After much criticism of Rip Curls approach to the locals at the famed competition in Mexico Surfline decided to run their own “Goodwill Tour to Mexico” The aim of the tour is to:

The goal of our Surfline Goodwill Tour event will be to raise $20,000 from the VIP event participants for the local community. The local citizens are very resourceful and have been working to build a sorely needed medical clinic in town. The Mexican government will send a doctor to the local clinic to care for the local citizens after it is fully operational and stocked with medicinal supplies. Additionally, the local community needs to invest in improved facilities for their children at their Primary and Secondary schools, and for construction to complete a safe access way to their church located on top of a hill.

When I first heard about this on 70Percent.org, I thought that’s great - though now Surfline must be rueing coming up with the idea after all the backlash that’s flying around the internet at the moment.

Approximately three hours later we spoke to Kim, one of the official translators for the event, who informed us that the men who threw rocks at us and assaulted us were working directly for Sean Collins, the organiser of the event. He also informed us that we were lucky that we were not kiled - for doing what we all love so dearly - pathetic. Clearly, Sean Collins, along with the sponsors of the event are directly accountable for both the physical and financial damage that was suffered on that particular day, not to mention the reputation of the companies that placed there name on such an event. Furthermore, as far as I was aware, the notion of ´goodwill´is giving, not taking. How can eradicating fellow surfers (including most local surfers from the village) be indicative of such a gesture? Buying exclusive access to a world class wave is obviously taking far more than what is being given. We do not let this occur at waves in America, Australia, and Hawaii, just to name a few, so why should this be able to occur in countries that are less financially fortunate? The exploitation of waves such as Barra is something that should not happen in the present, nor the future. Surfline and fellow sponsors should ´donate´ money directly to the village and continue to let others surf if they feel that they are in need, without taking. I expect that such an incidence should never happen again. - Dailybread

When the main guy came walking down the beach (shown in the picture below) we asked him if we could get permission to surf before and after the contest since we had taken off of work and now we were down there staying at our families friend’s place and wanted to stay a couple of days visiting them. He said NO. He said that we have to be VIP – and that we can only be so by helping the town like he did. We started to laugh and told him that we help the town for many years, we know all of the kids there, give them boards and fix their boards and bring them stuff. He couldn’t even speak Spanish. When we started talking to him in Spanish and asked him how he helped the town, he got angry and told us to F*** Off. - surfline forums

It appears some travellers tried to surf the break outside of contest hours and had rocks hurled at them!!! What happened to normal contest rules where you can’t surf while the contest is running. This business of exclusive use of a wave for a period of time is a joke.

You can follow the story / comments on the following blogs and forums:

70Percent
Dailybread
Niceness
Surfermag’s forum
Surf In Oregon
Surfline Forums