stoked to see Azumi-san enjoying his foiling life.  and i’ll be ever more stoked when i get to foil together with him…i’m trying to work on my foiling style.  trying to look cool even when i’m off balance.  haha…Donald is still in California and i’m still in Hawaii using his brand new board.  he was supposed to come back tomorrow but he said that he had to extend his trip for a few more days.  i told him, “please take your time.”  i don’t want to give him his board back.  haha…25 years ago, the Philippines was still pretty much unknown for waves.  only a few people knew about it and those who did successfully kept it a secret.  little did everybody know, including myself, that there were hidden gems like this.  so i went for a photo shoot with world famous John Callahan and our mission was to expose the surf in the Philippines to the world.  he told me to bring a bright red surfboard, and get ready for anything and everything.  i said sure and the rest is history.  back then there wasn’t social media so this photo went viral internationally though magazines.  published in over 10 countries with millions of copies sold, this photo put the Philippines on the map.  and ever since then, i’ve been back countless times and seen thousands of photos.  but i’ve never seen anything as big and perfect as this.  and as i remember, a super typhoon was right off the coast of this island pushing waves that grew 1′ to 15′ in a matter of hours.   i paddled out on my 6’4, saw this wave coming, and i knew if i didn’t go, i’d regret it for the rest of my life.  and this was the start of my lifetime slogan “if you don’t go, you won’t know…”  since then, absolutely zero regrets from me….

June 6, 2020 Last Swell @ Bowls…

Good morning 4:10am.

Ala Moana waist high and clean.

Diamond Head chest high and bumpy.

Trade winds at 20mph.

Sunny and warm.

Going shopping and foiling.

Have a wonderful day!

omg, the waves were super small this morning but decided to drive an hour and take a chance at another secret spot.  pulled up before the sunrise and the waves were unbelievably good!  way bigger and way better than i thought!!!  and to top that off, nobody was out!!!  i rode this wave for over 600 meters which took almost 2 minutes!  so happy!  a 59 cents McDonald’s ice cream cone looks very tempting.  but at 7:45am this morning, i passed it up… yesterday Mateus was very happy taking home buds from his gardenia plant.  he’s been taking care of it and watering it everyday so it’s taking care of him too. then when i got home today, he yelled from the window, “Unko, look at my flowers!”   he was so happy to show it to me.then he kept on smelling and smelling it.  and spilling and spilling the water all over himself.  haha.  i bet you when he gets older, he will pick gardenias from his plant and give it to his girlfriend.  or girlfriends.  haha…