EPIC: Hurricane Lane @ Bowls Rights…

Good morning 7am.
Hurricane swell gone!
Ala Moana waist high an clean.
Diamond Head chest high and bumpy.
Trade winds at 25mph.
Sun, clouds, and very warm.
Going surfing.
Have a wonderful day!

i was driving home yesterday with the full on Hurricane warning. it was Friday evening and usually this street would be full of cars. i get a call from Chiyoko-san about our surf session today. she asked “is it ok?” i said “yeah, we just go for it!”

and luckily we went for it because the waves were super challenging. perfect for long rides and nice smiles…

look at her go!!! Chiyoko-san was wondering why nobody was out. maybe because of the hurricane?

look at me in the back riding a wave right behind. this is hurricane swells where the intervals are so close. cool!

a few more waves as we enjoyed our amazing morning session.

thank you Chiyoko-san for the wonderful session. and thank you so much for translating my blogs from English to Japanese! see you again in a few days for Boot Camp day 2…

went to eat Chinatown with the rest of the Tanaka-san family. the food was so good that i totally forgot to take a family photo. omg! shock!!!

then surfed with Tani-san this afternoon. i couldn’t believe the waves were 3x bigger than this morning. it was the hurricane back swell! lucky!

there are hurricanes hitting Japan right now too. Kimura-san sent me this photo of a super secret spot near his house. wish i could be 2 places at the same time…

Nao-san bumped into Mai-chan at the new Apple Store in Kobe. such a small world! hello girls!

i mentioned this before. the most exciting backpacking trip for me had to have been Guatemala. when you see guys carrying shotguns everywhere you go, you know this country is dangerous. and when you backpack, you’re kind of asking for danger…

so straight off the airplane, i decided to do something i had no idea what i was getting myself into. because if i knew, i wouldn’t have done it.

hiking up 8 hours almost dying of dehydration, wearing sneakers, and finding out i was going to sleep overnight in a small tent on the top of an active volcano??? really? cool!

then in the middle of the night, you feel the ground shaking, hear a loud bang, then look up and see flames spewing out of the active volcano? it was like a dream. jet lagged and everything, i couldn’t believe it. when you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, it’s even more breathtaking. i couldn’t believe my eyes…

then the next morning, waking up to the sunrise on top of the most dangerous place on earth. i felt like i accomplished the biggest adventure in my life. there was absolutely nothing else that could have topped that…

opps, i take that back. the next day, took this drive along a narrow slippery gravel road on a bus filled with people was even more dangerous. one slip or one flat tire, we all die. yes, it’s happened many times before on what is considered one of the worlds most dangerous roads. i tried to sleep but ended staying up the whole 9 hour ride because i was so scared.

and the homemade bridges you go over? i decided to walk across because i though our truck was too heavy. i’d rather fall alone and not in the back of a truck with people panicking.

they say never to go into downtown Guatemala because it’s one of the most dangerous cities in the world. now that i think about it, it was stupid of me to ride along the streets like a tourist on a bicycle.

but this is the best way to experience any country.

when i watched the news of the exact volcano i hiked to the top of blowing up and killing hundreds of people, i had chicken skin. i remember one of the locals telling me that we will all die when i asked him if it exploded. i just hope he wasn’t up there when it did.

would i do that hike again? no way…