comes from Lima.)

Apparently, Harper is infamous in Southern California for showing up to surf spots with her group and acting like they run the place. (This also comes from surfers that said they recognized who she was and know how she acts. There’s even comments on surf forums about her. Her personal Facebook page is filled with posts she made showing anger towards men, white people and the surf industry in general.)