love


music: reel big fish - victory of peter bones
volume: 18


reading through old emails i found this surf article that christian sent me a while ago (yeah...i just got to it, sorry dude, heh heh. i have this aversion to going to links people send me...but i get to them eventually). either way, it's a short article on surfing and the upcoming van's triple crown in hawaii....a three part surf competition on three of the meanest walls of water on earth (including pipe). either way, the article drifted into talk about the thirteen year old girl (hamilton) who got all but four inches of her right arm bitten off by a 14 ft. tiger shark off kaua`i. she was out of bed in two days and you watch, she'll be back in the water.

either way, just reading the article gave me that butterfly feeling in my stomach...aching for my trip home this christmas. it's only been a few months but i missed home the moment my parents dropped me off at the airport to come back to school. if i had known the effect surfing would have on me a few years before...i probably wouldn't have worked hard enough to get here :) interesting thought...i wish i were a better surfer...but i'm glad things happened the way they did. i've got a lifetime of dawn patrols and pau hana sessions ahead of me....but we usually only get one chance to get the right edumacation.

i still remember the last wave i caught before i left the beach for the last time this past summer. probably not the biggest wave i've caught, but possibly the most powerful (different beach). it was breaking right on top of me and a guy behind me took the left....in a split second decision i decided to catch it backside (right, away from the other guy) right as the crest was coming down.....i just needed one or two paddles to keep it from running over me and i popped up in a snap and let it fly. i was going so fast that it made this sound under my board like i was cruising OVER the ripples in the water instead of cutting through them like usual...shows how fast i was going (the skegs create some lift). i couldn't even get back to the shoulder 'cause it shot me so far out so fast (i suck) but that drop was the cleanest i'd ever attacked.....and that was that 'last wave' i was waiting for. i rode it most of the way in and paddled the rest of the way with a smile on my face and a heavy heart.

let's see if i can ever concentrate today now....hah




aloha