San Onofre State Beach Officials Unsure If This Violates Any Specific Rule; “We’ll Need to Review the Policy on This”
Reported by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
SAN ONOFRE, CA — A 32-year-old product manager from Palo Alto named Dylan Kessler has been conducting full Zoom meetings from the Trestles lineup since Thursday, surfing between calls on a custom 5’10” quad with a Starlink mini satellite terminal lashed to a nearby buoy with 40 feet of rope, a setup he describes as “the obvious solution to the location-independence problem.”
California State Park rangers who discovered the buoy on Friday said they had “reviewed the relevant sections of the California State Park regulations” and determined that the situation “falls into a gap we had not previously contemplated.” The buoy remains. The Zoom calls continue. On Tuesday, Kessler closed a $2.3 million seed round between sets.
The Setup
Kessler, who moved to San Clemente six months ago after deciding that “surfing and startup culture should not be mutually exclusive,” assembled the Starlink buoy in his garage using components sourced from Amazon, a modified kayak anchor, and, he noted proudly, “about sixty dollars in PVC from Home Depot.” The terminal broadcasts a 200Mbps connection with 40-millisecond latency, which he describes as “totally adequate for video calls, though not ideal for gaming, but I’m not gaming, I’m working, which I’m also doing while surfing.”
A waterproof earpiece delivers meeting audio. A wrist-mounted action camera doubles as a webcam when he is sitting on his board. His calendar blocks are color-coded: blue for surfable sets, green for Zoom calls, red for “do not disturb, I am actually surfing right now, please respect this.”
Colleagues at his startup, a platform-layer infrastructure company called Synchro Labs, have adapted. “Dylan is always available,” said his head of engineering, Priya Nair, reached by phone in San Francisco. “Sometimes there’s ocean sounds in the background. Sometimes he disappears mid-sentence because apparently there was a set. You learn to just… hold your point.” She paused. “I think I’m fine with it. I’m not sure I’m fine with it.”
The Lineup’s Reaction
Regular Trestles surfers have had mixed reactions, which is to say some reactions are less printable than others. Lowers, the main break at Trestles, is one of the most consistently excellent waves in Southern California and draws a competitive, serious lineup. Surfers who hike the mile-and-a-half trail from the parking lot arrive having committed to the experience. Finding a man on a call about “Q2 OKRs” sitting in the peak is not what they committed to.
“He’s actually not a bad surfer,” conceded Marcus Webb, 28, a local who has surfed Lowers for a decade. “Which almost makes it worse. He has the ability to just surf. And instead he is talking about metrics.” Webb shook his head in the way that surfers shake their heads when the world has once again disappointed them.
“He offered me equity,” added Tyler Cho, 24, who surfs Uppers and occasionally Lowers. “I don’t know what that means at a surf break. I said no. I think I said no.”
The Inertia published an op-ed this week titled “Is Dylan Kessler the Future or the Problem?” that concluded, after 1,800 words, with the phrase “perhaps both,” which is The Inertia’s preferred mode of conclusion.
The Regulatory Ambiguity
California State Parks officials confirmed that the Starlink buoy is “not prohibited under current regulations” because current regulations were written before satellite internet buoys at surf breaks were a scenario anyone was paid to think about. A spokesperson said the department was “evaluating the situation” and would “likely issue guidance” on the matter.
Asked for a timeline, the spokesperson said: “It’s a process.” Asked what the process involves, she said: “Evaluation.” The buoy has now been in place for nine days.
The Surfrider Foundation, which protects coastal access and ocean health, released a statement saying it does not have an official position on Starlink buoys at surf breaks “at this time” but noted that any ocean infrastructure raises “complex questions about access, pollution, and the commons” that deserve “careful consideration.” Kessler responded by tagging the Surfrider Foundation in a LinkedIn post describing their statement as “a growth opportunity for the conversation.”
What Kessler Says
Kessler says he understands the optics but maintains he is “not taking anything from anyone.” “The waves don’t care if I’m on a call between sets,” he said, toweling off after a morning session in which he caught seven waves and attended four meetings. “I’m not snaking anyone. I’m waiting my turn. I’m just also working. This is called optimization.”
He said he is working on a product — naturally — that would allow other remote workers to book Starlink-enabled ocean positions, time-shared by subscription. He is calling it “OfficeBreak.” It is currently in beta. It has eleven investors. One of them, he confirmed with a straight face, “is a lifeguard.”
For more workspace innovations you didn’t ask for, see The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/