The numbers don't matter, but every now and then they are a good excuse to stop and think about what is happening and what has happened.

If I have to reflect on everything that has happened, it is that I do not have enough time to do everything I want, should, have and planned to do.

With a few exceptions, DUKE, which has already received over 1.2 million unique visitors in this time, has been managed, written, posted, sold, traveled and curated by the author. Of course, with a few very valuable and much-loved collaborations.

I see these five years as a turning point. A moment in which I understand that we are in a great place, after the pandemic, with contracts with several of the best brands in the surfing industry, to consider that it is time to move up.

I don't like the pseudo "surf journalism" that exists in Brazil, the United States and Europe... I think it's almost non-existent, or it's not serious or it's too much of a panderer to brands or institutions. I don't like ego trips either, but I think that at DUKE we have managed, by doing journalism, to put on the table notes that may not be the most friendly to the industry but that understand that communicating with professionalism is our primary task and why those who see us see us and our clients choose us.

I intend to go into more depth about what has been done in Latin America and Spain, our main visiting countries, but to put a big emphasis on communicating in Portuguese and English, where there is really little or nothing of true surfing journalism.

That is my humble celebration.

Hopefully, in five years, this letter will be written in three languages ​​and will have many readers in all of them.