Three-time international surf champ Corky Carroll answers your questions each week on the Beach Blog. Hit him up at corkysurf@aol.com

Q.  Do you think that Kelly Slater is the best surfer of all time?

A.  Yes.  Kelly has earned that with the huge amount of accomplishments he has piled up over the years.  You can’t do what he has done without a skill level that is way above the rest.  Anybody can luck out and win an event.  But to win all of the titles he has, you have to be supersurfer.  I am also a big fan of Laird Hamilton and of Tom Curren.  But Kelly has proven that he is in a league of his own.

Q.  It seems that the water temperature has been warmer than I can ever remember it lately.  Why do you think that is?

A.  As a matter of fact, you are right.  The water temp here in Southern California has been reported to be the warmest in 1,400 years.  Don’t ask me who was around measuring the water temps that long ago, its just what I read.  And the overall surface temps of the oceans around the world is the warmest ever reported.  It is the beginning of another “el nino.”  The last one brought us really nice warm water.  What I like to do is just enjoy it while its here.  It’s too cold, too often.

Q.  Do you think that the online surf reports are all that correct most of the time?

A.  I use surfline.com myself and find that it is pretty spot on most of the time.  Many mornings I will make my coffee and log on to see what’s going on up and down the coast.  My favorite was one day I was checking out the surfcam at the Huntington Beach Pier and I saw my pal George Lambert get a full on barrel right there on my computer screen.  Fifteen minutes later I paddled up next to him and said, “nice ride a little while ago.”  Ahhhhh, the wonders of modern technology.

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