Preface
Aloha y'all,
Its been way too long since I've written in this blog. I've left Hawaii momentarily to have my eight year old son Hayden, and 1 year old son Cruz get to know there grandparents back on the east coast. I currently live in a beautiful apartment above my father and amazing step mother in Clifton, New Jersey. It's 10:13pm and I am just getting to creative time.
I've started a skateboard company called Roll Skateboards and technically I should be working on the website, but instead I am risking juggling too many projects by writing. There's so much I want to accomplish, but so little time. One of the things I've always wanted to do is write a book called Short Skateboard Stories and another called Short Surf Stories. On top of that I'm always thinking about the next art show of paintings. And there's more, but I'll save my breath for the doing. So here I go risking taking on too much, by writing my first Short Surf Story, which I have to do now so I don't forget the memories.
Introduction
I have many surf memories, but some are more magical than others, while others brand into my brain scaring me for life.
Surf Story #1: Rockaway, NYC November 2005
It was a Tuesday morning at Rockaway Beach. My friend Colin and I wanted to catch one more surf session together before I left for Hawaii. Days of messy surf and gusty winds kept most inside, but we went anyway for a Dawn Patrol.
Woke at 5am in a warehouse space on Spencer St Brooklyn
Called Colin at 5:15
Hopped on a subway at 5:30.
Met Colin at 6
Drove to Rockaway and arrive at 6:45am.
Waves are totally blown out.
You'd be lucky if you could make it into the water without having your board blow away.
When most would turn around and go straight home to catch a few more z's before work, Colin says, "Let's go back to the bungalow, watch a movie, and come back and hope the winds shift and die down. I got Office Space or Forrest Gump."
All I could think was, Rad! What an awesome friend! It feels so good not to rush.
We get to the bungalow, and plug in the space heater. I find a surf video called Glass Love and ask if we could watch it instead. Colin say's, "Sure". I hadn't seen it yet and was stoked, but remained silent because it was early and cold. The outside patio furniture was blowing around, knocking into each other making noise. The movie, if you haven't seen it, has a peaceful vibe and focuses on respecting life and surfing's long tradition and spiritual aspects. It put us both in a magical state.
As the movie is coming to an end, I hear birds chirping. So I say to Colin, "Did you hear that? I think that means the wind died down. Birds don't chirp when they're about to blow out of their nest."
Colin replies, "I think you might be right. Let's go check it out."
He takes the bike and I ride the flex deck skateboard. We get to the beach and within the mess of waves, there were 3-4 foot sets coming through- perfect waves under cover dressed up as un-surfable nonsense.
Colin and I saw right through it. With x-ray vision we looked at each other, smiled and said, "Let's hit that!"
We cruise back to the bungalow, suit up, wax the boards, and walk to the beach. There is still not a surfer in the water or on the sand which is unusual for Rockaway. We paddle straight out through what looked like choppy waves. The ocean was in on our good time disguising the surf conditions as "Junk" and sending all the picky surfers home. We had the beach all to ourselves, from the first wave to the last- catching close to over twenty waves each in two hours. A few waves we rode halfway to the sand, while the rest we rode all the way in from the top of the line up to the sand.
The waves were diverse and had all around personality- not your perfect pealers. You had to connect the dots, but all the dots were there to connect.
I never forget Colin's last wave from the top of the line up all the way in as he dismounted with a small leap onto the sand. I was so stoked I did the same. I still remember that session twelve years and over 1,000 surf sessions later.
More stories to come.
• The first time I surfed M$%LEE POINT.
• The Boneyard at M$%LEEZ
• My first shack at Rockaway
• My best deepest shack at Bowls
• Losing my board at Left Overs and almost floating out to sea.
• When the hold Island was a windy rain storm, and it was a Sunny perfect day at Makaha with Luke.
• The First Time I Surfed The Banzai Pipeline
• The Right to Left at Suicides
• Magazine Material at Diamond Head
• The day I forgot my board shorts at Publics
• The day there was a big tear in my board shorts right at my crotch at Queens
• The time I surfed with Gerry Lopez.
• JUST WAIT! at Ricebowls.
• Surfing Doubles on a Big Black Wave with Ethan
• The East Side Ghost Dude who did the board shuffle on a long board on the gnarliest wave.
• The Day I saw the Crouching Lion.
