good morning 6am. just checked in and am waiting for the flight to leave manila. we surfed 2 incredible rounds of surfing yesterday and i’m still blown away on how many surf spots are undiscovered in the philippines. i left hawaii thinking of just enjoying the filipino culture regardless of the waves. we didn’t only enjoy the culture, we enjoyed the incredible waves everyday! made some cool surf friends, explored super deep, found a couple new secret spot that nobody has ever surfed before. played with the children, ate good local food, got great massages, and got closer to everybody through surfing. i learned a lot on this trip and i hope it will make me a wiser man. i’m super happy right now in my life and i couldn’t ask for anything else. i’m boarding my flight and when i wake up, i’ll be in japan! i’m not sure when i can post this because the wifi in the philippines was pretty bad the whole time. i gave up waiting hours getting bitten by mosquitos for photos to upload. have them all ready to go on my desktop so will post them when i get back to some lightning speed wifi. anyway, we all had some amazing experiences in such a short time. seemed like i left hawaii months ago. be back soon and in the meantime, enjoy your life and live it to the fullest!
it’s our last day so i was determined to make the most out of it. i wake up at 4am to watch the sunrise. i walk out in front and see the waves going off! i grab my board, paddle out, and catch some awesome waves. got a few barrels and couldn’t believe that nobody was out. yeah, i was out alone with hundreds of perfect waves breaking up and down the long sandbar beach. i hope nobody could hear me screaming after every wave.
i paddle in, eat breakfast, and get the report from one of the locals that the beach 15 minutes down the street is going off. we check out, load the van, and head down with the boys.
i pull up and OMG! seen a nice right and left sandbar on the left side. see a perfect little right in front. another left and right on the right side. then i look even farther out the horizon and see this!!!! a wave breaking below sea level feathering off in pure perfection. it was so far but so was hawaii to the philippines so i talked my brother and one of the locals into paddling out with me. omg, it was farther than i thought. i paddled out my fastest as i was so excited. perfect right barrels with nobody out! score some good ones and after scouting the lineup, i know for sure i’m going back there because i know it could even get bigger and better. it’s one of those spots so far outside and super shallow at the take off so you have to be careful. if you get seriously hurt, you can die. and no, i’m not joking as the paddle in will take an hour, and the nearest hospital is hours away.
then we get in the van, say bye to the locals, and explore on the way back to manila. we find this river mouth with a fun wave breaking in front. it’s the first time ever a surfer passed through that village and all the people were wondering what we were going to do. we jump on the local transit ferry, have him take us to the outside, and what happens later is another long story. but to make it short for now, we put a halt to the only ferry that takes people back and forth to the island outside.
i ended up going to this small pier more times than i wanted but it was worth it because i was making friends each time. these kids were staring at me just laughing and laughing. no, we couldn’t communicate through language, but we could communicate through smiles. that was one of the coolest little villages i’ve ever went through. no iPads, no iPhones, no playstation, no nothing. all these kids had were each other and they were the happiest kids in the world.
