** i was flipping through some old magazines and came across this article in surf1st. brought back some memories. it was only last year but seemed so long ago. sorry for the blurry photos but my phone camera sucks. getting a new one soon so things should get better. but even though it’s blurry, you get the picture….
this place is called “shotgun” and is located in chiba. never been there before, never seen it break before, but just heard a lot about it. heard that it’s nuts, heard that kelly slater paddled out there on a 6′ day and got barreled, heard that some waves are impossible to ride. pulled up there before sunrise on the biggest wave day of japan history. the waves were 10-15′ and sucking up. made tahiti look like waikiki. remember that huge typhoon that tracked from mexico all the way to japan? yeah, that one. anyway, got dropped off out the back on a jet ski with japanese big waver misao tako. i remember it being dark with huge mountains rolling in from the horizon. it was the two of us verses the pacific ocean. tako-san broke his board in the first 15 minutes so the jet ski picked him up and took him in. then it was only me and my 8’6 in the lineup. was i scared? yes i was. i usually don’t get scared but i was scared that day because i was at a spot in another country, surfing it for my first time, and knowing that the waves were only going to get bigger and bigger. i was out there alone for about 40 minutes but felt like hours. managed to catch a few waves and started getting confident. after a while, all the chiba boys paddled out so it was pretty cool. what’s funny is that when the waves are small, everybody talks story while waiting for a wave. but when it’s big, nobody talks. it’s pretty much silent out there. we were having an unreal session, some guys were getting sick ones, and kinsan was on the jetski shooting photos. it got sunny, clean, and everybody started getting happy….
i remember sitting the deepest waiting for my last wave of the day. all of a sudden, i seen guys paddling to the shoulder racing for their lives. i couldn’t see what was behind the first swell but after i paddled over it. oh shit!!! a freak 15’+ set started sucking up on the outside and i started paddling as fast as i could to get outside. no luck. the wave broke on my head so i let my board go and dove under. my leash snapped and my board broke in half. then 3 more sets broke on my head. it was nuts!!! almost everybody got cleaned up and there were broken boards and freaked out surfers all scattered around. i swam to the outside to have the jetski pick me up and i was out of there. that was by far the biggest and craziest day of surfing for me in japan. if you asked me that day if i wanted to do it again, i would have said “no way”…. but now when i look back and think about it, i want to try again. next time, i’ll have a longer surfboard and bigger balls…. kinsan took these photos that day. look at those surfboards in the photos. those are 10′ long so imagine how big and thick the waves were….
the day before, we were surfing this inside reef and the waves were 8′ or so. on the outside of the bay, there were waves that looked 15′ breaking and heard that nobody surfed there before. maybe because the cliffs are 150 feet in front of the wave? anyway, hayato and i jumped on the ski to go check it out. figure go try to catch one so we got dropped off between sets. no waves were breaking so we paddled into the lineup. was looking around and hayato told me “i think we’re sitting too inside”. right as i was about to say “yeah”, this huge set came in and broke on our heads. cleaned us up and that was it. we have to be more careful in the future. but oh my gosh, those 2 days were “unforgettable”…..
