Yesterday crystal clear water the quality of that which would semi give the chef de quality control of Evian a demi bathed the rock of Oahu in delightful turquoises and blues. Turtle families flew leisurely sorties up and down the reefs while half a mile or so out to see, humpback whales sought to rid themselves of itchy hide parasites with acrobatic breaches, spins and tail slaps of the highest order. There were a few little waves fluffing along the shore too, and an all-time high number of girls in g-strings going surfing. I’m not sure if it is down to a combination of Alana Blanchard and the physical manifestations of decades long campaigns by Reef, but it seems the thong style bikini is very much de rigeur these days among the ranks of she shredders. Some surf observers believe the most eye pleasing move witnessed from land to be a full-rail roundhouse carve, or perhaps a side-slip under the lip takeoff to exit after the spit, but in modern incarnation of the female version of the sport, I would offer that it is in fact probably the duck-dive.

In the morning I had a swim and bumped into Surfermag Photo Ed Grant Ellis who was out longboarding at Gas Chambers. I asked him if he could get me a ticket to the Surferpoll, the hottest ticket in town or country right now. Well, it was worth a shot. Later, Sea of Darkness director Mike Oblowitz was on the beach here by the house with a big red Peter McCabe quad fin bat tail longboard hybrid and offered me a burn on it. I gladly took him up on the offer, and went out Shitties and did a couple of shit pretend walk to the noses and other crap stuff. Two bodysurfers made their way through the lineup from east to west, who were Tom Curren (him again?) and his youngest son Pat. It was kindy bouncy, they didn’t get much. After a few more awful attempts at being cool on Big Red I bounced in through the whitewater and tried to do a head stand, but basically just got wax in my hair and didn’t get close. Then, as I awkwardly grappled her through the shorey, who should be standing at the water’s edge than Curren. He was wearing goggles but raised them so I could see the disapproval in his eyebrows. He said, “Wow, you’re like, um, pretty visible on that red thing, aren’t you?” He said it in such a way that tended to suggest it wasn’t intended as a compliment. Normally, when you come out of the surf and one of the boys is giving you shit about being being shit it’s fine and you can just say something along the lines of them being shit, too. Alas not in this case. Oblowitz was not far up the beach and bellowed in gruff South African, “Hey Tom! Wanna take my board out?” Cuzza paused for effect and replied, “No thanks,” with just a slight grin curling the side of his grid. ‘How am I gonna win here?’ I thought to myself, ‘What’s my next move?’. I decided the best thing I could do would be to walk off and leave Cuzza standing there, rather than have him lower the goggles and jump in for a swim, while I was still holding BIg Red looking guilty. I did exactly that, made my way up the sand and thanked Lono and Pele for the little victories that keep us going through the day. TC then jumped in and swam out towards Kammies.
In the afternoon there was a Volcom skate thingy at the skatepark with Mark Appleyard and some other dudes. Alex Gray was on the mic, but not that much, fortunately. Then in the evening I went to the North Shore film festival in Mokuleia Polo Feilds. It was a special AI tribute night which was pretty cool. They screened Fly in the Champagne along with a couple of other flicks. My fave part about FITC is when Andy says, “There were times I would go to sleep at night dreaming of different ways of punching him in the face.” RIP A.I.