good evening. pulled up to lani’s this morning and the waves were going off. only 5 guys out and so many rights were peeling across unridden. score!!! it was my first surf at lani’s this year and i forgot how fun that wave is. but honeslty, the water was dirty so i was also thinking about that 15′ tiger shark that hangs out there. and for the first time, i didn’t see the turtles there which made it more scary. did they know something i didn’t???? anyway, went to check out the contest and watched a couple of heats. gosh, the level of surfing is so high now. the judging system is awesome. they score on turns and not on length of ride. what a change. when i surfed contests, they judged on the guy doing head snaps all the way to the beach. and the guys doing big turns on the outside lost. i saw a guy today do 5 weak turns to the beach and got scored a 3.5 out of 10. then i seen sunny garcia do a huge turn on the outside and get a 7.3. that’s how surfing should be. it’s good to see surfers win contests more on ability, and not so much on stragegy. can’t wait to watch the top seeds surf. as for tomorrow, i’m sleeping in because i know it’s going to be morning sickness in the morning. so far, it’s the worst winter in the history of the north shore… but probably the best spring 2008 ever? i think and hope so….

imagine coming to hawaii for the first time. then imagine going for your first surf in hawaii on the north shore. coming down the hill, there must be so much things going on in your mind. i still get butterflies in my stomach when i see the surf coming down the hill. i wonder what jun, masaki, and chin must have felt like???

another awesome lunch at my favorite plate lunch place…..

we took a safari trip in south africa back in 2000 during our surfing life surf trip. it was just like the discovery channel. we were looking for elephants and when we seen them, i got out of the car to take a photo. they were huge!!! then i saw a baby elephant next to his mother and i tried to go closer to get a photo. the mother turned to me, looked me in the eye, and started coming towards the car. i freakin freaked out. some of the guys in the car were pissed at me because if that elephant wanted to destroy our car with all of us in there, she could have. i felt stupid. don’t mess with elephants…

this is not a photo from a korean drama. this is a photo i found in “pictures of the week” of a guy in xi’an,china who took a girl hostage. this is real. this worker took his employers girlfriend as a hostage and demanded $400 from his boss. only $400? i would be bummed out if somebody kidnapped me and only wanted $400 to let me go… that’s too cheap man….

here’s another picture of the week. gosh, i wouldn’t mind doing that. except i’m afraid of heights… haha…
**CLICK HERE FOR HIGHLIGHTS OF DAY 2 AT THE HALEIWA PRO…..

good morning. 6:40am tuesday morning. yeah!! work day. the surf shouldn’t be so crowded. once again, no winds and clean conditions on the north shore. the swell dropped but looks super fun. rocky’s is probably the spot with a lot of guys out already. pipe is barely breaking with two guys out. 12 guys out at rockpiles with waist high morning sickness conditions. bowls looks junk and with only one guy out. umm… north shore is the call. i slept at 9pm last night so i feel super fresh. everytime i dive all day, my body feels so healthy and fresh the next day. you should try it…. anyway, i’m out of here.. have a nice day….
**contest on at haleiwa. running 20 heats of mens. there is also a telephone pole down at waimea bay so only one lane open now. oh my gosh, choke traffic. they might shut down both sides to fix it. hope everybody makes it to their heats.

i went to the mentawai’s three times. twice, we got on the boat and headed straight to lance’s rights or also known as HT’s (hollow trees). this is the best right hander in the mentawai’s and is where the indies trader pulled up with tom curren a long time ago and exposed this spot to the world. i remember watching the video with tom curren surfing his fish on this perfect wave. it was my dream since then and i was fortunate to go there twice. and both times, we scored it the same how tom curren scored it. 6-8′ and perfect barrels. it was just us with no other boats around. the first time i went, there were 7 boats operating in the mentawai’s. now, there are over 80 boats all packed with hungry surfers and photographers. i heard when lance’s rights is good, there are 10 or more boats anchored there. times that by 8 to 10 surfers per boat, you got an instant crowd of about 100 surfers. add in the surf guides, captains, and cooks, then you got a mess. and not to leave out the dozens of surf camps on the islands. i’m glad to surf it empty years ago and i have no intentions on going back there. for $3,500/trip, i’d rather go on three trips to the philippines. less crowds and better waves…..
**i borrowed that photo from surfersjournal.com. cool mag….

check out this photo. i took it at a barbecue on shikoku island a few months ago. this day will go down in the history books. we scored perfect big waves and ended up with a perfect big barbecue. on the left is shikoku local gerry-san. he use to live in hawaii. legend surfer… and to the right is reki. reki is a cool kid. i’ve know him when he was a little boy hanging out at ikumi beach. that was 12 years ago. since then, he’s become an awesome surfer, and an awesome musician. yeah reki….

reki knows hot to cook too. good surfer, good musician, good cook. gosh, this kid must get all the chicks…

this was the lineup….

wait, this is a better lineup shot taken with a better camera…

and i’ll never forget this wave. this huge set was coming in and everybody was whistling from the beach. nobody wanted it, but ueda-san turned around, took off, set up his bottom turn, and freakin pulled in!!! this photo doesn’t justify how nuts this wave was. i wouldn’t have pulled in. no thank you…

good evening. gosh, what a long ass day. i went early morning to the north shore because when i checked it, it looked good. but when i got there, it got weird and junky, and crowded. no surf, headed back to town. waste gas. speaking of gas, it went up 20 cents/gallon since last week. crazy!! on the way back to town, my brother them were on the way for a dive. i was on it. took the likelike and headed to kaneohe. the water was still a little dirty and the current was kind of strong so it wasn’t a good day to dive. we went for a deep dive first looking for big fish. nobody home. so we headed to this reef to poke some reef fish…. gosh, i felt good today. dove 60′ no problem. all that training in okinawa and bali payed off. especially heading into big wave season…

speaking of big waves, check out puerto escondido that last big south swell. nuts…. i still get nightmares about that place…

and this was chile on that same last swell. so here it is, tahiti 15′, mexico 12′, chile 20′, hawaii 4′. 4′? yeah. that sucks right? i always tell my friends that hawaii is the last place to be if you want to surf real south swells…. and not to mention, it wasn’t only 4′ here, it was onshore too…..

town 7am, north shore 8am, on my boat in the middle of the ocean on the east side, 10am… busy morning but worth it. how’s the backside of this mountain. i bet you don’t know where this is?

got dinner? yes, as fresh as it gets… the top one is an “uhu” or parrot fish. that’s going to be stuffed with goodies and put on the barbecue. i speared this uhu and it ran into a hole and died. i tried to look for it but a huge ass morey eel almost bit my ear so i was out of there. then my friend shane found the uhu floating later. thanks shane.. the bottom one is called “lai” or leather back. it’s pronounced “lye”. this one is going on the frying pan. and i ain’t lying…. got it?? haha. i just changed the setup on my gun so i was missing fish all day. i usually don’t spear lai but i wanted to practice on something i can eat. this was a pretty big one so i lined him up point blank in the head, he was about 6 inches off the tip of my spear. i fired and got the best shot ever. you can’t even see where my spear went in. can you? try to look closely at the tail. i got him at the tip of his tail. that’s how accurate my gun is. that ain’t no lai. right now, my picasso gun sucks and it’s all my fault. when i first got it stock, i could shoot a fish in the head with my eyes closed. but after is modified it, i can’t shoot an elephant with it. not even close. so for right now, the fish are lucky. but when my new gun gets to hawaii, sayonara. i also found a big tako doing a tako dance on the side of me when i was on the bottom stalking a fish. he swam up to me and stood on his 8 legs. the fish ended up running away so i stuck my spear under the tako’s legs, tickled him, and brought him up. perfect for tako poke. oh, picked up this nice shell too. forgot to take a photo of it. i’ll show it to you later. it’s a keeper.. anyway, it was a long day and i still have a lot of water in my head…. goodnight….

and before i sleep, i’m eating bubbies green tea ice cream. the best in the world. and i ain’t lai-ing… haha… i better go sleep. oyasuminasai…
**by the way, the triple crown kicked off today at haleiwa. sunny garcia went off…. no lie.. CLICK HERE FOR HIGHLIGHTS….