Rocky Point: GOING OFF!!! 3-4 and PERFECT!!
11:13 am November 16, 2010
Surfer: Micah Moniz
Photographer: Me

good morning, 5 am and pitch dark again but i can feel the waves going off. everything is good, the tide, the winds, the swell. my goal for today is to get a nice long backdoor barrel. hope to see you out there….
wanted to say thank you all for sending me the cool comments on pipe. yes, i was a little nervous yesterday but tried not to think about it. if your scared, you get hurt. pipe was 10 out of 10 on being dangerous yesterday. it was so shallow and the aggressive 100 surfers didn’t help. after that, nothing is scary. i feel like winter is in full swing now and i’m so excited to get barreled! the contest should be on today, pipe/backdoor should be epic, what am i doing? i should get going. have a wonderful day!!!

everybody, the ocean is my office and seeing things like this with my bare eyes is what keeps me coming back to work. you just can’t beat my job. kalani chapman was using a 9’0 waimea gun surfboard and getting the craziest barrels ever. so much adrenaline was going through my body yesterday that i got super tired on the long drive home. happy, but tired. boy did my nap feel great!

hello you all. first, i’d like to say i feel good to be alive. the first big pipeline/backdoor swell of the year is always exciting for me. i’m not going to lie, but i was scared. even though i can hold my breath for a long time and dive deep, the butterflies don’t go away when you see a 30′ wave face coming down on your head. today was max pipe. 8-12′ and dangerous. the first swell is always the most dangerous because there is still too much sand on the beach creating shallow reef, and backwash on the wave. i paddled out with one thing on my mind. SURVIVE…
i like to go right so the good waves break a little more inside. you have to wait and be patient. and if a huge closeout set comes, say goodbye… today, 2 came. the first one i seen breaking out on the horizon. everybody started paddling to the channel but it broke right in front of us. i looked back and seen joel parkinson right behind me so i didn’t want to throw my board and dive under. it’s too dangerous. so i tried to duck dive it and the wave exploded like a bomb. for the 15 seconds or so i was under water, i could hear fireworks!! pack, pack, pack!!! i came up, looked inside, and seen like 30 guys swimming and broken pieces of surfboards all over the place. leashes were broken and a lot of surfboards were broken. i was lucky… then 30 minutes later, it all happened again. pack, pack, pack!!! broken boards all over the place. there were a lot of broken boards today but luckily nobody got hurt, well, at least for the 4 hours i was there…
i was out there for a long time trying to get a good right. finally, a big A-frame set came to me, i paddled, took off, bottom turned, pulled in, and got a standing barrel. i came out, and came in to the beach. it’s a great way to start the pipeline/backdoor year for me.
now the nerves are gone. tomorrow morning, i’m dawn patroling…. see you in the water…
**check out this video i shot from the water. it’s totally different from the beach…. enjoy…