***OK, BEWARE…. THIS IS PRETTY SICK…. I ALMOST THREW UP WHEN I SAW THIS PHOTO BUT THIS IS THE HAZARDS OF SURFING. MAKE A MISTAKE AT PIPELINE AND PAY THE PRICE. MY FRIEND DONALD SENT ME THIS PHOTO OF ONE OF HIS FRIENDS. I’M GLAD IT WASN’T ME….

HOLY SHIT!! THAT HURTS!!!

NICE STITCH JOB!! PIPELINE SCARED FOR LIFE….

salamat pagi. we pulled in to macaroni’s yesterday afternoon. the waves were fun and there were 2 other boats here. woke up this morning and one boat left. there were 5 guys out and all of them were from our boat. yup, a full morning session with only japanese surfers out. and being that macaroni’s is one of the best waves in the world, and one of the most packed, i guess you can say, we’re lucky. everybody got good waves and this session will go down in the history books. yup, only a few japanese surfers in the water at macaroni’s. that’s unheard of….
it’s 10am and our plan today it to check out this great blue water diving spot in the middle of the ocean. there are so many fish around and after everybody watched the video footage last night, everybody wants to go back and see nature at it’s best…..
check out some of the photos i took yesterday…

this is lances left. like i said, we pulled up, looked at it, and drove away. i guess you can say we’re getting spoiled. this is what you call a perfect wave…

tokura-san at bintangs. if it wasn’t for this man, none of us would be on this boat. almost every single person i’ve met since 1992 has a link to tokura-san. like i said over and over, “i’m living the dream life i live and it’s all because of this man, tokura-san”…..

day 1 sashimi. day 2 sashimi. and tonight will be sashimi too. haru-san prepared poke and nitsuke style fish for our dinner. it’s like having a japanese 5 star restaurant in the middle of the indian ocean. you won’t find anything like it in the world. and being with such good people just makes it even better. these aren’t fake smiles, these are all real smiles that’s been on our face since we boarded this boat. this is the life!!! and this was our big boat party last night…

hayato, genki-san, and i jumped in the middle of the ocean yesterday looking for big fish. i took a fish i speared the day before and started chopping it up in the water. there were so many fish around but i was waiting for something good to come along. i took a drop with the falling chum around me and there i seen him. a big ono, or sawara in japanese. he was coming in but started to turn away. i swam deeper after him to get a good shot. he started swimming farther away and i was down pretty deep and long already so i just shot him in the ass. it wasn’t a great shot so he was pulling me around like a rag doll. i yelled for hayato to get a back up shot. he hit the fish but somehow his shaft came out. next thing you know, i see genki-san swim down and grab it by the tail and wrestled it up. i put my knife in the fishes head and it was over. it took 3 guys to bring up this fish and it was all about team work. can’t wait to do it all over again… maybe today?? we’ll just have to wait and see… hope all of you are enjoying your life as much as we are… teremakasih…. and thanks matsuo for taking this photo….

after yesterdays full action packed day, we were super burnt out. woke up and headed to lances lefts. the waves were overhead and barreling but we just ended up watching it. spoiled after day 1? yup…. we crossed the channel and surfed bintangs all by our lonesome selves. fun waves for everybody. oh get this, i was getting my diving things ready for a dive. i stuck my hands in a bucket to grab my gloves and stuff. it was all mixed up so i was digging deep, then i heard tokura-san yelling!!!! snake!!!! shit, there was a poisonous sea snake crawling out of the bucket. OH MY GOSH!!! if that thing bit my hand, i would be dead in less than 3 minutes. and i ain’t kidding…. the sea snakes here are the most deadliest snakes in the world. instead of wrapping you up and squeezing you until your dead, these just bite you and sink their poisonous venom in you. then set your stopwatch and you’ll be lucky to live past 3 minutes. i was laughing at the time but didn’t realize how close i was to actually getting bitten. and dying… good thing i took out travel insurance. somebody would have scored a $500,000….. oh well, life rolls on….
by the way, did you get my DAY 1 journal from yesterday? i sent it via satellite aboard the sansouci2. if you didn’t, i’ll try to resend it again later… right now, i’m at macaroni’s borrowing their internet. gotta get back to the boat because it’s only day 2 and i’m burnt from having too much fun…..
mentawai is good. life is good. enjoy life because you never know when it will end. mine almost ended this morning. now i’m even going to enjoy things a lot more because i’m living in my bonus life….
check out these photos from yesterday kenjj sahara took…

this is koutsusa at HT’s. 6′? i don’t know, what do you think? how ever big it is, this is the best size for this spot. photos don’t lie so this is how freakin good it was….

i love to get barreled and i’m not ashamed to pull into anything. big or small, it still feels the same. well, this time felt a little better because i’m on vacation…. i’m loving every minute to the fullest….

after 3 surfing sessions yesterday, i had to make a hard choice. it was 3pm and the waves were getting good again. either i go surf again and get more barrels, or go diving by myself. yeah, hayato got hurt so he couldn’t dive with me. i really don’t like to go diving by myself because it’s really dangerous. especially when it’s getting dark and i’m swimming in the ocean alone in the middle of nowhere. but once everybody told me they wanted to eat sashimi, i had too. i got dropped off a mile away with the dingy and the pressure was on. i didn’t want to go back empty handed so i was swimming around and around looking for the fish. i couldn’t find any for the first 30 minutes. it was getting late, then i came across this rock at about 35-40′ deep loaded with fish. i went down to the bottom and laid there looking at all these fish around me. bang, one by one. 30 minutes later, i couldn’t fit any more fish on my weight belt. i was pretty dam happy… that was yesterday, today is today. i went blue water deep diving and bang!!! story coming tomorrow…. all i can say is that we have 19 people on this boat and there is enough sashimi for everyone for days… and i’m not even done yet…. the dream trip continues…..