good evening. surfed pretty fun bowls this morning. shoulder high sets with 30 shoulders out there. yeah, packed. i looked at it this evening and there were 40 guys out. forget it… this swell supposed to stick around for a while so no rush. another south/west bump in town this weekend just in time for the local motion surf into summer event at bowls, which happens to be the biggest amateur contest in the world. winds backing off tomorrow making for epic surf and diving conditions. going to do both… have a nice evening….
how many of you remember the TDK Gotcha Pro contest held at Sandy Beach back in the late 80’s? i surely do. i grew up right behind sandy beach and use to surf it everyday. it was the hardest wave to figure out and surf. that’s why derek ho who lived in waimanalo won it almost every year. i entered that contest and made it to the 3rd round. 2 rounds away from surfing against the top 32 surfers of the world. my classmate brad kanashiro was the top placing amateur making it to round 4. the talk of the event was todd mitsui making the main event and going man-on-man with tom curren. i watched that heat and thought todd won, and so did everyone else. but curren ended up winning that heat by a point. that event use to draw almost every single person on this island to sandy beach. the beach was packed with people and the hype was awesome. twice as many people than any triple crown event on the north shore. ten percent use to come out to watch the surfing and the other 90% came out to watch the bikini contest. at that time, it was the best bikini contest in the world…..
the funny thing about it was when the surfer magazine issue came out shortly after. they had a photo of the bikini contest shot from the tower. and when i saw it, i saw myself in the front row with my oakley frogskin glasses on with my mouth wide open. haha.. that was classic…. i have that magazine somewhere and will look for it…
the bikini contests these days are still the spectator draw at contests around the world. more people watch it than the final itself…
and this is why… boys will be boys….
