pic sent to a friend of the moon lighting the way for surf. How cool, it's still her screen saver a year and a half later. Warm water, huge waves ( to the right, out of sight). There ain't nuthing like Mother Nature.

Just tried to load Hawaii video but it didn't work. Imagine seeing this every morning instead of for just five mornings in a row? Figures, swell ended just after we got there but there are always waves. Water body-warm, way less salty, and one of the most powerful forces on earth. Go here and you learn the meaning of the word respect.
Sunset every night north shore Oahu makes people stop and stare, you can't help it.
No waves? Go scuba diving- it's like being in a salt water fish tank at a pet store. Sharks. Turtles. Octopus. And thousands of fish you never knew existed hanging out.

I "go low" when going there- I stay in hostels and the like. When I used to stay in hotels it sure was nice but nice gets old. It's sterile, plus $3-400/night adds up fast.
Hostels=personality, local culture, relationships. In the nineties it was $20 per bed, five beds to a room, people from all over the world. It's twice that now with private rooms. Never had anything but good times.

Seeing your kid sliding down the face of a warm glassy wave is an awesome sight- sharing and passing on to the next generation the passions you have always loved.

Years ago as I crawled out of the water like a ragged Robinson Caruso after surfing during a hurricane swell I saw a rock that exemplified the swell that I had just enjoyed so much so I brought it home and scribbled everything I could think of about that day with a sharpie onto the rock.

I've been doing it ever since.

Now there are are hundreds of them all over the place. Big huge gnarly waves= big gnarly rocks get scribbled on. Perfect waves get perfect rocks, etc. Kid is with me, his name goes on the rock especially if he has a first ( shortboard ride, barrel, hurricane).

So many of them they had to go outside where the rain and sun got to the ink and now they're just ocean rocks.

The ones in the pic came from the kitchen from this winter where they are starting to gain nuisance status yet I can't break the habit. Every time I go surfing a rock comes home. Sometimes I forget to write on a rock then it's just a rock. Yet it's easy to see which ones are ocean rocks and which ones are actually "just rocks." I wonder how many thousands of years waves have to splash against them to wear them down into such perfectly shaped smooth orbs.

saw this New York Times article this morning. Looks like I'm not the only one who surfs in the dark.


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/sports/its-a-nice-night-for-surfing.html

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Big storm must be coming, look at the incoming waves.

The second surfer in this clip is 52 years old, has two kids and his mother died Wednesday and they were there this morning celebrating not her death but her life. She gave him his first surfboard when he was very young and he was extremely proud of her for bringing so many things into his life at such a young age. He wished he had spent more time with her as an adult and was going to apply that life lesson to his relationship with his kids. All this unfolded between waves that were bigger earlier in the day. Not perfect conditions, but stayin' alive and happy.

Rhode Island this morning before surfing. Humans are interesting, can't quite figure them out. Buy soda. Chug. Toss out window. Buy balloon. Watch go up in sky. Don't think about where either of them goes when you've had your way with them. This stuff is one storm away from becoming part of our ocean after the street collected them and flushed all of it down the street drains. Human solution is to dump all of our unwanted debris into the ocean to make room for more. Was once surfing in Costa Rica- a jungled portion in the middle of absolutely nowhere and there were MILLIONS of the rings that keep water bottle tops stuck on water bottles washed up on the beach like seaweed. Didn't those litterbugs ever read "The Lorax?"
PS: 4/21/17- I just saw this article in the NYT about how we grind up plastic and dump it into the ocean. I believe NYC hauls garbage out and dumps it into the ocean but I could be wrong. I know they used to.

Big storm=big waves!

In the water this am before sun up. Couldn't really tell where I was in relation to the sweet spot we usually hang out in. Light fuzzy in east horizon slowly comes up. No wind cold water nice waves good way to start the day. Sore legs and arms at this very minute. Stayin' alive and happy.