South point hike, sup surf, bike

Another day, another adventure. Three more days until I have to "work from home" .. from paradise. 

This morning at 6:45am we left for the south point of the island with the neighbor. He took us down to a spot that has a super cool large jacuzzi bowl shaped spot of fresh water. A couple water falls fall right into it too. We checked that out and then made our way over to the caves. From a distance I see mat ahead of me on his knees, with his head underwater. He yells back its okay! I check for sharks. So I guess that means it is safe if mat didn't see any? He also tells me that he's seen them there before haha nice. I get over there and pop my head down too, to check it out. there are a bunch of decent sized fish in a school swimming against the current really rapidly. I jumped in once i got my fins on (it was a pretty long painful walk across sharp rocks to get there btw), and then i check the place out. On one side there is the rest of the caves, and then the other is darkness, which i guess leads to the ocean. I didn't go that way haha. I went the other way and swam around in there. I saw lots of cool fish, and got some cool videos of diving through the caves. Such an epic diving spot, with quite a bit of fish.

Mat said that an italian guy had been living right next to the spot for a  year, but the locals kicked him out. I guess he had all he could need. Fresh water, fish, warmth, coconuts. I think I could live there too!

The neighbor caught a pretty decent sized barracuda type fish right away. that thing had some scary teeth! 

After swimming the caves we headed down the coast for a hike. It was pretty awesome. We saw like 5 eels, one even went after mat't foot. This part of the island has a lot of volcanic beds and cliffs, palm trees, and other common plants i've been seeing around here. The hike took us to a cove that has a camp for wild bore hunters, along with a fresh water stream that was very refreshing. We also passed a water fall along the way too. Tahiti has a ton of waterfalls.

On our hike back we found a huge sea urchin that was dead, a crab was eating on it actually. We grabbed some of the spikes (the large type) since it wouldn't be needing them anymore. Mat said that the tahitians used them as pencils back in the day. 

After that we went back home and made breakfast. It was crazy hot again today, 90 degrees, + 55% humidity, and extreme UV rays. You can sweat just sitting down in the shade haha. 

Mat did some more windsurfing on the starboard board that is shaped like a sailboat. I didn't give it a try, i was too tired haha. Later on in the day we headed out to the pass to do some surfing. I was on the 14ft NUI Fourteen and mat had the aliah surfboard again. I was hoping to get some video of the sharks feeding but didn't spot any tonight. I think the skin divers boat engine might have scared them off to another area. 

I had the gopro on the paddle tonight so I could get a video of me surfing. I caught two pretty good waves, the first one was pretty big and really fast, but i forgot to hit record. I hit record on the second wave about half way into the wave ride, but at least I got something. It was really pretty out there tonight. When we showed up it was mat and I, plus a local surfer and his two kids on boogie boards, and then the neighbor with his SUP. The local and his kid took off pretty quick so then it was just three of us at the spot. I stayed more in the channel to grab the stuff off the shoulders, or the bigger sets, so I wouldn't get caught inside. The nice thing about the NUI Fourteen is that its so long and fast that you can paddle your way out of bad situations pretty fast. Mat got a bunch of waves on the aliah, and the neighbor did as well on his SUP. pretty fun session, and I didn't wipe out. I guess if you wipe out on the carbon raceboard (the $3,000 dollar board I was on) it will just snap the thing in half since it is hollow. Not the best way to finish up a session for sure.

After that we came back in and took off again. Mat let me borrow his bike, and we put it in Yvon's truck bed. Yvon was taking mat to the airport to pick up Tim from Maui. I stayed back to work on some stuff for work so that I am not too stressed on Monday morning at 6AM local time to start working again. They dropped me off at the snack so I could get some food, and also so I could stop at the ATM machine to get some local cash. The snack had sashimi so I was stoked. I ate up quick and then rode the bike home.

At this point I felt more like a local since I was on my own away from Mat. I really feel like I am in another country now, away from english speakers.

Time to finish up some work and then get to bed. I'm exhausted.