good morning. first, wanted to report some sad news for the hawaii free diving world. a diver in his late 20’s was reported missing off the north shore yesterday morning. he was later found dead by lifeguards. this kind of news hits me hard. it could have been anybody. they didn’t release the guys name yet and i’m hoping that it’s not somebody i know. there are freak accidents in ocean sports and it’s pretty scary to hear news like this. everybody, please dive safe….
as for the waves. smaller than yesterday and still windy. maybe a good day to get my boat ready for some action. better get my day going. have a good one..
check out this story from my last mentawai experience…
on the epic days of surfing ht’s, we met a couple of guys that were staying at the hardcore surf camp in the tiny village on the shore. at $3/day, you can’t expect too much. anyway, i was asking one of them if they ate fish everyday. he answered “what is fish?” he wasn’t joking. he told me that they ate rice, rice, and rice everyday. they were looking a little on the slim side probably because they were 2 months into their 6 months stay. he told me that if somebody brought him a fish, he would buy it for 2,000,000 rupiah which is like $200 USD. he said it with a straight face and wasn’t joking… anyway, we left that day on our voyage throughout the mentawai’s. i thought to myself that if we pass by there again for some reason, i’m going to spear a fish for them. towards the end of the trip, we needed to buy more water so the captain said we were going to stop by ht’s again. so on the way there, we went for a dive off another island. i seen this nice travelly swimming below me and i already knew what it was for. i shot it, put it in the ice box and when we pulled into ht’s later that evening, i took it to the boys. i’ve been to ht’s many of times but never ever went to the village. why? malaria. but this time, i had a purpose. i took the fish to the camp and had a chat with the boys. as i was leaving, one of the guys said “hey, were you the one wearing the white jersey the other day?” i said “huh?” the guy was talking about the big day we all surfed together. he told me that one of his friends was shooting video from the beach and got the big barrel i got. he pulled out his computer and showed it to me. “OH MY GOSH!!” they took my best wave ever at ht’s. i was thinking to myself, “ok, how much is this going to cost me?” he burnt me the video on a cd and gave it to me for free!!! i was a really happy guy. on the way back to our boat, i was asking myself, “if i didn’t go there to give them the fish, we would have sailed right past them and i would have never seen that video, or known that it even existed. i was blown away and still am… my mom always taught me it was good to give. she was right….
i can’t show you the video yet but just let me say this, “this video clip will be a lifetime treasure for me. it’s freaking priceless.” i want to say thank you to all the boys at the ht’s camp!! hope you enjoyed the fish!!!
if that was a clip of kelly slater, it would get millions of views worldwide. but it’s a clip of me so it will probably get 1,000 views. 999 from me. haha. every time i watch the clip, i relive the moment. and every time i relive the moment, i feel like drinking a bintang and watching the sun set in the horizon…. ahhhh… another dream??? please don’t wake me up!!!
