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Angel of Death / January 10, 2021 by Kevin Huang

Dear Bushra,

I killed a deer for food this year. I am happy about it - and grateful to God for having something to eat for the next few months. But, the memories from the next week or so after I killed him are still burned hauntingly into my memory.

Resting Place

If you look closely, maybe you can find his antlers.

I pulled the trigger,

BANG

and waited. Listening for movement, for any indication he was still alive. Nothing. For a moment, I thought I had missed.

As the minutes passed, I slowly started to feel somewhat similar to how you said you did, when your sister told you the news about your Dad on the phone.

Adrenaline. Not a punch to the gut, like with you, but a slow creeping build up. An indescribable feeling, of something happening inside my body. I started shaking ever so slightly. I can’t remember if it was from the cold, or from the adrenaline.

I remember standing there, just staring at the deer’s body for minutes on end. Snow was falling. It began to smell. It was bigger than I had expected it to be. I tried to lift him onto my back so that I could carry him home, but I couldn’t. He was too heavy for me – probably over 200 pounds - and I’m not weak. I had to drag it.

It took me about a week to process everything, to care for and safely package the meat. It was my first time gutting a deer, so I had some friends help me. When I asked how they would dispose of it, they said they were going to unceremoniously dump the entrails in the woods. Something about that just felt wrong.

I went back to their house the next day, and took the carcass back with me. 4 days later, after I had butchered and packaged all the meat, I lit a funeral pyre and cremated all the leftover parts of the deer that I didn’t use. I thought it was only going to take me 2 or 3 hours. It took me 12. From sunset to sun up I went back and forth retrieving wood and tending to the fire. I laid there, sat there. Prayed some. It was freezing. By 5 am I was so irritated, I just wanted it to be over, but I could still see meat on some of the bones. I just wanted to go to sleep. I finally made it to bed by 6, just as the sun was coming up.

The next morning I returned. It was all ashes. Grey and black dust. Which I gathered up, and laid to rest in the woods where I killed him.

Other people don’t really do this. Most people just hang the body up. They skin it. Gut it. Butcher it. And then just dump the parts in the woods to be torn apart by the coyotes. Some keep the heads and mount them on their walls.

But to me,

Something just felt wrong about that.

I don’t care what other people think, but this was MY deer. If I didn’t care for it, then no one else would. Despite what others may say, I loved the poor thing. And, while I was happy to have food, there was an indescribable sadness about having to remove a living being from the woods. For a week I had been stalking him, getting to know his home. Getting to know HIM. The day before I shot him, I remember thinking about whether I was going to do it or not. “No matter what, I’d be happy,” I thought, “but I’d only be sad if I killed him.”

I can’t help but wonder if Death feels the same way, when he comes for us all.

The day before. Contemplating Life & Death.

This is all a cycle of nature. In many areas, there are too many deer, and not enough predators. If there are too many deer, everything suffers. I did everything “right.” I got a legal hunting tag. He was a male, (females are not legal), and old enough. But still, there was this feeling. Each living being is a separate, individual soul with its own thoughts and feelings. That is the beauty of life. Every soul is precious.

Some hunters might call me sentimental, or weak for caring so much for the beast. But, I cared for the body simply by doing what I felt was right. I gave it a funeral I’d be thankful for if someone gave to me when I died. In today’s crazy world, even something as simple as a proper funeral, is a gift. It’s one of the few things, you can’t do by yourself. Someone has to help you care for your body once you die.

I guess the point of all this is, I felt for you, Bushra, when I read your piece about your dad. I haven’t had to bury a parent yet, thank God, but I had to bury this creature recently, and I’m sure many of our thoughts and feelings overlapped at some point. I’ve buried grandparents, family members, and friends, but there was something special about this deer. I was conscious and aware of what I was doing. I did what felt to be right in my heart. I wasn’t just following orders to “lift up this casket and put it in this hole.”

When I read the story about your father - I felt it. Most of the time we are distracted by other things, but I know throughout your ordeal with your father’s funeral that you broke through the fog of daily monotony and it shook you awake. I felt that. It’s no wonder you’re still writing and thinking about it.

In today’s world, for some reason, funerals are a very public thing. The last thing I wanted when I buried that deer, was for anyone else to be there. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have dozens of people fighting over the body, giving eulogies, and trying to take pictures.

I’m lucky enough to still have my parents. One of my good friends, Matt Marblo (bx sci), lost both his mother and his father within a couple of years. I was at his father’s funeral. Another one of my good friends from middle school, Barry Chong – lost his father to cancer two years ago. I love my friends, and really respect them. I remember being there at Matt’s Dad’s funeral. And I remember when Barry told me about his father’s passing. Their experiences really moved me. Since then, because of them, I’ve tried to improve my life.

In the last few years, I’ve become more self aware of my actions, and I’ve slowly tried to increase the amount of time I’ve been able to spend with my parents. My life has improved greatly because of this, and I am so thankful to God for this time with them. No amount of money is worth this. Your story is just another reminder.

My parents and I struggle, and fight often, but everyone is alive. And relatively healthy. And there is love. I can’t really ask for much more. I get mad at them sometimes, but it’s usually stupid, and I wake up every day thanking God for giving me another chance to spend time with them.

Every time I hear news that a friend has lost a parent, my heart goes out to them. It goes out to you.

I think you should be proud of yourself, and thankful that you were able to bury your father. That you were actually there, with a shovel, putting dirt on the casket. Not everyone is able to do that. Some people are too weak. Some people are never able to retrieve the body. Some people are stuck in another country. It was a struggle, I’m sure. But you followed through with every step of the process.

I read somewhere that our goal in life should be – to be the most reliable person at our father’s funeral. I think you accomplished that. I think your dad would be proud of you.

In life, all we can do is our best. Appreciate every moment. The fact that we are alive means that we still have time, but we never know how much or how little we have left of it - don’t waste it. At the end of the day, I killed that deer for food. I haven’t bought meat at a supermarket since. In order for us to live, something else must die, whether it be a plant or an animal. We must eat. Make its life count. Value life, and do good with it. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Take care of yourself Bushra.

I read the part of your piece where you said you started reading everyone’s stupid comments and glaring at the hypocrisy of their social media accounts. As a writer myself, I know how you feel. That struck me and inspired me to write you this. A “real” letter. I’m a very abrasive person, it’s difficult to speak truth because inevitably some people fight you. I hope this letter to you wasn’t too graphic – but, it was genuine. When it comes to death – sometimes only the truth will suffice. I believe you understand that. Know that I feel your pain and I will pray for you and your family. I’m open to chat if you need to or want to. If not, peace be with you.

My condolences,

May your father rest in peace.

Kevin

Wildlife / May 2, 2019 by Kevin Huang

| Wildlife |

#Talesfromtheotherside

“Are they wild?” I asked.

“Well, they belong to a guy actually. Have you ever seen that guy who rides around town on a horse?”

“Yeah, the guy who is always drunk all the time?”

“Yeah that guy. Those are his horses.”

My mind drifted back to a few nights prior as I was laying on my couch in my open-air living room when I heard a rustle in the bush. Expecting an iguana, my eyes widened as I realized that what actually stood 15 feet in front of me was a 1,100 pound horse, taller than me with only some short grass as a barrier between us.

There were two horses to be precise, peering at me from the edge of darkness where the feeble light of my iphone reached with only jungle abyss behind. To think, two horses had snuck up to within 20 feet of me and I hadn’t even noticed them. The chicadas and other insects you hear throughout the night create a relatively large amount of background noise and it’s basically pitch black outside. As usual, the two machetes I owned were 100 feet away from me in the cabin (with the horse between us no less) so I simply just grabbed my broom as a weapon. My solid, 70 pound hunting dog continued to enjoy his after dinner nap.

Eventually I shooed them off into the darkness. Weeks later I wondered to myself if I should have offered them an apple.

Eventually my mind made the connection. Those horses must have been his.

“So he just lets them loose? They just wander around free?”

“Yep. Whenever he needs them- like when he gives gringos riding lessons- he just goes and fetches them.”

“Huh.” I pondered incredulously.

“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy, this local gringa vet girl was complaining the other day that nobody is taking care of them and some of them are sick. One of them died the other day. It was kind of a problem because there was just this rotting horse carcass on the side of the road. Eventually the town had to hire someone to go pick it up.”

“Why doesn’t the guy pay for it?

“He has no money.”

“Ah right, the drinking problem. Makes sense I guess.”

We sat in silence for a while, meditating on reality. After a time, I tenuously broke the silence:

“So… they’re basically wild then.”

“Yeah I guess so.”

Later that week the two horses visited my house again. A baby fowl was with them.

The Kapok Tree / May 11, 2018 by Kevin Huang

| The Kapok Tree |

#TalesfromtheOtherSide

Once upon a time, among one of the many stops in the course of my travels, I came to live in the jungle.

Life was leisurely and slow, as my only methods of transportation were my own two legs, and the pace of life in those days matched the slow speed of my walk. Some days, my legs would take me down to the beach to surf, and on other days, in the evenings, I would go for a walk in the opposite direction, into the jungle, with my dog Nalu. On one such stroll, I came across and was intrigued by a strange, haunting tree.

On this particular occasion, in the warm rays of the evening sun, Nalu and I walked for a time, following a road we had never walked before. The road twisted and turned, past farm houses, abandoned wood cabins, and large empty ranches. The further we walked the more overgrown the vegetation became and the larger the trees grew - the uppermost branches of which towered high above our heads, far beyond the reach of any man. The path led us down a hill and then up another, twisting and turning until it led us to a spot where the sun did not shine, as the trees were so tall that they blocked the light of the sun from shining through. It was in this spot, along this stuffy, desolate road that I came across the tree.

It was dry season, and the jungle was in desperate need of water. Many of the trees lacked leaves, and this particular tree was no different. The tree was barren, and in the shade of its many branches, its trunk was dark – almost black. But what struck me the most about this tree, was that from top to bottom, every inch of this tree was covered in thorns.

From the base of its roots, through its trunk, up through the very top branches, thorns the size of nails and just as sharp, protruded outwards in all directions. No man, or monkey, or any other animal could climb such a tree without finishing the endeavor bloody and full of holes. It was the sort of thing that one could only imagine existed in a fairytale, guarding some sort of precious treasure for eons in plain sight, as no sane person could ever hope to climb such a devilish, and evil looking tree.

Yet, I was drawn to the thing in such a way, as one is drawn to the site of a car accident, or some other scene of tragedy. The rational brain tells the mind that you approach in order to understand what caused the event, yet the heart knows that this is just a ruse. The energy of such a thing draws you to it, and the trap is set.

What confused me so much about this tree was that it challenged my concept of what I thought a tree was supposed to be. All of the trees that I had ever encountered in my life had always given me very pleasant feelings. A sense of unity with nature, a source of sustenance and fruit. Man plants the tree and gives it soil, water, and space on his land - and in return, the tree provides the man with shade from the hot sun, the occasional fruit, and a place for his animal friends to nest on. But this tree was different. This tree did not bear fruit – it was barren – there was barely a leaf on any of its branches. Instead of a sense of peace, I felt darkness. The tree was like a parasite of the earth, taking everything and providing nothing. Worse than nothing, it gave off an energy of repulsion, I sensed that it wanted to be left alone. I did not like the feeling it gave me, but I could not look away.

As a man brought up in the disciplines of science, deduction, and critical thinking, I reasoned that the tree must have evolved over the millennia to be covered in thorns as a method of defense so as not to be disturbed by any animals eating or messing with its seed or its bark. The thorns were meant to protect itself, and to discourage visitors. Certainly, it discouraged me. As much as I stared at the tree, I certainly had no desire to touch it. Yet, strangely, as if in a trance, I continued to stare, and dare I say I approached just a tad bit closer.

And then, as I stood there, looking high at its uppermost branches, I noticed a flicker of movement. A tiny bird, I saw, was prancing on the upper branches, hopping this way and that, its little feet the perfect size to fit in between the thorns of the tree. And then suddenly, my eyes picked up more movement. I realized then, that there was a family of birds up there, flitting around between the various little branches, chirping away, seemingly happy and filled with life. It was by looking at these upper branches where the birds stood and which, in contrast to the lower ones, were bathed in plenty of sunlight, that the tree was in fact a light grey color, almost white - not the black that I had originally noticed in the shade.

As if that very sunlight had illuminated my own brain, it occurred to me then, that the tree had chosen this for itself. It – or should I say its ancestors before it - must have suffered for so long that they evolved over millennia to grow their protective thorns. This history of pain then, must have been passed down to the already ancient tree which stood before me, through no fault of its own. I thought to myself then, that in a way, maybe trees and people are not so different. No matter how different we may seem now, as we are all beings bred of this Earth, did we not have a common ancestor at some point, countless eons ago? Imagine, how painful it must be, to be forced to grow thorns in order to protect oneself.

At this realization, my heart melted a little. As I stared at the tree now, in this new light, I was filled with a sense of loneliness. And then sheepishly, my attention turned inward and I thought of all of the thorns that I had sprouted deep within me, and I wondered if I was not out in the jungle - in solitude - for a rather similar reason?

It was then, with the coming of twilight, that the last rays of sun angled their way past the thick array of trees that surrounded me and illuminated the pathway home and thus the trance was broken. I turned and looked at Nalu - his tail was wagging excitedly, and his head was looking back at me eagerly over his shoulder, questioning me as to when we would be hitting the road towards home again. I started towards Nalu and the road home, hurrying as the light was fading. Just as the tree was about to disappear from view however, I shot one final glance back at it. The birds were chirping now, and the tree looked less alone with its family of birds nesting in its branches. Although they may have arrived unwanted, that did not stop the birds from settling down and making a home out of a perfectly good tree - as friends sometimes do. And, as I looked now I thought, “oh how those little birds gave life to such a depressive tree!”

And with that, Nalu and I took off hurriedly for home, our minds quickly devoid of any thoughts of strange trees, concerned only with what we were going to be having that evening for supper.

** FIN **

Interestingly enough, it is said that when the kapok tree matures, it sheds its thorns.

For Nouvelle Vague | Tackling Pipeline | Full-Length Vers / December 19, 2017 by Kevin Huang

Nouvelle Vague | Tackling Pipeline

[The Full-length Version]

There is a moment, before any big decision, when the enormity of whatever it is that you are about to do hits you. It is in this moment of weakness, when the thing that crushes dreams rears its ugly head. It is in this moment that the fear sets in.

I was standing at the rear of my car, trunk wide open, suitcase laid bare, fiddling with one of the screws on my camera's water housing when the fear hit me.

I had arrived on the north shore of Hawaii three weeks ago, in search of a legendary wave, the most famous one on the planet - Pipeline. It is a wave so perfect that it occupies the day dreams of surfers everywhere on the planet. Pipeline sits, hidden in plain sight - in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is nestled a mere 50 feet off of the North Shore of the most populated of the Hawaiian Islands. Its exotic, crystal clear turquoise water and unbelievably massive barrels are like a siren call to surfers the world over.

It isn't the most perfect wave in the world, it isn't even the best wave on the North Shore for that matter - not by a long shot. It's not the longest, or the easiest, or the safest, or the most consistent wave - but the lack of these qualities all add to the allure. Part of the draw of Pipeline is its difficulty; its danger . It is one of the most difficult waves to surf on the North Shore- nay, the planet. Waves the size of a three story building break in about 10 feet of water over solid rock. Not to mention the insane crowd. But if you can pull into a proper Pipe barrel here - a proper, gargantuan, ferocious, mid-winter, twenty foot monster - and get spit out - it can easily be the greatest, most exhilarating wave you or any future persons bearing your name will ever catch in their entire lives.

It was in search of a wave like this that I traveled half the world over.

But the goal wasn't to catch one of these waves for myself, but rather, as a surf photographer, to capture a shot of the world's greatest surfers catching one of the greatest waves of their lives'. And after three weeks of sitting on it, waiting for a swell to come, training, watching and learning the setup of the wave and swimming out there on smaller days, it was now or never.

My heart was pounding as I wrenched the last screws into place on my water housing. I was in the minority. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining majestically, lighting up the evening in an array of different hues. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky. The wind was light offshore, the weather was warm. Everyone else was posted up with beer and popcorn on the beach just enjoying the show. I was in the 1% of people who was sweating profusely, cursing that the conditions were perfect to go shooting.

I was nervous because this wasn't the first time I had attempted to swim out at Pipe.

Let me back up for a second. Every time there's a massive swell at pipe, there's about 50 dudes posted up with tripods on the beach snapping away with 20 shots a second capturing every moment of the action. Every fat, overweight, wannabe surf photographer and their dog is out there with their 5 thousand dollar space telescope of a lens trying to capture the action up close. But nothing can ever compare to a water shot. The true test of a surf photographers' ability is the water shot. Deep down the fat guys know this. The only angle that can truly capture what it feels like to surf, is the water angle. It's the angle that you get as you're paddling back into the lineup after the wave of your life. It's the first view you get after sitting on the beach for twenty minutes deciding whether it's good enough to surf and the set comes in and all of your hopes and dreams are confirmed as the first wave starts peeling with not a drop of water out of place. It's the only angle that pops into your head and sears a mental picture into your brain when you think back and relive the memories of the greatest days of your surfing life. For a surf photographer, the water angle is the purest form of surf photography. Getting a picture of a proper wave at Pipe is one of the greatest achievements in a surf photographer’s life.

Shot this accidentally while swimming out a t Pipe. Note, the reef below is only around 10 feet deep, even when it's 20ft plus. Solid rock.

In any case, the reason that there are only 10 guys shooting from the water when there are 100 on the beach when Pipe is on is because it's almost as dangerous as actually surfing the wave. In some cases it is arguably more dangerous. I had personally found this out for myself in the three previous weeks.

When I first touched down in Oahu (literally the first day I had ever touched down in Hawaii in my entire life) in the beginning of January, I landed, took a shuttle straight to the car rental agency, and booked it straight to the north shore. I had been confined to the indoors the two months prior (I had spent the winter in New York City. It was snowing when I left) and I was FROTHING. It was only about head high, but that that evening I was in the water. About an hour and a half of surfing powerful, long period groundswell, coupled with my previous two months of relative inactivity, left me bruised and exhausted - but ecstatic.

That evening I barely managed to goad my battered body to put off sleep long enough to hunt down a fish burrito. That next morning I woke up and drove straight to Pipeline. I knew that the swell was supposed to pick up that next day but when I finally walked past the car park and got my first glimpse of Pipe through the bushes my jaw hit the floor. It was easily 20 foot plus. It was XL to XXL. The largest waves I had ever seen in my entire life were slamming against the shore one after the other after the other and save for a small group of excited tourists in front of the wave, people were going about their business as if it was an everyday occurrence. The crazy thing was that I would soon come to learn that it basically was.

One of the only photos I took from that day. Note the ski floating in the channel to determine relative size. If you look closely there's a guy getting barreled. Shot on Iphone 5s.

The three weeks that I was there, it reached XL to XXL four times. Like clockwork, every week it once again got massive. If you plotted the wave size that January on a graph it would be a perfectly repeating bell curve. By the end of my three weeks I began to accept this insanity for what it was but as I stood there, dumbfounded that first day, all I could do was stare. Literally, the only pictures I have from
that day are a few that I took on my phone because I was too shocked to go back to my car and grab my camera. I just remember standing there with my jaw swinging limply that first day, watching people get massive drainers one after the other after the other like I was witnessing some sort of wave machine conveyor belt.

Before that day I had assumed getting water shots at Pipe would be as simple as just swimming out there- there is a channel after all. But as I stood there, watching wave after wave the size of a building unload a mere 50 feet offshore, I knew that it wasn't going to be so easy. It was going to take a while.

I pretty much spent that first week surfing. For the most part, the swell was too big for me to swim in my current, weakened state, and I didn't trust myself to be out there in unfamiliar waters with anything other than a massive flotation device strapped to my ankle (a.k.a a surfboard). Besides, I was frothing to surf after being cooped up indoors for two months and there were plenty of "smaller" (3-6 ft Hawaiian) waves in the area to attend to. I thought it would take me a while to get back into peak physical condition, but surprisingly, by day 5 my body was basically back to normal. Even though I hadn't surfed at all in the two previous months, I had still tried to exercise as much as I could, and the only really sore muscles in my body were the ones unique to surfing.

By the end of the week, the swell dropped and I actually managed to swim out for a small session at Pipeline. The photos I got that day were the best I had ever taken up to that point in my surf photog career and are still some of the best photos I have taken to date. That was a huge victory for me and a major confidence booster. I could have left the island at that point and I would have been happy. But alas, I still had two weeks left, and for better or for worse the fire within me continued to burn.

The window was short lived though and within a couple of days it got too big again. A few days later though, as the swell started to drop, another window opened up. It was definitely bigger this second time that I paddled out, and to my surprise I made it out into the channel again. Unfortunately though, weather conditions weren't as good as the first time - the wind was onshore and the swell direction wasn't ideal - and while I did get some interesting photos I didn't really get any keepers.

Things slowed down for a bit after that. My dad ended up coming to visit as well, and I was lucky enough to spend a few awesome days just hanging out and enjoying life with my dad. Steaks were grilled, naps were had, and many a day was spent drinking coffee and talking about life. The next round of swell that we got I ended up surfing since it wasn't big enough to make me swap my board for my camera - and I ended up catching some of the best waves of my trip during that time. Life was good.

And then, right on schedule, at the end of the second week, the next big swell came. The charts looked good, the direction was correct, and when the swell materialized it ended up not only matching the size of the first big swell that I saw on the north shore, but it was more consistent and the wind was better. I rolled up to a packed lot at Ehukai that morning and it only took a quick glance at the wave to realize
that it was ON. There were about twenty Hubble space telescope wielding goons just around the first lifeguard tower already snapping away. I swear I thought I saw John John get spit out of a massive drainer just on the inside section to the right of the pipe channel. Even Third reef was feathering!

I snapped a few shots with my long lens and then ran to my car and got the housing. The time was now.

But, something changed within me as I was preparing the housing and by the time I returned to the beach, the reality that I was going to be swimming out at twenty foot Pipe with nothing but a helmet and a set of fins hit and my enthusiasm started to dwindle.

Rather than make a run for the channel, I decided that the smartest move would be to sit and watch it for a bit. It was so big that the current was ripping like a five star white water rapid and there was actually a North Shore lifeguard ski bobbing out in the channel next to the scant dozen of surf photogs in the water. Further down Ehukai Beach Park, nobody was surfing. It was too big, too gnarly. The only surf able spot in the area was pipe.

But, as anyone who’s seen someone hesitate at a cliff jump can tell you, the longer you wait the less likely you are to jump. If you don't shut the thoughts off in your head and jump within the first five minutes you're probably not gonna do it. With water housing in hand, and leash strapped to my wrist, I picked a comfy spot in the shade in front of the Volcom house and sat down in the sand- and before I knew it, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes went by.

The ocean was so violent that morning that a rogue wave crashing on shore wiped out a few bystanders who were standing too close to the sea and almost dragged a poor infant to an early grave. The local lifeguard on the loudspeaker immediately started chastising the bystanders and irresponsible parents over the loudspeaker with " i told you so's" for letting their keikis play too close to shore.

After about an hour of sitting on the beach I saw one of the water photogs get out of the water. He noticed I had a camera and, ignoring the rest of the crowd, he came up to me and exclaimed, “man, it took me multiple tries to make it out there! The first few times I got washed all the way to Pupukea! It's fucked out there! Be careful out there bro!"

And with that he stormed off and into the Volcom house. Later on, i realized that that had been Laserwolf, one of the greatest surf photogs on the planet, and a regular contributor to Surfer magazine. THE Surfer magazine. This guy was a living legend. Needless to say this did nothing to allay my fears.

*The longer I waited, the seemingly bigger it got.*

Finally, after another thirty minutes of deliberation, I gathered myself, put on my fins and walked over to the entry spot. The current was ripping so hard that I walked about a hundred feet south of the channel in order to make my entry. My hope was that after a mad dash, by the time I got swept to the spot where the channel was, I'd be close to making it past the impact zone.

With a deep breath I waded in.

The current was so violent that within seconds I had already gotten swept off my feet and I could feel myself getting dragged up the beach. The only direction I could paddle was out. Even on the inside massive waves were breaking on my head. With my thirty pound camera in one arm, I desperately tried swimming with the other. Every second I could feel myself getting dragged about 10- 15 feet up the beach. By the time I got to the channel I was nowhere near making it to the outside. I kept swimming but before I knew it I was already at Pupukea. The problem with this was that from Pipe to Pupukea the waves were relatively small. But at Pupukea, the waves started breaking again, and almost as soon as I reached Pupukea the first set of waves came in. I took about three 8-10 footers on the head - and it wasn't even a real set. Every wave was 8-10 feet. And if it was breaking 20ft+ at Pipe, sooner or later it would be breaking 20ft+ where I was. It was at this point that I knew that I had missed the entry point. I immediately turned around and started paddling for shore. It was a tense, desperate minute or so but luckily, soon enough, my feet touched sand. When I got out I was almost at Rocky Point. I had been in the water a total of maybe three minutes and I had gotten swept about 3/4 of a mile down the beach. It truly was fucked.

It was at that point that I decided to just cut my losses. Deep down I knew that if I really dug down and pushed myself fully to 120%, that maybe I had a 30% chance of making it out into the lineup after another 3 or 4 attempts. But, I also knew that in my current beleaguered state I didn't have the mental fortitude nor desire to push myself to 120%. And if I didn't push to the full 120, I ran a serious risk of drowning. A few months prior, I had put myself in a similar situation down in Mex and the session ended up with me taking multiple 8-10 foot bombs on the head, getting both of my fins ripped off of my feet instantly, and getting dragged underwater in the impact zone with the realization that I could very well drown there. So, defeated, but safe, I made the walk back to the showers; off to fight another day.

It was because of this latest attempt of swimming out at Pipe that I now hesitated in the car park.

It was now the end of week three. Like clockwork, the swell had died at the end of week two, and a new run of swell had started to fill in mid-week. The full brunt of this latest, final run of swell was now due to start pumping that afternoon as I stood there fiddling with my water housing. I had a flight to catch in a couple of days. This was my last chance.

There was one thing that I did have on my side this time though. The swell was due to fill in that evening - as in - within the next hour or two. The key here, is that it had not yet fully filled in. That meant that if I acted quickly I could make the swim out into the channel with relatively little difficulty and avoid the deadly current of the previous attempt. Once you're in the channel you're basically golden. Waves don’t break on your head in the channel, so you can basically bob there and snap away. You have the perfect angle straight into the barrel from that vantage point. If I made it out into the channel quickly, and just waited, the swell would theoretically grow to massive size within the hour if Surfline was right. On the North Shore, it is fairly common to paddle out when it's head high, and have it hitting triple overhead by the time you paddle back to shore (with your heart in your throat no doubt).

With a deep breath, I snapped the latches on my housing together, and made my way over to the beach. As I got closer to the sea I felt a light breeze, the wind was blowing just slightly off-shore. Perfect. With a smile and a nod to my friend, I entered the water. I plunged my head into the refreshing, almost chilly water, and a burst of adrenaline washed over me as I started paddling out to sea towards the channel. A set came through and I dove underneath the wave to escape its wrath, and it washed harmlessly over me. It was a relatively smaller set. It was manageable.

With a last burst of effort, I pushed through to the outside, the zone where only the largest waves broke – safety. The channel was within sight. The current was indeed lighter this time, and a couple minutes more of paddling against it, I was in the lineup. I dove under one last time, and snapped the camera into photo mode as I came up. The rear LCD screen sprang to life and lit up just as a set started looming on the horizon.

It was as if the whole sea sprang to life. The pack of over 50 surfers started paddling in unison out to sea. Surf photographers bobbed up and down in unison, some diving to pass safely under the wave before it, while others scrambled sideways to get out of the way. And as I was picked up and raised by the wave before, I finally saw the first proper Pipe set reach the pack of frothing surfers.

The wave was massive, not only vertically, but lengthwise as well. The wave was as wide as a football field, maybe even wider. As it neared, the wave began to wrap and fold, taking the shape of the reef below. In long, tense, soundless seconds, the wave began sucking up, and a depression – a bowl started forming as the water grew and grew, seemingly becoming picked up by some unknown, unbelievable force. And then, with a sound comparable to that of a thunderbolt, the wave unloaded. In the channel, as the wave passed, I was lifted about 10 feet above sea level as I surged in unison with the ocean itself – I actually felt the sensation of weightlessness in my stomach. As the wave passed, the wind gusted, almost blinding me, and after a second of silence, water blown off the tail of the wave began to fall like rain all around me and the air was filled with the sound of rushing water.

Just as I cleared my vision I turned and saw the second set approaching, bigger than the first, and I started swimming further to the outside. Just as it was about to start breaking, I stopped swimming, turned, lifted the camera to my face, took aim, and started snapping, as a dot with the outline of a man
started freefalling down the face of the wave. He flew down the face, his surfboard frictionless against the smooth water, grabbed his rail hard, pulled hard at the bottom, tucked his body in tight, and was engulfed inside a beautiful turquoise barrel as I belted a “YYYYEEEEEWWWWWW” at the top of my lungs. The sun was low on the horizon, and beams of light blasted through the back of the wave, seemingly lighting up the wave from within.

Sure enough, slowly but surely, the waves began to grow in size as the swell started to fill in. Waves of different colors; some glowing blue and green, others orange and yellow; began to break along the whole stretch from Pipeline to Off the Wall and beyond. Colors shifted with the movement of the sun. Dozens of surfers paddled, jockeying each other in and out of position, desperate to catch just a single wave amongst the madness. In addition to the dozens of surfers, there was a score of photographers swimming amongst them. Random arms and legs baring flippers stuck out of the water as each wave passed. As if playing chicken, the most daring held on until the last possible second in the hopes of getting the ultimate shot before diving under the wave to safety. It was a natural, aquatic coliseum, and everyone in the water that day was part of the show.

Just as the sun touched the edge of the horizon the shadow of a wave, substantially larger than the rest that had come through that day, loomed large in the distance. Even though the wave was so large, and so distant, there was so much water moving that all but a few surfers had an unobstructed view of it. But, soon, within seconds, without even a sound or the utterance of any command, every surfer began to paddle out to sea. Similar to the uproar of panic and movement that washes over a group of seals as the instinct of flight washes over them at the sighting of a great white shark, so too did the desire to swim to the outside of the oncoming wave wash over the mass of humanity in the water at Pipeline that evening. I heard someone scream, “this is what we’ve all been waiting for!”

The wave had caught me by surprise, hell it had caught all of the photographers by surprise and everyone paddled frantically to get out of the impact zone. The wave grew to a ridiculous size, and just as it was about to break, I saw a lone figure turn and start to paddle for it. I was still at the edge of the impact zone, but it was the wave of the day, I couldn’t afford to miss the shot. I pulled my camera out of the water, aimed, and started firing just as he was about to make the drop. He made the drop, made the bottom turn, pulled in, and then just stood straight up as an 8 foot wave engulfed him. I dove under just as the wave washed over me. It was massive. It was insane.

With that, my low battery meter started flashing, and as the sun had set, I decided to head back to
shore.

The rest of the next two days were a blur. I didn’t have time to go over the shots since I had to pack (I had a flight to Australia in two days’ time), but a few days later, on the plane ride to Sydney, I let out a whistle as I started to edit and review the files. There were definitely some winners.

To this day, I have not returned to the Hawaiian Islands. I am more than satisfied with the shots I managed to get during my time there, and it is truly a blessing I even managed to get anything at all. The waves I swam out in that day were the largest I felt comfortable swimming in up to that point in time. Since then, I’ve put myself in heavier situations, in larger waves, and gotten even more insane shots, but none of that would have been possible had I not managed to put in the time at Pipeline. The fear is still there, but my experiences at Pipe have done a lot to help me allay those fears. The memories of those waves I witnessed are still seared into the frontal lobe of my brain. Ever since then, my concept of what constitutes a large wave has basically shifted. The amount of people that even have the balls to paddle out at Pipe is relatively small. No matter where I am in the world – and I’ve been on islands in the middle of nowhere- whenever I start speaking of my experiences at Pipe, every head in the room turns to listen.

Still, even after three weeks, I barely managed to scratch the surface of Pipeline. Water shots of waves easily double the size of what I captured that final day at Pipeline continue to grace the covers of Surf mags the world over. There is still a lot of room left for me to improve. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure I want to get a photo of Pipe at a larger size.

Things have started to settle in for me as a surf photographer. It’s not all about size, but rather perfection. Now that I’ve confirmed that I can swim out in massive waves, that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to in the future. However… a true surfer can only ignore the allure of a perfect wave for so long.

There may come a day, when I might have to spend a whole season there, waiting for weeks upon week for just one hour of perfection. I might have to pick up my whole life and move to Hawaii, because truly, that’s what it takes. That time is not now, as I still have many undiscovered waves to see, remote islands to explore…. but when the time comes, I wonder if I will answer the call. I guess it’s something to look forward to one day. Such is the life of a surf photographer.

~FIN~

*And besides, there's plenty of other waves on the North Shore besides Pipe...*

Trading Tubes with Mikala Jones & Marlon Gerber / December 1, 2017 by Kevin Huang

INDONESIA

I came to as the overhead bins were being ransacked by all of the passengers rushing to get off the plane. I was so tired I hadn’t even felt the plane hit the runway. What should have been a quick trip to the airport and a 2 hour plane ride from Padang had somehow ballooned into an hour long drive in traffic, a 2 and a half hour wait at the airport, and another two hour flight to the island. I still had a 3 hour + drive to get to my destination. Still, this wasn’t too bad for Indo. There are always delays here, the question is always just, “how long?”

Years before I had ever been to Indo, I had read an article by Lewis Samuels, a legendary surf journalist, about the endless perils and sheer amount of waiting that one has to endure when exploring the further reaches of the Indonesian archipelago. Every time I was stuck in some dirty airport wondering why 10 planes had already departed for Jakarta and our tiny propeller plane had still not yet even begun to board 2 hours past our scheduled departure time, I would think of that article. At least we had a plane. Times had changed, the waiting had not.

I grabbed my things, walked straight out of the airport, negotiated a car and within 5 minutes was already on my way.

“The reason for my trip to ****, was that I was chasing a swell. It was triple overhead+ on the biggest ones the previous time, this swell was forecast to be even bigger.”

The reason for my trip to ****, was that I was chasing a swell. As luck would have it, right when my Visa was set to expire a swell was due to hit. There were two waves (no pun intended) of swell due. The first pulse was smaller, would last a couple of days, die down, and then a second, much bigger pulse would hit later in the week. I had already been on the island for a month, and we had only gotten one similar sized swell during that time – and the waves had been huge. It was triple overhead+ on the biggest ones the previous time, this swell was forecast to be even bigger.

The first swell... Homie and local charger Jose on this bomb

I left the island a day before the first pulse hit, rushed to get my paperwork to Immigration, and then hopped on the first plane back to the island the next morning. The second pulse was due to hit the following day. You never really know what you’re going to get with a swell, or even when exactly it’s going to hit, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I needed to be there that night.

After about 8 hours total transit time I made it back. I nearly ran to the beach when I got out of the car so that I could check the swell. The waves were playful, but it definitely didn’t look big. Patience.

I grabbed dinner and was about to go to bed, exhausted, when I ran into a friend of mine who was staying in one of the other rooms in the Losmen. We shared a couple of Sampoernas and he told me there were rumors that a couple of pros had just gotten in this evening as well. One Hawaiian and one guy from Bali. Interesting. I hadn’t seen anyone else on the plane who looked like a surfer. With that little bit of information in the back of my head I passed out.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of thunder. I stumbled out of my room and was blasted by sunlight. When my eyes finally adjusted to the light I could see huge mountains of swell entering the bay, rolling through and unloading into perfectly peeling right handers with a wide open barrel big enough to fit a car through. As the wave would unload the reef would rumble and I could feel the ground shake from where I was standing about a hundred meters from the keyhole – I realized this was no thunder. The swell had arrived. Without any further need for encouragement I went back into my room, grabbed my camera gear and my fins, and made the swim out to the lineup.

Normally, the water was a beautiful crystal blue color. On smaller days, the barrel was a beautiful aqua blue or sometimes a sapphire color, but today, there was so much swell that it had kicked up a bunch of sediment and the water was a murky, emerald green color. The tide was still high, and it seemed like the swell was still filling in, but on the sets, the wave would form, grow to an impossible size, and when it finally threw, the barrel was so big and deep that it was dark inside. Light couldn’t make it through the murky green water.

I had only ever seen footage of **** this big once. It was a grainy video of half crazed Hawaiian charger Jamie O’Brien pulling into some monsters on YouTube who knows how many years ago. What had struck me about the footage was just how dark it was inside the barrel. And here I was, seeing the beast heave and explode in front of me for the first time – with the very real possibility of taking one on the head.

After a while, when the wave started to grow larger and become more hollow with the tide, a few more surfers paddled out. I recognized one of them, Justin, as one of the local surfers and photographers in the area but the other two weren’t immediately recognizable. However, as the unknown surfers paddled closer to where I was sitting in the channel, my memory flashed back to a time a few months prior when I was in Hawaii. The waves were massive then too, and I had seen one of the two surfers paddling back from an unknown outer reef wave. It was then that the name popped into my head - Mikala Jones – tube fiend and hunter of waves in the most remote parts of Indo. This guy was one of the reasons I had come to Indo to begin with. Stories of his discoveries of pristine, picture perfect waves and clips of the same had occupied my day dreams for years. When I realized the caliber of surfer I was in the water with, the other unknown surfer’s name also came to memory. Marlon Gerber, another Indo legend and another surfer whose clips I had spent countless hours watching on the internet. I remember one of the groms telling me that living in **** was like witnessing a real live surf movie every day. He was right.

What happened over the next few hours is almost indescribable. Over time the crowd thinned. The waves somehow got even bigger. Waves that didn’t even seem makeable were somehow ridden. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have ever witnessed a session like what went down that day. The footage from that swell ended up on Redbull’s surfing site but of course it doesn’t do it any justice. A lot of people paid the price of admission. Mikala himself, one of the world’s best tube riders, ended up smashing his face on the reef and had to end his trip early. I heard that he had a marble sized chunk of reef removed from his face a week later.

I actually ended up meeting Mikala and Marlon a couple of days after the big swell on the pretense that I had photos of them (which was true!). We chatted for a bit, and I was able to pass them the photos I took of them. It was a surreal moment. I had grown up watching the clips they had put out, and now I was giving them photos I had taken of them, in the place I had always dreamed of visiting, all because they had inspired me to come. The life of a surf photographer. I had come full circle.

When I had first heard of Indo when I was a frothing grom it had always seemed like some sort of dreamland. The waves just seemed too impossibly perfect, the backdrops were just too exotic, the stories were too crazy, and the surfers just seemed like they were on such another level. The reality of it is, all of these things are true. Everything I had dreamed about I had seen with my own two eyes on my first trip to ****. Thinking back on it all, it all just seems so surreal. But sometimes, the truth is often stranger than fiction.

Welcome to dreamland. Welcome to Indo.

Kevin Huang

Life on the Gold Coast Pt. III / September 9, 2017 by Kevin Huang

Part III.

Settling In

I touched down in OOL after dark in a city with a population of half a million, the only person I knew being a girl I had met in the jungle 6 months prior, in a foreign country with the only belongings I had split between two suitcases and a board bag, not knowing where I was going to be living for the next few months, and having to drive a rental car on the opposite side of the road for the first time in my life.

With a deep breath and a sigh I shoved all of my earthly belongings into my tiny little rental car and hit the ignition.

Nobody ever said it was going to be easy I suppose.

The next few days were rough. I had signed up for flatmates, and I was lucky enough to find an entire three bedroom house with a big yard and a garage in Burleigh Heads. It was a nice house, in a great location, with a great price, and if I had been back home in the US there wouldn’t have been a problem. But, I just vividly remember sitting in the living room of this empty house when the enormity of just how alone I was hit me.

It’s not like I had a job lined up for me there. I couldn’t work there, and rightfully so since I was on a tourist visa. For thousands of miles in every direction I literally only knew one person. Things sort of reminded me of California, but everything was just different. The vibes were just completely different. Australia for those of you who have been there, and the Gold Coast in particular know that it’s unlike any other place on the planet. I couldn’t even call anyone, since nobody I knew back home was even awake. The way the time zones were, everyone back home was literally in a different day.

Queensland Standard Time

The infamous

I still remember just sitting on the floor, with my back against the wall, and my fingers just tapping on my knees trying to think about what the hell I was going to do. The air was still, beams of light streamed through the blinds, and it was very quiet, save for a few cars driving by in the distance. It was then that the realization that I was going to have to spend hours upon hours on end here slowly drilled itself into my brain with every tick of the clock.

I could literally hear the tick of my wrist watch it was that quiet.

I sat there against the wall for about 10 minutes. And then, without a single word, I packed everything up into my car and drove away. I never saw that house again. I only lasted one night there (if you’re reading this I’m so sorry Jen).

Luckily though, the universe took care of me and after a flurry of text messages and hurried internet browsing on my phone I ended up finding a room in a townhouse apartment on Binya Avenue in Coolangatta, just down the road from Kirra.

I had spent two years living alone back in Los Angeles and I actually loved it, but for some reason this was different. From the bottom of my heart I just knew that in Australia, on the Gold Coast, I needed to live and be surrounded by other people – and in this case those people ended up being a bunch of Slovenians.

Funnily enough, as I write this, yesterday, my friends back home in the USA were asking me what a typical stereotype of a Slovenian is, since they had never even heard of that country. Well, after two months of living in that house, I learned that wherever there’s one Slovenian, there’s at least 5 more right around the corner.

Slovenia is a tiny country in Central Europe with a population of only 2 million. Slovenia is a beautiful country, full of mountains, gorgeous valleys carved out by glaciers, and pristine lakes the likes of which would grace the cover of any travel magazine. But, unfortunately, the winters get brutally cold, and if you have any dreams of living a life other than a relatively simple one out in a log cabin (albeit a modern, incredibly comfortable, insanely well-built one) in the woods with your family, then it’s time to pack your bags and hit the road.

Because of this, there are Slovenians everywhere in the world. The first lady of the United States of America is actually a Slovenian ex-patriot, although unless another Slovenian made you privy to this information, you would never know. They are like chameleons, Slovenians. They are an incredibly kind, polite, and hard- working people, and their skin is white, so unless you stumbled upon one and specifically asked, you would never know they were Slovenian and not just your average, run of the mill backpacking European.

Australia, unlike Slovenia, is almost never brutally cold, the ocean is accessible to almost everyone, it’s extremely easy to find a job, and you can make good money there if you are willing to put in the work. The Slovenians I ended up living with, were all trying to find a way to permanently live in Australia – and they were succeeding! When I moved into the house on Binya Avenue, I essentially stumbled upon the unofficially designated Gold Coast Slovenian outpost.

The Gold Coast.... kind of like California, but no, not really.

I would be on my computer in the dining/living room editing photos when a group of Slovenians would bust through the door and usually one of them would be clearly agitated about something. What that thing was I would never know since they would almost always talk to each other in Slovenian. They would bust in the kitchen, and within a few minutes the blender would be whirring, the oven would be cooking up some incredible vegan dish, and I’d be shaking hands meeting someone’s cousin or brother or sibling who had just gotten in from Europe two days ago and was on a road trip all along the East Coast.

It was great. It was exactly what I needed. And after that first week passed, and I was able to open a bank account, get my new SIM card, buy a bicycle, stock my fridge with groceries, and finally take a second to breathe – things got much better.

And for the first time in 3 weeks, Australia sort of started to feel like home.

[ to be continued … ]

P.S.: To all of my old housemates, and your guys’ friends and family, I miss you all.

PART IV

Life on the Gold Coast saga

Back to America / November 11, 2016 by Kevin Huang

Just got back to America after 4 months in the jungle, and 3 months living with my family in Mexico. It's quite a big shock actually, and i'm glad that I was able to get the chance to transition back into society by going to my uncle's house in Mexico first. As soon as i got back to LA it was like full on circus. I went to a Kanye concert the first night I was back with a really good friend of mine and it was pretty surreal to say the least.

The pace of life, navigating traffic, being on such a tight schedule, the things people were saying, even just how fast people were talking to me was really jarring.

Click to zoom

The home break. Same wave, but it looked a lot different when I got home.

I was down in Mex for a bit as well the last few days to catch a swell. This is a whole nother story for another day, but there were some pros out towing in the water one big day while I was down there and I encountered them while I was swimming. I had had a pretty insane experience in the water that day - quite dangerous actually - and i figured it would be nice to get on the back of a ski next time. So, when I saw them on the beach later that day I talked to them, and gave them my info.

The first thing one of the guys asked was, " Do you have an Instagram?"

I did, but unfortunately it was more of a personal Instagram and I didn't really have any professional work on it. A friend of mine had also talked to me about it a few days prior and so that really got the cogs turning in the back of my mind.

Down in Central America, the internet was so slow I didn't even really bother with social media - it was such a hassle that it wasn't even worth it. Besides, when you're living out there, social media just seems so far away. There's plenty of life to be lived in the moment, social media is not only just a giant waste of time, it's the last thing you want to do while you're down there. It's STILL a waste of time in the "real world", and I still have this love/hate kind of relationship with it, but it's a sort of necessary evil. Just like any modern technology it's just another tool to be used. You can either be a slave to it, or you can use it for good, it's all about your personal relationship with it.

Recently, I had been mulling over the idea in my head of actually being a surf photographer. As in like, not just treating it like a hobby or a past time, but seriously devoting some time and energy into it. Mexico really made me question that (again, another story), but I knew that if I wanted to succeed, I would have to devote some time to developing a social media following - specifically an Instagram following.

I remember having this thought while sitting on my friend's porch in Santa Monica. He lived in an extremely nice part of town, and there were cars going by, lights flashing in the distance. Airplanes droned on overhead, and Netflix was streaming on the massive TV in the living room. Although I didn't really want to - and technically, I didn't really HAVE to - I felt that at least for a time, till I got to a place where I wanted to be, that I would have to devote some time and energy into working on something greater than myself and fitting into the bigger picture.

Social media is almost like a living metaphor for that. Social media connects people around the world through text, sound, video and imagery. There are literally people all over the world using Instagram. As a photographer, you're basically the lifeblood of Instagram since it thrives off of photos and images. There will always be a space and a demand for promising photographers and I knew that what I was producing had some potential. Not only would it be good for business (my business), but it would be a way of giving back to the world. And, that's one of the reasons I started doing this to begin with. I want to inspire people and share with everyone my love for the ocean, the waves which travel upon it, and the surfers who ride them - from the perspective of a person - a surfer - who loves all of these things in an extremely special and personal way - my own.

I remember finishing my cigarette and then just looking out into the street, surrounded by concrete and the first world. As much as you try and avoid it, we are all part of society. The effect is less in a place like Nicaragua although its tendrils reach you even there. However, ironically, places like Nica are much more free than many places in America. Returning to civilization, to America, really made me understand just how caught up I was - how caught up we all are- in its web. Returning to civilization isn't just about realizing where you are, but it's about realizing where you fit in it all.

And for some of us, the answer is, we don't really fit in anywhere.

However, for me, the situation isn't so dire. Deep in the core of my being I know I need to return to Central America. However, right now, I need to see what I can bring back with me from the jungle to to city. And when the time comes for me to return to the jungle, I'll hopefully have everything set up for me for my return to civilization as well.

Duality. Freedom. Everything. That is what I want. I know how to get there, it's just a matter of getting it done.