Around The World In 80 Waves

The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) trains are full of the homeless when I return to San Francisco in the middle of the night. It is the only warm place for them to get some sleep and I look distinctly out of place in the hula shirt I wore for the flight back from Honolulu. I see several gettinh hassled by the police and moved along.

All of which is quite a depressing return to the mainland. I head over to Kevin’s place near the Marina and half frighten Jenn to death opening the door in the middle of the night.

Special shout going out to my good buddy Pete Griff who has surfed his way to 40 today. Pete and I had epic sessions back in the day when we were first allowed on the roads and had access to boards.

Nobody else will understand the night it was too windy to get the tents up in the corner at Hell’s Mouth, so we fashioned a shelter of sorts from driftwood we found on the beach and slept in our board bags which were wrapped in the fly sheets to keep the torrential rain off. We were hoping that the swell would clean up the next day and alternated stoking the hobo stove we made from an oil drum as well as piling in another arm full of wet logs through the night. Even the farmer whose field we were supposed to be crashing in came looking for us because he thought we were dead! I seem to remember it being in the middle of winter too but I could be confusing it with many dawn raids which were more than a tad frosty.

Hardcore Pete. You know the score. Sorry the message is a little late dude. Aparently it is going to be triple overhead near San Francisco tomorrow. I’m going to check out Mavericks and some other breaks dude and will bag a beaut’ for you.

Aloha works as well as goodbye as it does for hello, and I definitely take a bit of the Hawaiian spirit with me as I head back to the mainland.

Apart from the Union Jack which still forms part of Hawaii’s flag I leave a little bit of myself in the islands, and I’m not talking about the back of my hand shredded off by the reef at Makaha or the $100 surcharge to get my board back to the mainland! I have dreamt about surfing here for years and it was everything I hoped it would be, and just a shame that I dont have more time to enjoy it. But like my surf sessions it is always good to get out when you are still thirsting for more. Mahalo to the islands for a great time.

Feeling a litle deflated on the way to the airport I consol myself by chatting up the German girl who shares the shuttle bus with me. he is from Santa Barbara so there may yet be more twists in that particular tale.

As ever I wake up early and realise that I am not flying out until after 9pm so have another full day to amuse myself before leaving the islands. The surf forecast for the south coast is pants but the North Shore is supposed to be huge so I decide to hire a car and try and get a picture of myself riding the huge waves on my new GoPro camera.

Easier said than done though because all the cars on the island are hired out. even the hooky hire dudes known as Rent-a-wreck dont have anything. Avis, Hertz, etc are all looking for nearly $300 a day for a Ford Ka or equivalent with a minimum 3 day hire. Using guile and cunning however I manage to lay my hands on a vehicle for $160 which in the circumstances is a right result, even if it smells decidedly dodgy and the transaction is all a bit cloak and dagger with cash payments etc.

Apart from trying to get myself killed on the North Shore for the sake of a glorious picture I am using the opportunity to do a complete lap of the island, and have my new room mate Neal from Saskatawan along with me in the front, as well as Manon and two Brazilian Girls she knows called Elluar and Isabela coming along for the ride in the back.

The scenery of course does not disappoint the others who havent got outside of Waikiki yet, and the waves everywhere on the North Coast are absolutely pumping. There is a massive crowd watching Pipeline as usual and one that is almost as big as that in the water around the break. As if the wave wasn’t hard enough you have to slalom your way through the flotsom. Not everybody manages that each time and the carnage is unbelievable. I also see the worst drop in I have ever seen in my life. One guy flying along in the tube only for another to blatantly drop 20 feet on top of him at about 45mph with the wave whumping both of them in the ensuing wipeout! Awful and that nobody was seriously hurt was a miracle. Surfer number 1 in this story had a few things to say to surfer number 2 you can rest assured however!

We opt for the edge of Hale’iwa lagoon which is sheltered from the monster waves breaking past the harbour and will be great for the girls who know nothing of surfing, but sadly the lifeguards will not allow any boards to be hired out due to the pumping surf. Denied we cant hire anywhere else and I cant leave everyone on the shore for two hours so I am not going to get a chance to take on huge North Shore waves on this trip after all. Never mind it might be  good thing for my own health and they will let us hire Stand Up Paddle (SUP) boards for a trip up the river that feeds the lagoon, where we can supposedly see loads of turtles as well as trying out the latest surfing craze where you have a huge board and a long canoe paddle to propel yourself.

We pay up, are in our swimwear (what little there is of the Brazilian bikinis) and good to go when Elluar goes back to the car one last time and locks the keys in the boot. #*$#%&#&£!!!!!! Not happy doesnt quite cover it.

If they weren’t so pretty I would go apoplectic. (Can you tell me which one you would forgive first?) However I am now stood only in my swim shorts with bare feet on a ticking clock for the car hire, missing my plane, another nights room rental, admin fees, etc where as the others have no rush at all to be back in Waikiki nor the grasp of the English language to deal with the situation effectively. Consequently I have to fall on my sword and tell the others to go out on the SUPs without me. They later say it is the best thing they have done on the island whereas I did not even get wet, instead spending the next hour in the steaming heat trying to persuade people in the surf shop to ring locksmiths for me on their mobiles, then trying to get the tradesmen out on Boxing day to release the keys. (To rub the salt in I can all the while see and hear the massive glorious surf that is the reason I hired the car crashing down on the reef, which is so close I can almost taste it, but never get near to.) Miraculously one locksmith does come out fairly quickly and has the keys in my hand in under an hour. I then have to swim out to the others who are over running on the hire of boards because they are seeing so many turtles and having such great time, to shepherd them back in to the beach so I can drive us the hour back to the south of the island hopefully returning the car on time and make it to my shuttle bus. Nail biting stuff but nothing I’m not used to and I get the car back with 85 seconds to spare to find the guy standing and tapping his feet outside the hire shop, which he has already closed up for the night!

A frantic and more than a bit frustrating end to a great stay, and I have an hour to enjoy a few beers and say my goodbyes to everyone before heading for the airport.

It is my last night in Hawaii so I decide to go on a Pub Crawl around the various bars of Waikiki The crawl is led by Chad who is the loadest man in America even if he is a Canadian. Thankfully there are no pictures of the night but I have a great time, meet loads of new friends and am suitably trashed by the time I get back to the room.

As Chad would say “Not just Awesome, F##king Awesome!”

I have treated myself to one of the GoPro Hero cameras for Xmas. I installed it the previous evening and it is good to go on the nose of my board for this session. The waves are not epic by any means for this session, but are perfect for trialling this product. Manon and I enjoy posing for it in the sunshine as we wait for waves.

We paddle out at Waikiki to get ahead of the crowds but even at 7am minutes after the sun comes up there are already twenty surfers in the water including several wearing santa hats, including one fat bloke with a thick white beard and sunglasses who looks like he has just finished a big shift at work. Hmmmmmm, I wonder.

We have to wait about 10 minutes for each set to come through and it is at best waist high and the scramble to catch each one gets worse as each new surfer drags themselves out of bed and into the water.

Patience brings it own reward though and I bag a few small waves but take them for long rides with this being the best picture of the lot taken by the GoPro which snaps nearly 2500 during the session. I can see I will be spending a significant amount of time hitting the delete button to get rid of all the dross if I want to have any space left on my hard disk by the end of January.

 I was hoping for some great surf shots for me and for you to share, however what I wasn’t expecting was for the camera to capture how much it means to me. If you ever want to know why I go surfing. Check out these picture which say far more than I ever can about why I go.

I look look like I am having such a good time even in rubbish surf.

Proper stoked!!

After a stroll along the beach and enjoying some retail therapy because everyhing is open here on Christmas Day I enjoy hanging with the Brazilians in the hostel. Elcio my room mate is on his way back to Sao Paolo from watching his beloved Corinthians beat Chelsea in the final of the World Club Championships in Tokyo. He gives me loads of presents, so much so that I may now have more Corinthians kit than the team, which I am adopting as my south American side due to partying with him and becoming an honorary member of the supporters club!

We are joined later by the lovely Manon who is only 19 and from France, but can already speak 5 languages and sings to me whilst playing on her own ukulele. We try to jam a little but she is far too good for my ham fisted playing. Were it not for her age she would be a very serious contender as the future Mrs Pearson. She is adorable and we agree to go surfing together the following morning.

A very mellow end to an absolutely marvellous Christmas Day

It is Christmas Day and despite feeling more than a tad woolly after last night’s Cocktail marathon I am up early to give a surfing lesson to the rather amply chested Ricarda from Austria. I am a little wary after my last instruction efforts many years ago resulted in a hurried trip to casualty to have the young lady’s thumb manipulated back into its socket after it was dislocated by a knock from a loose board in the water.

In the end no medical assistance is needed throughout the session, but better swimwear might have been helpful for my new friend. In between instruction I catch a few rides on the very mediocre waves in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel using the 11 foot board that we have hired. It is really quite naff and completely overcrowded, but one bikini spilling filled session later I am thinking all my Christmases have come at once. Hang on it is actually Christmas Day of a year long surf session, and indeed they have! Wave 10. Wooo-Hooo!

😀

I dare you not to smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEvGKUXW0iI

Happy Christmas everybody.

Lots of love

Rob. x

I see an awful lot of signs like this which suggest that living in the 21st century can be yours provided you are a patron of the fine establishment. However they dont tell you that you are sharing the net access with all the cheapskates in the neighbourhood who are too tight to pay for their own, and that is before you add the hostel or hotel full of travellers who are trying to download the latest pirated box sets.

My inability to sleep as much as most helps here until the slackers drag themselves out of bed chasing a free instant coffee, because I usually have it to myself for at least an hour. However ‘it’ is still pants, and at times equates to the dial up I remember from the 90s. I have regularly struggled to download a simple text based email, so think this sign would be more appropriate:

As a consequence it looks like my posts may well be feast and famine from now on, as I struggle to find a decent connection from time to time. My apologies for the periodic hits to your inbox when that happens, and sadly I can’t see that improving as I head south from the US.