Today I woke up, heard the truck honking its horn, grabbed some money and ran in my boardshorts and flip flops to the truck. I was half awake, hoping i wouldnt bite it and fall lol. i barely made it to the truck in time haha. After that I fished for a good 20 mins, but didn't get anything. the sun came out from behind the mountain and i decided it was best to head for the shade. I got a decent burn yesterday from fishing shirtless without any sunblock. Its hard being white around all this sun.
I stayed in the shad pretty much from then until around 3:30. At that point I decided i should go snorkel so I did, saw quite a few fish right in the backyard.
Mat got back from hanging out at the ARE factory and asked if i wanted to go surf so I said yes. I put tons of SPF50 waterproof sunblock on, my hat and then a rash guard. I grabbed the race board and mat took the OC1 canoe and the old school aliaiah surfboard.
I had never actually surfed a SUP board before. down wind is kind of like surfing but much much smaller waves. we went out to Teiva iti and had the right all to ourselves. It was really windy, and the current was powerful. I'm glad I had a SUP since they are easier to move around and get out of bad spots quick (shallow water over reef, outrun big waves). The problem for me is that I've never surfed a 14foot sup board before. the wind was brutal, very strong, as well as the current. I kept getting pulled into the danger area where i was going to get eaten by the next wave. I had to keep my eye out to make sure i wasn't too close and then to paddle outside to the safe area. Only the safe area was sometimes unsafe when a huge 6.5ft swell would come through the pass, side to side aka no where to hide. Luckily i was able to spot the wave from a ways away and paddled out to the ocean so it wouldn't wipe me out. the sup i am using was a prototype and has some real issues, it leaks and creaks, but it works. I was afraid that I might snap it in half in a wave or if i wiped out. Mat was screaming tips to me the whole time which was helpful as I dont really know this wave or how the reef works here.
At first in the session i just watched waves and practiced paddling into them to make sure i understood how the wave would work. After maybe 30 minutes i finally caught one, and it was big! so fast and so powerful, luckily i pointed the board to the shoulder and didn't eat it. It was amazing. I felt really good after i caught it since i didn't fall. I caught one last wave for which i pointed the board straight down on, and at the last second I walked to the tail of the board and then quickly muscled it to the right and shot down the wave, totally catching it with a lot of speed. I was so stoked i threw up my hands and yelled. Mat was freaking out while watching me catch the wave. had I not made the split second muscle memory move to make the board turn right away, the wave would have snapped the 3000 dollar carbon race board in half. I wish i could have seen mat's face because I know he was watching me thinking "oh shit oh shit oh shit" and being that it was only my second wave he probably didn't think I could do it haha. Right after that second wave that i caught i was like I am done with this. I didn't hit the reef, the board is in one piece, its time to call it a day while I am ahead haha. Another thing to note is that the race boards are not meant to be surf boards, the shape is totally different. plus no one surfs boards bigger than 10ft in waves anyway, and my board today was 14ft lol.
After those two fun waves, and a lot of fear I chilled at the anchored off OC1 and drank some water. I watched mat catch a couple of waves on the aliaiah surfboard. it looks super hard, but i want to get one.
I then took a quick paddle over to the other side of the pass to check out the reef. I had seen a shark there a few days ago so i wanted to find more. the pass is very popular at sundown because thats when all the fish come into the lagoon at night to be safe. a huge school of sharks chill in the pass and just feast on fish. mat says that sometimes he'll see 40 sharks slashing around fins. So with the paddle i was having issues. the wind was hard and the current was insane. I had to navigate around coral at the same time. Luckily the board never hit coral but one time i lost my balance and fell in. my foot hit some coral and sliced me open pretty good. it wasnt too bad but could have been a ton worse.
I paddled my way out of that then met up with mat and we paddled the 1 mile paddle back to the house. Mat asked if I could take some lifestyle shots for him, as well as some pics for his sunglass sponsor. I posted a few below. Also, the guy who makes the OC1 canoe should be stoked, I got some decent shots of mat paddling it around in the sunset.
After the shoot we made dinner and i edited some pics. Mat showed me where the geckos have been laying eggs. they are right in the window sil. I kind of want to take them home! they are such cool creatures. and they eat a lot of bugs.
Time to sleep, peace!
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