gosh, i sure miss those wakayama oysters from the other day. it was so creamy!!! thanks again waka-san for taking me diving. can’t wait to go again….

somebody asked me the other day how deep i can go. i really don’t know because i don’t dive with a dive watch. i use to have one but freaked out when i’d dive deeper than 60′ or 20 meters because the alarm would beep. it was a mental thing so i gave the watch away. the deepest i’ve ever dove before? umm… i used a 100′ or 30 meter tag line before and took it all the way down. if i didn’t have the line holding me back, i would have went deeper to chase that fish. but when the line stretched and i realized how deep i was, i looked up and got a little scared. so to say exactly how deep i dove before, i wouldn’t be able to answer that. diving is 90% mental and if you have a strong focused mind, you can make 100′ deep dives and hold your breath for 3 minutes no problem…. just make sure you have a dive partner you trust your life with….

and last, as probably every single japanese person knows, sakai noriko got released on bail for doing drugs. i watched the news and couldn’t help to feel sorry for her. people make mistakes in life and i just hope everybody can forgive her. i already did. why? because in america, drugs are a big problem and i’ve seen it ruin too many lives. and i also seen drug addicts recover and do good things for the community. nobody is perfect. i just hope noriko can recover and educate japans youth about the dangers of drugs. we need role models that have been there and done it. we can now just sit back and hope that good comes out from all this bad. ganbatte aya!!!

curry pan?

good morning. i finally had time to download the photos off my camera. i had them on there since shikoku and was too busy having fun to even look at them. here’s a few….

this is hatabo-san. he’s a really cool soul surfer and a really nice guy. for the 2 weeks in shikoku, we were both surfing 3 rounds/day. the only difference is that hatabo-san surfed 3 longer rounds than me, and was up even earlier than me. that’s what you call a “soul surfer”…..

hey, i had one question for my okinawan friends. why didn’t anybody tell me about this spot before? i’ve been going to okinawa for 10 years and i thought there wasn’t a “beach break” type of wave. i’ve been only surfing death defying kinds of waves and putting my life at risk every session. so this time when we surfed this “beach break” wave for a few days, i was asking myself. why now? why only now did the boys bring me here? what ever the reason, my perception of surfing in okinawa totally changed. i use to tell people that the surf is dangerous and you have to be really experienced to surf the shallow reefs. but now, okinawa has surf for everyone. this spot was so fun and easy. next time, i’m taking my single fin and surfing here all day long…

what could be going through a surfers mind when checking the waves? lots of things.
what board to ride?
what time is low tide?
who’s out there?
how long do i have to surf?
etc….
what was i thinking? when i seen this setup, i thought it was a good time to take a photo. this one is for the magazine…. a true okinawa surfer girl!!