the contest was awesome. kelly slater wins!! taikai sugokatta desu.

good morning. first of all, i’d like to say congratulations to my cousin Shannon Goss for writing the script for last nights ER. i watched it and it was super good. and when i seen her name on the credits, i was so happy. congratulations shannon… as fro the surf, the dirty water pipeline masters final day is ON!! starting at 8am, the guys will be hitting the water looking for brown dirty barrels. ummm,,,, should it watch it online? or should i go watch it live? tough call. the weather’s looking pretty fine so i might go out, watch the contest, and surf haleiwa on the way back. i remember 5 years ago when the final pipe masters day was 10-15′ and perfect. i left the contest early and surfed haleiwa. it was 12′ and perfect!! it was me and 5 guys out loving life. i think shuji kasuya was out too. in fact, i remember when tony use to drag me out at 15′ closeout haleiwa and there would only be one other guy out. that was shuji. those were the days…. crazy days… anyway, i feel like surfing now so i’m going out to the north shore. with my umbrella. have a nice day….

yesterday was a good day to train in the gym. i wanted to do something different so i put on my running shoes, ran 30min on the treadmill, then hit 10 different weight machines doing 3 sets of 20 reps. only resting 30 seconds between sets. i was sweating so much and it felt good. i think i lost 5 lbs in the gym. then after i came home and ate 2 brownies and potato chips… haha. all that training for nothing….

hey, look where my other license plate ended up in japan. next to a japanese gorilla….

my friend craig sako always keeps me up to date on the traveling. he was in japan last month with kevin chong (Chef Mavro’s Executive Chef) for cooking seminars and testing out the grinds. here they on their 2nd plate of Kobe Beef in Ginza. gosh, the bill must have been nuts. i love eating kobe beef but when the bill comes, i feel like running away…. too dam expensive. i’ll just stick to eating wild boars, it’s free…

Sound, Mind, and Body are doing a christmas jam at snappers December 20th. 9-12 at snappers. see you there….

and last. BILLABONG PIPELINE PRO ON TODAY. FINAL DAY SO DON’T MISS IT…. CLICK HERE….

konnichi wa. remember i told you about that secret mokuleia spot i surfed yesterday? i got up this morning and this photo was in my email. my friends luiz’s wife kristin was shooting from the beach and sent me a bunch of photos. gosh, i was soooooo happy!!! i had a great session yesterday and now i have the photos to remember it. this is my TSSC Mike Woo 6’0 x 18 1/4 x 2 1/4 round pin with glass on fins. it works super good. i want to order another one but i think mike’s in japan shaping right now. but yeah, i had a fun session yesterday surfing with luiz and a bunch of friends. surfing rules!!! and friends rule!!! thanks luiz and kristin for sending me the photos. i couldn’t surf today but now i feel like i did…
**if you go to different countries, you better do some research. i thought i was prepared when i went to the maldives a couple of years ago. in my board bag had my speargun and a couple bottles of jack daniels. then when i was on the airplane filling out the custom forms, there it was in red bold face text “NO ALCOHOL, NO SPEARGUNS ALLOWED”. OH SHIT!!! my speargun? my jack? will they take it away? so i get to the airport and find out that the maldives customs are pretty smart. they don’t pick and choose whose bags they will check. they just check everybody’s. yeah, everybody’s bag goes through the scanner. the found my speargun and took it away. they found my jacksan, and took it away. i was going on a boat for 2 weeks in some of the best diving spots in the world so i was freakin bummed. then when they grabbed my 3 prong (pole spear) to take away. i said “HOLD ON GUYS. I NEED THIS TO KEEP THE SHARKS AWAY”. luckily, they believed and let me take it…..

so we get on the boat and as soon as we arrive at our spot 15 hours later, hayato and i jump in for an evening “look for sashimi” session. there was fish everywhere. we got enough sashimi for our whole group, and boat crew. i ended up breaking my spear on this huge fish. but we taped it back together with duct tape. it wasn’t ideal, but you got to do what you got to do….

hayato and i would go dive every evening. poke some fish, cut it up, make some sashimi, watch the sunset, and drink some beers. we did that for the next 14 days. and photographer john callahan was documenting it….

this is how it looks when your diving in the evening. it’s kind of dark blue. i think i was looking for lobsters on this dive. check out the bait fish around me. cool…

i was telling hayato that to become a better diver, you should use your 3 prong and get it mastered before you buy a gun. anybody can buy a gun and shoot fish. but not too many people can 3 prong fish. if you can draw in a fish close enough to 3 prong it, your pretty good. and once you master it, shooting fish with a gun is a piece of cake…. i was lucky that when i started diving, there were no guns. only 3 prongs. so i learned the old school way. and i’m glad i did because a 3 prong is all you need to bring home dinner. and if your in the maldives, that’s all your going to have. here’s hayato with our evening pupu’s… nice head shot….