ok, imagine your shoulder going 30KM straight down onto live coral. i swear i thought my whole right side of my body ripped off. it all happened in 2 seconds and i’ll be feeling pain for weeks or months.
after traveling all these years, as soon as something bad happens like getting hurt, the first thing that comes to my mind is ‘i wanna go home”… it’s nothing about being homesick or anything, it’s just i feel so comfortable in hawaii with the hospitals and stuff. so after hitting that hard and shaking up my whole body and soul, i was ready to drop everything and get back to hawaii the fastest way possible…
BUT…..

i feel like home here in okinawa. the people here are so caring and loving… people were helping me all night trying to cheer me up and make me feel comfortable. i’m really thankful for having such awesome people like that around me. it’s the aloha spirit that you won’t find in too many places….

as down as i was, i couldn’t be happier around such happy people. this was at hokulea with satoru-san, yumi-chan, and youichi-san. thanks guys….

after dinner, youichi-san took me over to hard reef to kill the pain. after 5 corona’s and 4 jack and cokes, i didn’t feel anything… well, except for youichi-san hugging me and squeezing my shoulder, and hitting my back, and stepping on my cut on my foot all night long. i would be like “ouch”, then he’d say “sorry”, then do the same thing over and over….. it hurt but i know youichi didn’t mean any harm…

then kazubo-san stopped by to drop off some sweet okinawan mangos to cheer me up. it sure did. i love this place and wanted to thank everybody for making me feel like it’s my home….
**and also wanted to thank the hundreds of emails and phone calls yesterday from people around the world. i really really appreciate each and every one of you. doomo arigato gozaimasu…. now i have to make a decision whether to stay in japan and bear the pain for i don’t know how long, or go back to hawaii and get proper medical care. the only problem is that it’s peak summer vacation here and i can’t get a flight out of anywhere….

mistake? or stupid?

listen to my story and you decide.
we left yesterday at 4pm for an outer reef experience. we were told the waves were big, the current was strong, and the spot was 45 minutes out in the middle of the sea. so i grab my 6’0 and 6’4 short boards because that’s all i had. as we pull up to the spot where nobody has ever surfed before, i seen huge peeling lefts that were barreling and i kind of got excited. so excited that i just grabbed my 6’4 knowing that i had the wrong fins on it. i was too lazy to change it and even too lazy to wax my board. within 20 seconds, i was overboard paddling into the lineup. i got out and caught my first wave. shit, i could feel the tail of my board sliding out because of the small G-3 fins. there was so much water moving in the ocean, the winds were howling off shore, and the drops were like teaupuo in tahiti. not a place for small fins….
i was thinking. should i go back to the boat and change my fins??? nope. i knew the sun was going down, and time is the essence when surfing a spot that could be only surfed for 3 hours a day because of the tide…
so there it was, a big set from the outside. i take off, make the drop, and was ready to kick out of the wave but i seen the inside building up into a thick barrel that i wanted to enter from behind. yeah, i mean backdoor it. so i set up perfectly, grab my rail. then that’s when everything went wrong. shit, i felt my tail sliding as i went for the barrel so i tried to stand back up. it was too late. there was so much water moving up the face of the wave and i knew i was going to eat the reef. so i dive forward with my eyes open, i’m staring at the reef that’s 3 inches in front of my face. ok, safe… then the force of the wave picked me back up, pulled me with the lip, and sent me head first straight for the reef. i knew i was going to hit but didn’t know when or where. i opened my eyes as i seen a big coral head pass by for a split second. then BAM!!!. my shoulder took all the force straight into the reef. i heard all kinds of bones cracking and thought my shoulder broke off my body. everything went silent and numb. i somehow made it back to the boat and that was then the pain started setting in. i was lying down in pain and my body starting going into shock because i was feeling really cold. i grabbed my phone and was going to call 911. but i figure i’d see how much pain i can handle first. the boat ride back in the rough seas felt like hours. i managed to get back to my room, jumped in the hot shower to warm up my body. and felt a little better. the beers killed the pain last night but i woke up this morning and could barely get out of bed.
mistake? or stupid?

i think both. i made a mistake by not changing my fins. and i’m stupid for not changing my fins. i let the ocean get me over excited and didn’t take the 2 minutes it would have taken me to change the fins. now i’m paying the price. am i bummed? no. surfing is a dangerous sport and getting hurt comes with the amazing barrels. if my shoulder was feeling good this morning, i would have been out there again. i’m just glad the reef missed my head by 2 inches or my last blog would have been my last blog… surf safe everyone…

yeah, we were the first ones ever to surf this outer reef spot in okinawa and now i know why…. it’s freakin not a surf spot.

this was the wave i got hurt on. i jumped off right on top of that reef that’s boiling up. see it on the bottom left? holy crap!!! by this photo, you really can’t tell how freakin thick this wave was…. thanks kinsan for shooting this photo that i will always look back at and say to myself “shit, it could have been worst”… i’m feeling kind of lucky right now…

good morning. i had another near death experience yesterday. my body got slammed straight into the reef shoulder first. i knocked out for a split second, my shoulder popped out, i cracked a rib, i got cuts on my foot, both knees, elbow, shoulder, my jersey has 2 holes, and i broke my board. if i was in hawaii, i would have called 911 and gotten air ambulance to queen’s hospital. i’m feeling kind of helpless now. i thought i’d be fine after i took pain killers and went to sleep but it hurts a lot more today. i’ve been on the phone all morning, on the computer, going crazy trying to find a hospital. i need to xray my whole body because there’s no way in the world i’m fine after what happened yesterday. wish me luck cause i’m going to need it…

this is just the minor part of my injuries. i haven’t been in this much pain since my first girlfriend dumped me…. and that was 25 years ago….