i don’t know exactly where we are but we are on an island right outside of banda aceh. the place that got demolished 4 years when the earth quake and tsunami hit. kind of scary when i think about it. we’re on this island where not too many people visited before. it’s total jungle with nobody living on this huge island. i heard there are gorilla’s, monkey’s, tigers, snakes, and all kinds of wildlife here. it’s pretty cool listening to pure nature all day long. and to think, i’m going to be in concrete jungle in japan in a few days…. i’m going to soak it up here and have fun….

we have an awesome crew. my 3 sponsors along with snowboarders from hokkaido. cool people….
we were at nias on the first day and i went diving by myself to look for sashimi. the water was dirty and the only thing i seen was a big shark swimming above me. that sucked….

then we pulled up to this island where i know nobody dives. i can tell just by the way the fish act. they looked so surprised to see me. haha… anyway, there i was alone again in undiscovered waters with tim hanging nearby driving the dingy. i take my small gun and make my first drop. i didn’t see anything but i seen a crack about 45′ down and thought there might be lobsters. i go down, look in the crack, nothing, so i look around and see this huge shadow coming over my shoulder. oh no, not a shark again??? i took a good look and this huge GT went over my head. i stayed calm, which was freakin hard to do, and let him pass by me. i looked him right in the eye and watched him swim away. then i did what i always do, “here fishy, here fish” making noise with my gloves and he went out 10 meters and turned around. he was coming for me and i was loosing my breath but i knew if i went up, he would run away. 10 seconds later he came into range and aimed for his brain. BANG!!! right in the brain. my spear didn’t go through and the fish was still trying to fight so i went up. yelled for tim to throw my other gun. i asked tim to hold the gun the fish was on and as it was towing the boat around, i went down and gave the kill shot in the head. everything took not even 10 minutes and we came back to the boat with fish for the whole trip. gosh, i never thought anything could top my last dream trip but after day 2, i already got a fish bigger then the last one. what a freakin life!!! tim called this one 40-50 kilos. i don’t know but it was freaking huge and freakin heavy.

well, gotta get going. the sun is setting so it’s sashimi and bintang time. the boys are waiting. be back soon….

back to the saying that “women get better with age”. what about men? check out these before and after photos..

madonna in her teens….

madonna at 50….

you saw this one before right? michael jackson as a kid….

the new michael jackson….

this is me at 12 years old…
i’m afraid to see what i’ll look like when i hit 70…. yikes..

i’ve been surfing since i was a kid. and throughout that time, i’ve almost drowned so many times in my life. i’m pretty serious about this and if you ask any surfer that surfs big waves, they would tell you the same thing. surfing big waves is no joke. you have to be physically and mentally prepared. i’ve been doing weight training for over 15 years but that just prepared me for the physical side. for the mental side, free diving is how i train and is what saved my life all those times. it prepares me mentally. just being able to feel comfortable under water makes me feel safe. i had two near death experiences in the last four years. one in mexico and one in hawaii. i got held down so long by a 10′ set in mexico. i didn’t have a leash and the water was so dirty that i couldn’t see underwater so i didn’t know which way was up. i was down so long that i knew the next set was coming real soon. i just waited until the undercurrent started to let up. it took a while but it eventually did. what made me get out of that bad situation was i was relaxed. even though i was out of breath, i knew i couldn’t fight the ocean. eventually, i came up. and when i did, i got another big set on the head and the same thing over and over. if i didn’t free dive and that happened to me, i would have been history. then 3 winters ago, i was surfing backdoor on a small day and ate it on the takeoff. the wave picked me up and slammed me head first onto the reef. it knocked me out cold. luckily i woke up, but i was still underwater. i couldn’t move my hands and feet because my body was in shock. i was really scared and thought that i was going to die but i knew that fighting it would be no help so i just relaxed. i opened my eyes and seen the surface but couldn’t move. then i got some feeling back in my arms so i swam back up slowly. i made it back to the beach and went straight to the hospital for a CAT scan. i didn’t want to sleep and not wake up. the test results came back negative so i was lucky. those were near death experiences that almost took my life. i saw death in the eyes more than enough. that’s why free diving has helped me so much mentally. if you train properly, you should be able to dive pretty deep and hold your breath for 2 or 3 minutes. and if you can do that, you should be fine even if a 20′ waimea set cleans you out. it just makes you feel more comfortable and confident in the ocean and that’s important. if you panic, your done. i always feel that if you fight with the ocean, you will lose. you just got to go with the flow. so jump in a pool and train. then go in the ocean and learn. learn about the waves, currents, tides, reefs, and other things. especially for people like me that spend more than half their lives in the ocean. enjoy it, respect it, and know what to do when that scary time comes because let me tell you, it will come when you least expect it…. dive safe and surf safe…