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Back in the day: \u00a0A super typhoon was heading straight to Japan. \u00a0There was a 2 hour window of good waves before the roofs starts to blow off houses. \u00a0I’m in the car with Matchi searching for the best spot. \u00a0We’re frantically going back and forth to a nearby island trying to time the arrival of the monster swell. \u00a0The tide, winds, currents, and weather were all factors. \u00a0On top of that, the best water photographer in the world at the time “Chris Van Lennep” was on the island chasing the same typhoon. \u00a0Chris was a staff photographer for US Surfing Magazine so if you get lucky, you will have a chance for your photo to be published in the most prestigious surfing magazine in the world. \u00a0That was every surfers dream, and that was every surfers job.<\/p>\n
We check this river mouth early in the morning. \u00a0It was stormy. \u00a0So we drive to the port and catch a ferry to an outer island and it was too small. \u00a0We get back on the ferry and speed back to the river mouth. \u00a0As the super typhoon was approaching, the winds turned offshore and everything cleaned up. \u00a0OMG, nobody out yet as we waxed our 7’0 boards. \u00a0I see Chris swimming out which I thought was crazy. \u00a0The waves were huge and the current was raging like a river. \u00a0The waves were so big that Matchi and I had to paddle out through the harbor. \u00a0We get out, it’s solid 10′-12′ Hawaiian scale. \u00a0The photographer is nowhere in sight. \u00a0The sun pops out as the first set approaches. \u00a0I paddle my hardest and by some miracle make the drop, I bottom turn and pull into the biggest barrel of my life. \u00a0That was it as everything suddenly changed. \u00a0The typhoon hit and everything ended.<\/p>\n
Three months later, I open up the new Surfing Magazine and see a 2 page spread of this photo. \u00a0OMG, Chris got the shot! \u00a0Since then, this photo has been used over and over in publications all over the world. \u00a0I got super lucky that day.<\/p>\n
Thank you Chris for getting the shot. \u00a0Thank you Surfing Magazine for publishing the shot. \u00a0And especially thank you to Matchi for getting us to the right place at the right time every typhoon. \u00a0You’ve gotten me into some of the best and most memorable barrels of my life. \u00a0Some sessions published, most not. \u00a0So when you sent me this photo yesterday, all the memories came back. \u00a0I am forever grateful for you and your beautiful island. \u00a0And thank you to all the locals for your hospitality throughout those 20 years of chasing the dream!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back in the day: \u00a0A super typhoon was heading straight to Japan. \u00a0There was a 2 hour window of good waves before the roofs starts to blow off houses. \u00a0I’m in the car with Matchi searching for the best spot. \u00a0We’re frantically going back and forth to a nearby island trying to time the arrival […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-kirbyblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143035,"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143033\/revisions\/143035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/go-naminori.com\/kirbyfukunaga\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}