Trading Tubes with Mikala Jones & Marlon Gerber 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. 

What I woke up to....

  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. 

Heavy

Marlon Gerber deep in the shade...

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. VII by Kevin Huang

Part VII.

Epilogue:

Time is Up

Gold Coast clouds

As epic as that previous week was, it was the beginning of the end. 

We got a couple more swells, and I spent more than a handful of days doing nothing but inhaling food, sleeping, and surfing.  But deep down, I knew something was changing.  After a two week run of perfection, things started to slow down again. 

Eventually, a hurricane hit in late March, flooding parts of Queensland and NSW.  With it came the cold.  The ocean became yellow and brown due to the runoff from the hurricane and water visibility dropped to nothing.  The water got so cold I had to take my wetsuit out again. 

During this time, I also saw my girlfriend for the last time.  Surfing had allowed me to distract myself from the reality of the situation, but as the swell dropped and the cold hit, it slowly dawned on me that I wasn’t ever going to see her again. 

Indo teasers.  Basically this was blowing up my Insta feed during my last weeks in Oz.  I ended up taking this photo a month later in Indo.  A little preview of what was to come...

During the last few weeks I had begun to see pictures surfacing from around various locations in Indo, teasing my Instagram feed with shots of perfect, empty waves.  The early season swells had begun to hit, and the crowds hadn’t caught on yet.  With the Superbank firing on all cylinders, my lust for waves was kept in check, but as the swell and the water temps dropped, the call to leave Oz for Indo became inescapable.  My Visa was running out as well, and I was going to have to leave the country to renew my Visa anyway, so the call to leave for Indo became unavoidable.  When two of my Slovenian roommates moved out of the house, I knew beyond a doubt that the time had come. 

 

The Indo quiver.  From left to right:  [The all arounder/pointbreak machine.  The fish.  The step-up/gun.  The go-to shortboard.] 

The Indo quiver.  From left to right:  [The all arounder/pointbreak machine.  The fish.  The step-up/gun.  The go-to shortboard.] 

And so with a heavy heart, I packed my bags, sent off one last message to my now ex, and hopped on a plane bound for Kuala Lumpur, the first leg on my journey to Indo, – alone. 

 

To this day, I still can’t really put my finger on why we broke up.  As usual, I spent a lot of time trying to work out why.  I kept going over all of our conversations and texts with a fine toothed comb trying to find some shred of a clue, but the more I thought about it, the more complicated things became.  There were many possible answers, all valid, but the more I thought about it, the simple answer which she had given me when we last spoke was more than enough.  She just felt like she needed to be alone.  

The more and more that I think about it, the more and more that I respect her for it.   

Prepped for Indo.  This lasted me about 3 weeks. 

 

I can’t really say much except that the woman who I had reconnected with on the Gold Coast was not the same woman I had met in the jungle.  Deep down, she was still in there somewhere, but her return to “the real world” had brought up some ghosts of her past, and she was in a place where she needed to take care of them on her own.  As much as I wished I could help her, I had been in her shoes once, and I knew that introspection is something that at times, needs to be undertaken alone. 

Thinking back on the whole situation though, I couldn’t even fault her for anything.  I’ve had messy breakups in the past, but this time, she stayed true to her word and we both peacefully went our separate ways.  I can’t thank her enough for that.   She was undoubtedly a special little human.  Without a doubt I will love that woman till the day that I die. 

And with that final loose end taken care of and nothing holding me back, I hopped on a plane and took off to Indo.  The adventure I had waited my whole life for was about to begin...  

And that concludes the Gold Coast chapter. If you're itching to find out what happens next, don't worry.... I don't know when I'll drop it, but you can look forward to the Indo chapters sometime in the near future. Until then, if you want a little sneak preview into what happened during my time in Indo, check this article .

Thanks for reading guys!  I really do appreciate the love and support.  Stay tuned for more soon!

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Life on the Gold Coast Pt. VI by Kevin Huang

Part. VI

The Beast Awakens

As soon as I got a look at the ocean I knew the swell had arrived.

The beach which for the last month had looked no different than the side of a lake was now delivering line after line of ruler edged perfection.  For an entire mile I rode my bike along the beach towards the head of Snapper rocks, and for an entire mile I saw waves stacked to the horizon.  If I had not seen it with my own two eyes I would have never believed it.  Where there were once no waves, there were now waves that seemingly defied the laws of physics.  People were getting barreled for over 100 yards.  It didn’t seem real. 

Julian Wilson

For a few minutes all I could do was stare and hoot as I saw chargers pull into perfect azure caverns.  My mouth grew dryer with every passing second as each successive wave that broke in front of me crushed my sense of reality.  I had been surfing for nearly a decade and I had never seen anything like this.   These were without a doubt some of the best waves I had ever seen in my entire life.

Eventually, my eagerness overcame my awe and I quickly locked my bike up, grabbed my surfboard and made my way out into the lineup.  Just as I was about to reach the lineup a set came and broke right in front of me.  The last thing I saw before a perfect double overhead screamer crashed down on top of me was Jack Freestone pulling into a giant tube.  His wetsuit jacket was unzipped and it fluttered in the wind as he flew down the face of the wave.  Yup, it was on.

Gabriel Medina

That set thwarted my first attempt to paddle out and washed me down the beach, causing me to miss the entry point.  The current was ripping super hard.  In about 5 minutes I had gone from Snapper all the way to Coolangatta.  I decided to cut my losses, get out, and do another lap to the top of Snapper.  On this second attempt, I made it out. 

John John Florence

Owen Wright

Sitting in the lineup was sort of like going to a Hollywood movie premiere for the first time.  The lineup was filled with people who I clearly recognized but had never met in person.  Pro surfers on tour, freesurfers, and random surf industry people who I had seen on the internet were all around me in the lineup.   I spent half the time out in the water just staring in awe at pros making waves that didn’t seem possible.   Guys were taking off behind the groin at Snapper – a feat which surely would have killed a mere mortal - and not only making the wave but getting insanely barreled.   I ended up sitting further down the line, and when my turn finally came, I whipped it, paddled, dropped in, and was engulfed in a full on tube before (of course) someone dropped in on me and the wave closed out.  But it was a start.  For the next 6 hours I proceeded to pull into waves I had only dreamed of.  The crowd and the tide came, and went, and then came again, and I was still there.  The waves were just too good.  I don’t even remember how many laps I did from Kirra back to Snapper.  I must have spent almost as much time walking back up the point than actually surfing it.   

Never in my life had I ever seen anything like it.  Each wave I caught was longer than any other wave I had ever surfed – point breaks included.  The wave looked like a point, but surfed like a beachie.  It was the weirdest feeling.  It was like the best of both worlds.  The length and never ending ride of a point mixed with the speed, and power of a beach break.  

For three days the swell continued.  Funnily enough, even though I’m a surf photographer, I didn’t take any pictures until the third day.  The waves were so good I couldn’t bring myself to stop surfing long enough to even grab my camera.  While the pictures I snagged from this swell are good, conditions were nowhere near as good as the first two days.  But then again, there was already plenty of coverage from the horde of surf photographers there.  There was no need for me to document anything.  Besides, I was on vacation.      

The swell came just in time, as the Quicksilver pro ended up being the following week.  Because of this, every pro was in the water at some point during that swell getting ready for the contest to come.  I spent one afternoon just taking pictures at Snapper.  That session was a goldmine.  Roughly half of the guys I grew up watching in surf movies were shredding right in front of me in the space of a single afternoon.  It was one of the trippiest experiences of my life.  

The following week, for the contest, we got another round of swell, slightly smaller but just as epic.  The waves were smaller, but the conditions were arguably better, and the crowd lightened up (since everyone was at the contest).  Ironically, I didn’t even watch a single heat of the Quickie pro.  The waves were so good I ended up surfing another spot and getting tubed the entire time.   There was one session in particular - the water was perfect, silver reflective glass, like ichor, and barrel after barrel was coming through with only a handful of guys out.  The only sound was the pitter patter of light rain hitting the water, the spray of offshore wind, and the loudspeaker from the Quickie pro announcing heat results far off in the distance.

Took this after the swell dropped.

Took this after the swell dropped.

I heard some guys complaining that they should have run the contest the previous week since the waves were better.  One of their friends overhead and interjected- if they had, the locals wouldn’t have gotten a chance to surf it.  He was right.  Sometimes, things work out exactly as they should. 

[to be continued...]

Life on the Gold Coast Pt. V by Kevin Huang

Part V.

Omens

Ghosts

Ghosts

Looking back on it, it was undoubtedly a stroke of fate that I ended up living close to Snapper Rocks.  I had come to the Gold Coast for reasons other than surf, and I hadn’t even bothered to do any research on any of the waves before I arrived.   I really only ended up living in Coolangatta because the rent was decent, my girlfriend was there, and I got lucky (see Pt. III lol). 

However, after I got settled and my mind shifted to thoughts other than survival, I finally started paying attention to the surf. 

Yup.  That was the very one.

Yup.  That was the very one.

The most obvious omen that there were good waves around the area was the massive poster of Jack Freestone threading a massive drainer pinned up on the side of Kirra Surf Shop, which just so happened to be down the street from my house.  The photo was literally taken at the beach right across the street from the surf shop (although it took me a while to put two and two together).

My Slovenian roommates (mostly the Vegan fitness instructor) would constantly complain about how the waves were shit (despite weeks upon weeks of beautiful A frame runners at D-bah).  But, if you offered them a little sympathy, they would sometimes start reminiscing about the times when there was good swell.  After complaining about how they should have stayed in Indo for another few weeks, stories of perfect double overhead tubes running from Snapper Rocks all the way through Kirra began to surface.  Whispers of lines stacked to the horizon, with enough waves to appease the hordes of frothing surfers began to stir and tease my imagination. 

Hoax?  Source: glassy.pro

Hoax?  Source: glassy.pro

I would usually go surfing after hearing these stories.  I would almost always pass by Snapper on my way to surf Dbah, and it would always be about ankle high.

I would stare at the waves for a bit, squinting at the ocean in the hope of coaxing the sea to send a good wave through, but that never seemed to work.  However, even on the smallest of days, when out of desperation people would whip out their SUP’s in order to catch SOMETHING, it seemed like there was always a little something to ride.  But, for the most part, the wait continued.  Hilariously, even with the ankle biters, Snapper Rocks was still crowded.  My doubts that I would ever see this wave break properly started to grow.  

I mean.... it's not bad.... but it's not SNAPPER ROCKS if you know what I mean

The days wore on, and I slowly started getting fed up with all of the hordes of aggro surfers endlessly dropping in on me at Dbah and my patience started to grow thin. 

Kooks... every single one of them

Kooks... every single one of them

On the home front, things started to grow complicated as well.  My girlfriend was getting busier and busier at work and it was getting more and more difficult to find time to hang out with her.  Eventually the tension between us reached a tipping point and we got into an argument.  By this time, the girl who I had met in the jungle was almost nonexistent.  The lust for life which had come so easily to her when we lived simply in the jungle together, had been buried deep down by the soul crushing responsibilities of “reality.”  Ironically, living together in the jungles of Central America felt a thousand times more real than the “reality” of the concrete jungle we now lived in.  But of course, imagine how hard it was to try and convince her of that.  God, but despite the struggles, I still remember how good she looked in her workout outfit as she stood in the driveway with a big frown on her face.  It was torture. 

Feels

It was at this moment that the swell finally decided to intervene.      

I hadn’t even bothered to check the forecast due to the stress she was causing me.  But, that next morning, with the renewed vigor to surf that only a fight with your girlfriend can bring you, I woke up to a Gold alert on Surfline.  And when I checked the cam on swellnet the Superbank was absolutely cranking. CRANKING.  And if you can tell it’s cranking on the trash quality cam feed then you KNOW it’s on.

Within record time my bike was packed.  I didn’t even bother to bring anything, I just put my boardies and my rashie on, strapped the board to the rack and hopped on my bike.   There were still huge conspicuous gobs of white sun screen lathered on my face but I didn’t care.  At that moment all that mattered was the sea. 

 

It was coming...

[to be continued...]

Life on the Gold Coast Pt. IV by Kevin Huang

Part IV.

DURANBAH

Slotted.  Typical day at D-bah.

Dbah was the only wave on the Gold Coast that was working the first three weeks I was there, so that’s all that I surfed. 

From my house on Binya Avenue in Coolangatta, Kirra was a 2 minute bike ride from my front door.  Snapper was probably about 8 minutes, and D-bah was probably 10. 

Currumbin Alley was about a 35 minute bike ride if I rode fast, Burleigh was about an hour and fifteen, and Straddie was about a 2 hour trek.  I never got to surf Straddie though unfortunately.

For the first month that I was there, there wasn’t enough swell for the machine-like points that the Gold Coast is known for to start working, so I surfed the only place within biking distance that had any solid swell – Duranbah.

Life was good.  I would wake up every day and check the forecast.  If it was good, I would surf.  If it was pumping, within 5 minutes of checking the cam on Swellnet, I would have all of my beach supplies packed into my backpack, my board strapped onto my bike rack, and I’d be walking out the door on my way to the beach. 

Gold Coast Surf Break map

The trusty steed.  Buying a car was too expensive and didn't make sense, so I ended up just buying a bicycle.  Don't be fooled, the surf rack was held on with duct tape and prayers.   

The trusty steed.  Buying a car was too expensive and didn't make sense, so I ended up just buying a bicycle.  Don't be fooled, the surf rack was held on with duct tape and prayers.   

Aside from feeding myself, I literally had no other responsibilities.  For the first time in my entire life I was able to pass endless hours at the beach with absolutely no one waiting on me for weeks on end.  It’s a really special feeling being able to sit out in the lineup with absolutely no pressure to leave perfect waves in order to go to work.   Even when I was surf guiding in Nicaragua, spending 10 hour days in the ocean, I was still waiting on the guests.  We still had to surf the breaks that they wanted to.  Oz was the first time that I had complete freedom.  If the surf was pumping, I’d be pulling six hour sessions, surfing until the point that I felt that if I kept surfing any longer, I would definitely tear or pull a muscle.  I would hilariously surf through multiple tides swings on some days.  It was epic.   

Yeah, you wouldn't get out either if it looked like this.

I was there in the late summer, early fall.  The days were bright and sunny, the water was still warm, its color a magically beautiful aqua, and the underwater visibility was unreal.  Almost every single day, you could see the sand on the bottom of any beach, 6, 10, even 15 feet below you.  On the Gold Coast, even with a population of a half a million, both the land and the ocean seemed virgin. 

The first month was very peaceful.  It was simple, and nice.  Living without any obligations or responsibilities was incredible.  I had many beautiful days shoulder to head-high days at D-bah.  The wave was the most special beach break I had ever surfed, by far.  It is the definition of a bowly, A-frame.  It’s a tricky wave, as the wave often comes in at a strange angle, and then wraps when it hits the sandbar.  Every wave you think is going to be a left, becomes a right, and vice versa.   At first, your intuition tells you the wave is going to break in one spot, but then at the last second it backs off, wraps, and then the A frame peak forms just 10 feet away from you and starts to break perfectly as long, aqua walls with a hint of green peel away on both sides. 

Funnily enough, I had no idea this wave even existed let alone barreled when I first got here.  Click the photo for a link to the insta page and a little story about discovering this wave. 

Funnily enough, I had no idea this wave even existed let alone barreled when I first got here.  Click the photo for a link to the insta page and a little story about discovering this wave. 

For days on end I would surf there in the late morning and afternoon, sharing fun, head high swell with the local rippers, Brazilian “students”, underground Japanese ex pat shredders, and the occasional Kiwi.  It would definitely get crowded at times, but not having the pressure of having to catch X number of waves before work kind of mellows you out when in the lineup, and there were always enough waves for everyone if you had patience.

For a time, it was good.  But, after a while, I began to get restless.  Paradise can become monotonous.

The waves were fun, but eventually they got boring.  After surfing on the North Shore in Hawaii, the waves in Australia seemed small.  Don’t get me wrong, I love surfing perfect head high beachies with no consequences, but it felt like something was missing.  I hadn’t come halfway across the world to surf a beach break, even if it was one of best ones on the planet. 

Sometime during the blissful carefree weeks of surfing D-bah I had reunited with my little ex jungle explorer.  Every doubt I had of coming to Australia was erased when I hugged her again for the first time, but as the dust settled, I realized that things now were going to be different.  I remember watching her car drive away after that first time we hung out and I realized that it was going to take a long time to work things out between us.  I was going to have to remain in Australia for a lot longer than I had expected.

Whether it was waiting for waves, or waiting for a woman, the most difficult challenge of living on the Gold Coast, was the waiting.

Luckily, I didn’t have to wait for long….

[to be continued]

Life on the Gold Coast Pt. III by Kevin Huang

Part III.

Settling In

Kirra

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.

Everything i owned in this life

 

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.      

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.  

Binya Ave

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.

Life on the Gold Coast pt. II by Kevin Huang

PROLOGUE:  

Landing in Oz

I touched down in Sydney after a 12 hr flight from Honolulu and that afternoon hitched a 5 hour bus ride to Canberra (with two suitcases, and a board bag no less) where my boy AcB was living. 

 

 

 

That night we ended up partying till 2am (I took a cab home since AcB was still raging but it's all good) and I woke up on the couch the next morning to the sound of some girl getting railed.  

 

So began my first day in Australia.  

 

 

While I was there, so many things were happening, and I had so many things on my mind at the time, that it became difficult to really soak it all in in that moment.  It wasn't until many months later (which is partly why I'm writing this blog post), that everything sort of started making sense.  

I went into the country not knowing what was going to happen - I had only bought a one way ticket to Sydney.  I had been granted a tourist visa which lasted for an entire year, and I could come and go as many times within the year as I pleased, but the longest I could remain in the country was three months - I had to leave and come back if I wanted to stay longer than three months.

The girl who I was chasing, I hadn't seen in about 6 months, and although I obviously cared for her, there was no telling what was going through her head now.  When I made the decision to come, I figured aside from a basic overview of the country, there was only so much I could learn from the Internet, so I came with the mindset that I would just wing it (it's always more fun that way anyway).  It was essentially a "show up, and see how things go" type of situation.    

The first two weeks in Oz were sick.  My friend AcB welcomed me in, we road tripped along the coast, and he pretty much gave me a sink or swim crash course on how to survive all manner of Australian life or death situations (VB is always the answer).  I still remember freaking out with pure stoke the first time I saw a Kangaroo.  

We started out going east and pretty much made our way up the New South Whales coast.  It was one of those trips where the sacrifices were done properly and the wave gods came through.  We would show up to perfect wave after perfect wave, sometimes with a crowd, sometimes with only one dude out, but always with enough waves for us all. Sometimes more than enough.   We surfed point breaks, beachies, and reefs.  To me, it all seemed normal, but my boy, who had made the pilgrimage up the coast many times, assured me that this was something special.  The wave gods were indeed looking down upon us.  And it was good. 

But, sadly, before I knew it, I was running around the airport again, getting owned by the lady behind the ticket counter, smashed by board bag fees, and trying to catch a solo flight up to the Gold Coast.  And with my heart in my throat, it was back again to reality ...  

Life on the Gold Coast Pt. I by Kevin Huang

A U S T R A L I A

INTRO:

The Backstory

 @julian_wilson absolutely shredding just before the #quicksilverpro. @hurley @redbull_surfing // Snapper Rocks

So, I've never had the time to sort of explain what's happened, but I'm home now, and for the first time in months I have a little down time.


My goal, for years, was set on Indo - the world's most perfect surfing playground - at least that's what surf media and the internet had convinced 15 year old me of. But, Indo is quite literally on the other side of the world. It's an exact 12 hour time difference depending on which time zone you're in. And, as it always is when traveling to the other side of the world, it's a bit of a journey.


If you look at a map, there are two ways to get there from the United States.

You either go east, or you west. You either cross the Atlantic, Europe, the Middle East, India, and you arrive in Kuala Lumpur..... or you go west, across the entire continental United States (in my case), refuel in Hawaii, and then hit KUL.

Julian Wilson

 

Well, it wasn't a very difficult decision whether I wanted to go to Hawaii vs the Middle East and if you're going to Hawaii then you might as well go to fucking Australia. So boom, three months later I was in Australia lol.


And of course, two really, really good friends of mine were in Australia. So it was a no brainer.

Typical scene at #snapperrocks.

The Gold Coast is an interesting place.


It's the kind of place that you are lured to for reasons other than surf.


Maybe it's a new job. Maybe your family lives here. Maybe, you're tired of surfing your shitty, blown out home break and you see the opportunity for a better life in Oz. For most of the people who surf on the Gold Coast, this is their reality.


The beauty of this place is that by coming here, you are essentially stumbling upon one of the greatest wave parks on the planet.


Just pray you're not goofy.

Morning glass 💎✨🌊

The Crown Jewel 💎 ✨

The Crown Jewel 💎 ✨

As these types of stories often begin, I ended up on the Gold Coast because of a girl. 

I had met this girl in the jungle, on the other side of the planet.  Long story short, we were separated.  

But, she was the kind of girl worth chasing around the world...

 And so I did. For the first time in a long time she gave me hope for a life different than the one I was living.  She meant everything to me. 

And now, she was living on the Gold Coast. 

 

[to be continued.  Check back when I drop a new post on Instagram!]

FEATURED ON INDO SURF CREW by Kevin Huang

 

CHECK THE LINK

 

Not all of the photos made it into the article, so feel free to check some of my favorite shots from that epic session in High Res below:

MIKALA JONES

C L I C K    T O    Z O O M

 

MARLON GERBER

C L I C K    T O    Z O O M

 

MIKALA JONES

Back to America 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.  

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.

 

The South Bay Los Angeles

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better... by Kevin Huang

...it did. 

The day after Colorados brought a lot more of the same.  Out of the four guests that we had had, two of them had left, and one of them was sick.  The last remaining guest was scheduled to leave the next day.  We had already surfed a fun session in the morning, and since it was nearing the end of the week, the vibe all around the camp was pretty relaxed.  We almost ended up not going, but our most seasoned guide Brad who had been surfing the area the last few months, suggested we hit one more spot as a sendoff to our guest.  Again, we weren't really expecting much, but I decided to bring my camera as well as my board just in case.  

The spot we ended up hitting was called Rancho Santanas.  I would almost best describe it as Colorado’s older sister.  Both are sand bottom beach breaks which chuck picture perfect barrels when the conditions align.  However, where Colorados is a very fast, aggressive wave, Santanas requires you to make sweet love to it in order to surf it properly.  At Colorados, if you want to get barreled, you need to stand up as fast as you can, pump, and then try and duck before the lip decapitates you.  The wave is a quick, dumping barreling wave which often closes out.  At Santanas it’s almost the opposite.  There is a main peak at Santanas, with a couple more peaks down the beach.  The main peak is a perfect A frame which jacks up, continues to jack, slowly starts to break at the peak, and once it gains momentum starts forming a barrel as the wave starts to hit the inside and the weight of the water behind it causes it to start falling upon itself.  Things can change depending on the tides, but if you surf the main peak you need to learn how to fade in order to line yourself up properly with the tube.  Not every wave barrels either, and Santanas peels a lot more slowly than Colorados so if you just get up and start pumping you can find yourself outrunning the wave.  

In any case, none of this information was known to me when I first paddled out.  The only thing Brad told me as I pulled up was that the wave was a beachbreak similar to Colorados except he liked this one better.  There were a lot of peaks so the best thing to do was to find a peak and sit on it.  With that he tossed my board in the water and I promptly jumped in after it. 

I ended up paddling into an empty spot between two of the bigger peaks.  From the boat all you could see were the back of the waves, so I wasn’t able to gauge what the waves were like until I got into the lineup.  Almost as soon as I stopped paddling and looked to my sides, a perfect, 6 foot wave came in at the peak and unloaded into a perfect A-frame with a barrel section.  For the second time in 48 hours my jaw dropped.  And then a second wave came in, and a third, and a fourth.  I looked to the other peak on the opposite side of me and it was almost the same thing but in reverse.  It was about 2 and a half hours till sunset and it was perfect glass.  I swear I just sat there in awe.  

I finally snapped out of it when Brad paddled up to me.  I took off on my first wave, but unfortunately I ate it.  Since I had surfed Colorados the day before my timing was off.   The next wave was better, and then the next one was a barrel.  I turned to see Brad pull into a tube.  For the next 45 minutes we just sat there trading off wave after wave after wave, paddling back and seeing the locals put on an absolute clinic on the main peak. 

The correct way to ride the wave....

The incorrect way.  Alternate caption:  The price of failure.

After about an hour I finally remembered I had brought my camera.  I paddled a half km back out to the boat, traded my board for fins and hopped back out into the water and swam to the lineup.  The sun was dropping lower and lower into the sky and it was lighting the waves perfectly.  There were so many waves coming in that it grew frantic.  I would point my camera at the main peak, snap a few shots, then whip a 180, change a couple settings on my camera and try and snap a few more pics of the other peak, and then vice versa.  There were so many waves and so much power in them, I actually ended up losing a fin.  The thing never surfaced so I ended up finishing the session with one fin on.  

 
 

Last light

Eventually, the froth grew unbearable and I ended up swimming another half km out to the boat, traded my fins for my board and spent the last 30 minutes of daylight surfing.  It was so difficult to make the call to leave.   When we finally started calling out to our captain, he whipped the boat around and almost pulled directly into the lineup. We frantically threw our boards on to the boat and took off.  I remember getting launched into the air as the boat tried to crest a set wave.  On the boat ride back everyone was super stoked. 

For the second day in a row, we had scored.   

Colorados by Kevin Huang

There's nothing quite like the feeling you get when you paddle out expecting it to be small, and end up getting caught inside as set after set of perfect head high+ waves steamroll through the lineup and clear everyone out.  

Colorados definitely did not disappoint.

We were all looking at the swell chart that morning and there was about a 2.5 - 3 foot swell in the water at about 14 seconds.  We had a pretty uneventful session out at Lance's in the morning so we weren't really expecting anything.  It was a couple of the guests' last day in Nica so they just wanted to get one last session in before they took off back to the real world.  Since they hadn't gotten the chance to surf Colorados (and since it's only like a 3 minute boat ride), we all decided to just pull up to Colorados and give it a go.  We rolled up to the spot and didn't even bother looking at it.  The guides and I unstrapped everyone's boards, tossed them into the water and everyone took off on their merry way.  Notably, it was also the first time I took my water housing out  in Nica. 

I swim out to the lineup with my bright red helmet on, and not five minutes passes when a massive three wave set, probably a foot or two overhead sweeps through and WRECKS everyone.  A couple of our guests were riding longboards and had been surfing relatively softer waves so when that first set came through they got absolutely demolished.  

Yup....deeeefinitely too far inside on this one...

There's no better feeling than rolling up to a spot in a boat, but from a purely practical point of view, sometimes it's actually better to humbly paddle out from the beach.  When you pull up to spot in a boat, especially a beachbreak where you can't get a good angle on what the wave looks like as it's coming in,  it's very difficult to get a read on what the wave is doing.  When you paddle out from the beach you have a lot more time to analyze the wave, see where it's breaking, how it's coming in, and to get a read on how big it is that day.  When you paddle out from shore you can feel how the current is moving and you get a better idea of what's happening that day.  When you come in from the boat, especially at a break like Colorados, all you see are the backs of the waves so you really have no idea how big it's actually going to be. In Nica, it's fairly common to see the backs, think it's about chest high, and when you finally get out into the lineup it's overhead+.  That's exactly what happened this day.

I ended up paddling in a little too close to shore and essentially got caught inside on that set, and on the next one.  My camera was causing me some issues and wasn't focusing properly.  I was frothing so hard I hadn't double checked everything before I jumped off the boat.  I realized this as I was already in the lineup so as I was trying to fiddle with the settings on my camera, wave after wave came crashing right on my head.  Since Colorados is a beach break, there's no channel to comfortably shoot from, and waves and people were coming at me from every which way.  Not only that, but it was the first time I had been in the water in waves that large and powerful with my water housing.  All in all, definitely not the greatest day of shooting I've ever had.  

In any case, I ended up switching to video and managed to get a couple of little snippets here and there.  At the very least, it captures the franticness of the session hah!  After about 10 minutes though, I realized I was in over my head.  I ended up paddling back out to the boat, trading my fins and camera for my board, and paddled back out into the lineup.  

 

With my board I felt way more comfortable.  I took some time to figure out the wave and found the peaks.  There was one A-frame peak in the middle that was coming in bigger than the others.  The wave would come in at the same spot every time, and it would be a huge wall stretching out for 100 yards in either direction.   Ideally, you could shoulder hop the wave, and MAYBE make it out if you raced it.  However, due to the crowd, everyone kept pushing each other deeper and deeper, and people were taking off right on the peak, pulling in, riding the barrel for a couple of seconds, and then it would clamp on them.  Eventually, excitement got the better of me and despite my hatred of crowds I paddled for the peak.  I bided my time, and when I finally saw an opening I took off on a nice left.  I paddled, felt the wave pick me up, grabbed my outside rail, and pulled into a nice little lefthand cavern.  Unfortunately it closed out on me but tube time is still tube time.

Conditions were challenging, but it was as good as any one of the best days back in California.  People were getting barreled left and right, but only I only saw one guy make it out.  For a first session at Colorados, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

 

Even with all the craziness, I still managed to snap this little gem. 

Lance's Left by Kevin Huang

Obviously,  after finally getting a good night's sleep I was raring to get in the water.  

We were in the boat at around five in the morning, and it was about a 45 minute boat ride to reach the break.  There wasn't much swell in the water, and the tide was low, so the call was made to hit Lance's Left.  Lance's was discovered by a a local boat captain, one of the pioneers of surfing in this region.  I don't believe he has any relation to the guy who discovered the wave in the Mentawais.  Legend has it he kept this wave secret for many years.

Lance's is a lefthand point break with a big cliff as a backdrop.   One a good day the wave peels for up to 500 yards.  Today though, it was relatively small.  We pulled up just as the sun was peaking on the horizon.  The light was beautiful, but unfortunately no waves were rolling in.  After about 5 minutes though, a nice head high set rolled in and within seconds everyone was scrambling to untie their boards and get in the water.

 

The wave has a nice ramp to it.  The takeoff zone is a bit small, but on the good ones, the wall jacks up and you get a nice little race track.  The key to surfing the wave is to know how to speed up and slow down.  

We surfed the break for around 2 and a half hours, and then the tide got a little high.  Not a bad first day out.  

Made it by Kevin Huang

 

 

I think the thing that most surprised me though, was when she told me that the entire population of Nicaragua totalled only 6 million people.  I grew up in New York City which has a population of 8 million.  It's just now hitting me that this might have been a little rude (damnit N.Y.) but I think I blurted out a "WHAT?!" as we pulled out of the cloud cover and descended down to the airport.  I think that's when it dawned on me just what I was getting into.  New York City, which takes about an hour and a half to get from one end to the other via auto, is home to 2 million more people than a country 165 times its size.  

At that moment the airport pulled into view.  It looked more like a ball field than an airport.  I was landing in Managua, the capitol city of Nicaragua, but I couldn't really see any buildings - or any sign that it was a city for that matter.  The only really noticeable thing was a Russian military helicopter to the side of the runway.

" Is that it?"  I asked my guide.

"Si." 

The transition through the airport was pretty standard.  I changed some dollars for Cordobas, paid a small fee to get my passport stamped, handed some dude a bunch of coins (no idea how much it was worth) in exchange for my board bag, told customs that my three cameras and water housing were indeed for hobby use, and walked out into the hot Nicaraguan air fucking stoked.  

It was at that point that I realized that the only instruction I was given once I arrived in Nicaragua was to wait for a guy named Danny (Dani?) with a Hyundai.  Ok.  5 minutes passed.  Ten.  Fifteen.  There I was, my first time in a third world country with two and a half thousand dollars worth of camera equipment, three surfboards, a duffel bag, and a backpack, all while wearing boardshorts, flip flops, and a backwards RVCA cap waiting for a guy named "Danny."  I suddenly became acutely aware of all of those details.  I also had no idea what Danny even looked like.  

After a few sweaty minutes, luckily, a Nica dude strolled up to me, announced that he was from Giant's Foot and just like that all was well.  Turns out the car wasn't a Hyundai but some offbrand Russian model from the 90's but it was all good.  I said fuck it, threw my bags in the car, strapped the boards to the roof and with a sense of relief I cannot possibly convey through the internet, took off on a two and a half hour journey into the middle of the jungle to where I'd be spending the next three months of my life.  

To be honest there wasn't much to say about Managua.  We got out of there as soon as possible.  About the rest of the trip I can't say much either.  I remember driving entirely on a two lane road passing countless banana trees, a couple of volcanoes, and a lot of tin shacks with no running water or paved floors yet satellite dishes on the roof.  The last thirty minutes were on a purely dirt road.  I remember the car stalling out multiple times.  Luckily I could speak Spanish since Danny didn't know any English and the drive went by quickly.  Apparently he had been working with Conrad and Bryce (my two bosses) for a while now, and things were going well.  That was a good sign.  

When I finally arrived at the camp it was empty.  The camp is basically set up as a large house with multiple rooms for guests, a large living room, and a large kitchen.  After unloading my bags, I walked through the house, stepped right out of the kitchen on to the sand, and stared straight out into the ocean.  From the inside of the house to the high tide line was about 50 feet.  I couldn't believe it.  You could lay in the hammocks out front and hear the sound of the waves crashing on shore.  It was/is unreal.  

Eventually Conrad came and welcomed me to the camp.  I met Paul the social media guy, and the rest of the local Nica staff.  I unpacked my things and am currently sleeping in one of the extra guest rooms, although I hear I'll be moving to an undisclosed location called "the Loma" at some point in the future.  

The bathroom has no door, all the roads are dirt, and there are pigs, cows, chickens and dogs running rampant through the streets but it's all good.  

I made it.   I'm alive, and I made it.   

I've slept a total of 8 hours in the last 72 but I finally made it.  Somehow, I managed to move out of my apartment, put everything into storage, return the keys to the leasing office, pack my bags, and get on my flight without passing out unconscious halfway there.  If it wasn't for my dad who helped me out, I'd still be shoving clothes into boxes at Self-Storage.  

I pretty much spent the entire flight from L.A. to Mexico City snoring as loudly as possible, but on the flight from Mexico City to Managua I managed to stay awake long enough to chat with a Nicaraguan girl who was returning home to visit her family.  Due to the craziness of moving, I hadn't had much time to do any research on the country outside of the relatively small area that I was headed to so it was nice to learn a little about the rest of the country from a local.  Nicaragua is home to the largest lake in all of Central America.  This lake is the cause of the weather patterns which generate offshore winds (a.k.a. perfect waves) 300+ days out of the year for the southern Pacific side of Nicaragua.  The lake is so big that it supports a population of bull sharks, and some of the many islands that dot the lake are owned by wealthy Nicaraguans. Apparently some of these islands are available for rent if you're looking for a getaway.  

 

 

 

Welcome! by Kevin Huang

Thanks for checking out the blog!  

Things have been pretty hectic the past couple of weeks.  About 20 days ago, I got an email saying there was an opening for a surf guide/surf photographer position down in Central America, and 4 days later I had quit my job managing a law firm and bought a one way ticket to Nicaragua.   To the casual observer [a.k.a. the parentals], this probably seems like a stroke of insanity, but the reality is that I've been working towards this for the past few years of my life.  Personally, I would have liked to spend a few more months in California, but when destiny calls, you'd be an idiot not to answer.  

In any case, I've got about 19 days till my plane takes off, and there's still a ton of things left to do.  Still (if you're reading this blog post), then I've managed to finish building the new site-and that's one huge positive step in the right direction.  Time to make that $$$ !%#&es

I've spent more time sitting in this chair looking at these walls and screens than I've spent in my own damn house.  I really do love this place, but it's time to go forth.