Surfing is a Trip

Hawaii 2007 Trip-o-rama

A partial list of accomplishments:




1. Made it to Hawaii.
2. Drank lots of fruity umbrella drinks.
3. Surfed North Shore. Locals were chill.





4. Glider ride.
5. Snorkeling.
6. Hiked.
7. Swam under waterfall in Waimea.
8. Saw whales in Kauai
9. Bought new T&C 9' longboard.
10. Saw 10' Pipe & Sunset. Unreal to watch.
11. Saw Jack Johnson in concert.
12. Watched one guy get kicked out of the line up by a 300+ lb local.
13. Ate Hawaiian soul food at Ono's.
14. Didn't hike Diamond Head, see the Pearl Harbor Memorial or have a shave ice.

From Steve:
The waves are starting to clean up. I caught a wave today that was a
couple feet overhead. A nice big left. Some other good ones too. Rob
is surfing well also.

The new board is riding well. Tomorrow should be the best day. I will
send some pics. We can now hear the waves breaking at night from the
bedroom.

Today we hiked to Gregory Town to get some food and try to find a
rental car. It's about 3 miles but a guy picked us up about halfway.
Everyone stops to give you rides if you are walking.
There is no crime here because there is no where to go.

No luck on a Jeep yet so we might have to go with a regular car.
Talked to Surfer Pete at his shop for a while. Bought some of his
wife's hot sauce. He drove us back home. Had an evening surf then ate
dinner at Surfers Beach Manor--fish, conch fritters and beer. All
good.

We ran into Dennis, the guy from St. Pete that owns The Recovery Room.
It's very near Surfers Haven--about 300 yards. He gave us the tour and
introduced us to his wife. The house is very nice with AC, TV and DVD
(we have none but don't really need that stuff). The Recovery Room
would be very good for a couple with kids (hint).

From Steve:
We surfed a very small, clean swell last night. It was
shoulder high this morning but windy and drifty. The wind should die down in a
day or so.

We caught a ride in the back of a pickup truck from the airport. No
one was at the house when we got here. They overbooked the rooms so we
are staying in one of the smaller rooms. It's $25 for both us a night.

We are going to rent a Suzuki jeep today and cruise around for a little while.

The house is cool. There is a UK/Canada couple, two college guys from
Germany and a couple upstairs we haven't met.

Tom is our host. Tom has a very nice Pit Bull
named Diesel that roams the house. The orientation book has the
following "Don't act afraid. He senses it and thinks something's
wrong."

It's a five-minute walk to Surfers Beach. We can see the ocean from
the house but not the break. Bottom line, all is good from here at the
end of the road. More later.

To counteract your glee a bit Cross I realized tonight my passport has expired. We're supposed to leave at 1:30 on Sunday, so it's looking bleak for me right now. I'm going to drive to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow and hook up with Steve and Rob as planned and explore my options. If you travel by boat you only need a birth certificate. Here's hoping.

http://magicseaweed.com/Waikiki-Surf-Report/662/

It looks like Waikiki is going to be up when we first arrive. Seas 8 feet!


http://magicseaweed.com/Pipeline-Surf-Report/616/

Pipe is going to be in the 9 to 10 foot range on Friday when we arrive at the place we're staying near there.

Yee f---ing haw!!!!

I can't say how happy I am right now. Holy crap!

In preparation for our surf trips to Eleuthera and to Hawaii happening next week, I thought I would send out links to the surf video I made from our Costa Rica trip in 2005.

Chapters 1, 2, and 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Run time is about 20 minutes total. This was a low-res version for the web. It doesn't include my final edits but it's close.

www.myspace.com/floridapanhandlesurfrider

The local surfrider chapter for the panhandle just put up a MySpace page. I just went there and Steve's Katrina video from Amazon's when me, Mike and Steve went, is smack dab, right on the home page. Classic! It looks like they cropped off your credit at the end Steve. Oh no they didn't!

I bought this new backpack for the trip. I wanted something small to carry on the plane. It is a little over engineered for that small of a pack, but it looks cool.

I am headed to Mexico Beach this weekend. Check out my comment below on Crooked Island.