good morning. 5:45am wed. morning. wow, north shore is going off!!! looks 3′ with perfect conditions. town came down a little. gosh, i surfed bowls yesterday afternoon on the high tide and it was going off. 4′ sets going all the way through with only a few guys out. perfect bowls… today dropped a little but might pick up again as the tide rises again. sunny skies and waves again around the island. i’m out of hea…. have a safe and nice day….
**it’s been over 10 years since we went to tonga on a surf trip for a japanese magazine. till this day, it was by far my worst experience. the waves? flat for 2 weeks. the flies? everywhere from dawn to dusk. the price? expensive, you even have to pay for tap drinking water. the weather? hotter than hot. the accomodations? not too good. i don’t really like to talk bad about resorts and surf camps so i won’t go there. but let me just say this, i won’t go there again….
the beer was pretty good. well, that’s the only brand they had….
when in tonga, do as the tongan’s do. drink kava… yeah, we must have drank 5 kilos or more. even in the morning. yeah, there was nothing else to do. this is photographer yoshiro nakayama and pro surfer taro taniuchi. two cool guys….
the coolest thing i seen was this ferris wheel. classic yeah?
this was our living space for 2 straight weeks. imagine waking up right on the beach for 14 days straight to be greeted by a flat ocean? that hurted….
and the worst part about the trip was i had a huge “boil” on my rib. i will never forget the pain i had to go through in the little dirty hospital. the lady doctor cut me open with a rusted knife and i was screaming like a girl. the most pain i ever went through in my life. that sucked.
*anyway, somehow we got enough photos for a 4 page article in surfing world magazine. taro-san wrote the article and he named it “I left my heart in Tonga”…. cool title…
