it was in 1999 when i was invited on a surfing life magazine trip to south africa. after over 28 hours of flying, we finally arrived at cape town. we checked into a house overlooking the beach and everything seemed perfect until our guide told us that cape town was rated the most dangerous city in the world for murders and aids. and also great white shark attacks. honestly, i was scared…. anyway, we ended up surfing there for a few days and drove 12 hours up to jeffery’s bay. 2 cars speeding at 140mph non-stop. why? so we wouldn’t get stopped and kidnapped. it was crazy, but it was cool….
since it was too dangerous to go clubbing or to bars at night, we just stayed in our rented house and drank $2 bottles of fine wine. a lot of bottles, every single night…. then what do 5 drunk surfers do? act nuts. shuji kasuya, sekiya, tetsu urayama, shorty, and i fooling around in a little house on the other side of the world. i still don’t know who’s idea this was. but now that i look back at this photo, it was a great memory for all of us. that was an awesome trip. surfing j-bay 6′ and perfect every day, eating oysters, abalone, 1 kilo steaks, drinking wine, bbq’s, wild safari’s, almost getting attacked by huge elephants, and a lot more….
chris van lennep took awesome photos from the water swimming with the sharks, or from land. we ended up getting a huge 16 page article in the magazine and shuji kasuya got the coolest cover shot. i ended up getting 4 two page spreads that are right here in my portfolio. a trip i will always remember. back then we didn’t have emails and stuff so i just want to say this to the crew. “thanks guys for the awesome trip. it might be 10 years ago but i remember all the great moments of that trip. let’s do it again”…..
