By Julio Adler:

Well, there's no sign of swell 'till Friday, so it's time for us to get to know each other.

But first, some news from the contest site. A Portuguese journalist is trying to interview the Champ, unsuccessfully so far. She's not a surf journalist (do they really exist?) and she's used to interviewing people who matter: a German politician about Portugal's economic crisis; a British prince and his Duchess; a master comics artist from the golden age of Metal Hurlant.

It's easy to talk with such people: you contact the office who represents them, set the date and place, they'll be there.

With our surfing superstars, you call the agent, and then you call the brah, then the team manager, then the media manager, and then you call the brah once more. And he says tomorrow...maybe.

Champ wakes up, breakfasts, works out, Instagrams, says no to interview, must focus on the world title race.

Portuguese journalist does the routine again. And again. She's still doing it right now. Pity our poor Portuguese journalist has no surf connections. No Brah shakedowns. So surfing wants Big Sponsors outside the industry? Yeah, right...

Mark Webber or Roger Federer are just two phone calls away from any journalist to interview. Surfers are different.

I always fancied a quote Shaun Tomson said in Surfing Magazine, something like, "All surfers think they're special, and, in some strange way, they are."

Shaun said that back in the early '80s.

Laydays are made for walking and nostalgia so let's start moving. And please, bear with me, while I try to relive some of Brasil and Australia's common surf history in the 70's, 80's, and 90's for you. I think it helps to erase some of the noise stupid people make on the internet for kicks.

It may sound pretentious, but I think Aussies need a bit of context to understand Brazilian surf culture. Blogs and forums are full of hatred and it wasn't always like that, not when MP and Ricardo Bocao (Brazilian big wave legend, undisputed quad originator) shared a room on the North Shore in '73, '74.

But maybe I should go even further back? Ten years prior, to 1964. In '64 Australian adventurer Peter Troy was doing what the hipsters today can only dream of doing, traveling the world on ships, trains, buses, mules, trucks, anything that moves, and he ended up in beautiful Rio de Janeiro.

Troy was in Peru and plunged into the Brazilian bowels through the heart of the Amazon to reach Rio de Janeiro, almost a month after traveling the whole country without speaking a word of Portuguese.

By the time he reached Rio, he'd contracted every tropical disease know to man, he was ill and weak, but being a surfer, with long blonde hair, tall in stature, with wide shoulders, he was welcomed by the Arpoador surfing community.

Irencyr Beltrão, skilled surfer and shaper, took Peter under his wings and his parents adopted him like a son during the time he spent here in Rio. It's all in his book and much, much more.

Peter Troy changed the way we Brazilians surfed forever. Nobody here in Rio had seen anybody surf as good as he did in '64. Waves were usually ridden on the solid wood planks we had, so thick and heavy that you needed swim fins to paddle into the waves.

Troy tried but couldn't surf with those logs. One of the surfers knew a friend who had a proper surfboard, the rest is history.

So yeah, we owe a bit of our heritage to the Aussies, but half of the people are too lazy to tell the story and the other half are too lazy to hear the story.

It's easier to hate.

I interviewed Irencyr for a television show two months ago and he still has the cooking book Peter's mother send to him a good 45 years ago. He and Peter were friends till the end.

Recently I asked João Valente, the Editor of Surf Portugal, what impression he had on Brazilian surfing that foreigners don't usually understand. João lived in Brasil during his teenage years then moved to Portugal, he's still fascinated with Brasil. He said:

"I think one of the reasons [for the general understanding and deep interest in surf competition shown among Brazilian surf fans] has to be demographics in correlation with the cultural longevity in the country. See, as far as I know, the surf counterculture years in Brazil, in terms of numbers, were insignificant to the point of being almost non-existent when compared to the sport's burst during the early '80s.

"I mean, there was only one single surf magazine — Brasil Surf, highly countercultural, to its own credit — all through the 70's and it lasted little over ten issues! This means that pretty much all the growth of Brazil's surf scene was competition-oriented, led by the first full generation of surfers trying to make a living off the sport and a booming industry craving to promote its products via contests and athletes. Add it to the naturally highly competitive nature of Brazilians and you have it clear on why they care so much about winners and losers."

This is a topic to be continued...

Julio Adler is a native of Rio de Janeiro. He travelled as a professional surfer during the late-80s and early-90s and got completely involved with the pro surfing hustle, questioning judges and journalists and wondering what the fuck they were all doing. Around this time Julio began writing for surfing magazines and is now a regular columnist for Surf Portugal and Hardcore in Brazil. He's never had an English lesson in his life and can thank surfing magazines and Neil Young songs for his grasp of the Queen's tongue.