last time i went to Kamakura, i just sat on the sea wall and people watched. watching cars, surfers, and just every day Shonan lifestyle. i really miss doing that because it’s crazy how much you can learn by simply observing. i can’t wait to go back…
30 years ago, i was driving along the beach roads in Japan looking for surf. i found a spot, paddled out, and tried to surf it. every single wave somebody was dropping in on me. local surfers yelling to me in Japanese “agare” which means “get out!” luckily i didn’t understand Japanese because if i did, i would have gotten out. but the clueless foreigner i was, kept on going back and back and back. over time, i started making friends out there. and over time, i started to get waves like this with nobody in front of me. all those years, i learned that if you respect others, maybe they will respect you. till this day, i’ve never told anyone where this spot is, and till this day, i respect each and every local surfer out there. these guys wait all year for days like this. sometimes it comes, and most times it doesn’t. over the decades, i’ve gotten the best barrels of my life there. i still think about the memories and i still think about my life as a traveling surfer. so whenever i see people disrespecting locals around the world, i paddle up to them and simply say “hey, just remember that we are visitors.” so simple and so true…
