The Goal

I remember right around when I first started surfing, going all the time with Bryce to Barbers, I met this dude, well didn't actually meet him, I observed him. Me and Bryce used to always see this dude, on like a 9'6 or something like that, just ripping, like he was on a shortboard, busting floaters and cutbacks and whatever. We were just in awe of this dude, so we went up to him and asked him how he was doing it. He showed us how he was using just super small fins, only two of them, so he could get wherever he wanted to on the wave. Real nice dude too, super local but super friendly. Anyways, we start seeing this guy out all the time. Then one day, there was a big south swell, and a lot of people came out to Barbers. On that day, I observed the dude I was talking about earlier, who happened to be that longboard ripper's friend. I saw him and the longboard dude talking when I paddled out, and gave him the shaka. I then proceeded to watch the smoothest surfer I had ever seen. His friend was so mean. He surfed exactly like I wanted to surf. Nothing real fancy, just all about riding. From then on, I've tried to surf like that dude. He surfed a lot like this, Nat Young from Morning of the Earth.

The reason I bring it up is because 山口 and 徳永 are always like, why don't you do maneuvers? While there is one very good reason - I usually just can't - I always tell them I just want to ride, which doesn't really translate into Japanese.

So, today, me and Keoki are gonna head out. It's the first real cold water surf experience for both of us, so we'll see how it goes. The air is like 45 degrees, but the water is closer to 65. I'll try and take pictures if I can. With that.