good morning. oh my gosh!!! my body is hurting!! arms, legs, shoulders, and back. i think my body got shocked from yesterday. too sore to surf so i’m going to start packing for japan. i have a couple big boxes of prizes for the party and also made some cool banners. waves are looking small today and great for a diving. but if i were to go, i’d probably drown. oh, yesterday during the swim, i seen a lot of fish. i was thinking of taking my spear next time. imagine me crossing the finish line with fish in my pocket? will i get disqualified? haha… what i learned from this swim was:
1. wear a swim cap. i had mine with me but i seen a guy without one at the start line. i asked him it was mandatory, he said no. so i threw mine away. why? because it was pink. the whole race, my hair was covering my goggles so i couldn’t see anything. that was dumb. moving the hair away from my face everytime to see where i was going probably cost me 2 minutes.

2. defog your goggles. my goggles fogged up. when i free dive, it never because i put baby shampoo on it. i have no idea why i didn’t prepare my goggles for the race. stopping and rinsing out my goggles probably cost me 2 minutes.

3. go off your first instinct. for the past 30 years, i know there is current that runs from waimea bay to chuns reef. i surfed out laniakea, chuns, leftovers, and alligator rock hundreds of times and there is always current. my first plan was to head as far out to sea to get away from the current and surge in the inside. when the race started, my mind went blank and i just followed every body. i ended up way inside where the current was the strongest. that probably cost me at least 5 minutes. when i came back to waimea bay, i was talking to my lifeguard friend noah johnson, yeah the same noah johnson who won the eddie aikau contest one year. we were talking about the race and the current. even he said i should have taken the outside line. ahhhh…. regrets? no. stupid? yes….


my number was 489. i woke up this morning and it’s still on my arm. i’m going to get it tattooed today. haha…

back by popular demand, we printed out new stickers. they GO-NAMINORI plate stickers were all but gone!! now we have lots more to give away so if you see me in japan, ask and you shall receive…

this year is flying by so fast. our timor boat trip is coming up and i’m looking forward to getting away from my computer for 2 weeks. i’ll be diving and surfing all day!! oh, and eating sashimi… this is timor 2 years ago and come this october, expect bigger and better things…

i want to thank the ueno-san family for this awesome present!!! KIKAIDA!!!! i’m so happy!!!

and also wanted to thank the ueno-san family for the sweet ume. my mouth is watering. i’ll try some now…. itadakimasu!

good evening. what an awesome day! instead of being on a 9 hour flight to japan, i extended my stay at home. mito-chan totally talked me into the swim race yesterday and i’m glad i did it. it felt good to finish, and felt good to see so many active athletes…

i pulled up to waimea bay early this morning and looked at the conditions. it was perfect!! i was thinking it was going to be an easy race. so i boarded the shuttle bus and we all got dropped off near chun’s reef. 9 am the race started, i start swimming as fast as i can off the start because i wanted to jump ahead and slow down later. as i was swimming, my goggles fogged up again and when i was looking down at the reef, something was strange??? i was swimming my fastest but the reef wasn’t moving. i wasn’t going anywhere? i slowed down and started going backwards. huh??? oh my gosh!! CURRENT!!! the current was pretty strong and my arms were feeling like rubber as i was hardly moving. i changed my swimming style and started to swim like a dolphin. deep breath, go 3′ down, and swim like i’m free diving. it was working, i started to pass people that were swimming over me. they must have been tripping out.. haha…

the support for swimming competitions are amazing. ordinary people cheering for anybody that makes it to the finish line. today, over 500 competitors showed up and it such a big event. i finished up in 49.19 minutes, which was pretty good considering the current. i had 2 little 8 year old girls cheering me on at the finish line. after i drank a gallon of water, i asked the girls if they wanted to check out the dolphins i saw jumping outside the bay. they said “yes.” so i swam them outside the bay into the deep blue. i looked back and the people on the beach looked like ants. umm… maybe not too safe for kids to be out there. i hung on to them and as soon as we turned around, BAM!! there they were. 50-70 dolphins swimming near, under, and jumping over us. we had our goggles and the 2 girls were screaming their excited heads off. after swimming with them for 2 hours out there, i told them that the dolphin swim was twice as hard as the race. i was exhausted!! when we got back to the beach, the girls told me “that was the most amazing thing i’ve ever seen in my life. i will never forget this day!!!” i almost teared of joy…

on the way back to town, i stopped by my favorite saimin restaurant. i bet you don’t know where this is??? so local and so good!!! and that oily cheeseburger? hey, i deserved it!!

i was so stoked to see naoyuki honda there. this guy is a true athlete!!!

and mito-chan. she’s the reason why i was where i was today. mito-chan finished it in 54 minutes, which is awesome. i asked her to teach me how to swim properly. i was looking at people swimming by me today and they looked like the swimmers in the olympics. super powerful and graceful. how do i swim? imagine getting chased by a big shark. that’s how i swim. you can call it wild. i know if somebody taught me how to swim properly, i could cut my time down 10 minutes. thanks mito-chan…. but one thing, you will never ever catch me wearing those speedo tight shorts…. haha….

Hawaii’s Best Saimin!!!