Monday 30th Nov, 18h33.

Once again the wind blew all last night shaking windows n rattling walls. There was no power on this part of the N Shore for an hour or two this morning, I couldn’t even make coffee. Luckily the gas station at Kammies, whilst not serving gas, did have big flasks full of the black stuff. I bought one and walked to Sunset to see if the conny might be on.

As I was approaching the contest site I saw a guy having a bit of a Barry Crocker in the shorey coming in. ‘Awesome! ‘ thought I, it’s not just me who finds that part tricky. Then I noticed he had stickers on his board (his board was in the air going over the shorebreak falls), even better. Then I noticed it was Joel Parkinson!!! Crumbs, even the smoothest wave operator in the universe gets into a kerfuffle from time to time… This is massive!

Joel after his shorebreak mishap. Check how happy he looks.

I saw Gony Z at the contest site who was waiting to see if his heat would run. I didn’t. There pretty much wasn’t even really a lineup out there. Just weighty, unruly anger fluff. Even so, you’d be surprised how many crew were out and indeed at the level of rambunctious moves being pulled. Foam climbs, blow(pin)tails n’ all. The cheeky monkeys.

I went down to the wagon at Shark’s Cove and had an awesome brekkie; Blue taro bun with scrambled eggs, salsa, cheese and those vegan taro sausage patties. By the biceps of Lono it was good! Just before you get there there’s a pretty rootsy gas station with a sign that says ‘Service is Our Business’. I wanted a photo of that so I emailed Jah and asked him to arrange for a blurry bus (called The Bus) to pass into the exact correct part of the frame of my photo, and he did.

Last night we went back to that Lei Lei’s joint, which if you ask me is kinda over-rated. Well at least there’s not much on the menu for non meat or fish eaters like myself. The highlight of dinner was abusing Adrian Buchan’s cookie. He was on the phone lisping to his sweetheart back in Oz and his was the only cookie left on the table. I put a large blob of catsup underneath and salt n peppered it. He noticed straight away, didn’t even take a bite and was kinda annoyed. He said, “You know there’s people dying of starvation in the world.” Such is the lack of rapidity in his diction that the word dying was more like dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyiiinnnnnnng and that one simple sentence took over a minute to complete. They brought him out another one but he was ‘dirty’ at me for the entire drive home.

Dry your eyes, luvvy.

Apparently tomorrow is supposed to be better, and the forecast looks good for the week. Who knows? We might even have a shot of somebody actually surfing up before too long. Ta-ra!

– Gary Browningstone