Day 134

     Killer day today. Woke up as usual for the 7am session but went back to sleep for a few hours to rest up. Finally headed out solo about 10 and had the worst session to date. I was still getting to the right spot to catch a wave but I wasn’t able to catch one. This is the worst combo, essentially I was putting myself in the biggest part of the wave at its most powerful time (which is exactly what you want to do) but if I don’t catch it at that point, like I said earlier it’s at its most powerful time and will just annihilate me. I got beat to pieces in all my attempts. I had the leash tied around both feet again, another time my head smashed into my board, one time spun so much I was trying to swim down to the bottom of the ocean because I thought it was up. It was just an ugly day on the waves.

     I got back so frustrated because I knew I was on the threshold of riding big waves every time, since I was doing all the set up right, I just couldn’t get up on them after I had paddled. I asked the Australians what I was doing wrong to which I received the classic surfing answer “I don’t know man. In surfing you just get beaten up for awhile until you figure it out and then you know.” This couldn’t be less helpful but at the same time it’s the classic example because you can’t really teach someone more than the basics, they just have to develop an intuition for it, just as I have been developing an intuition for where to be and when to be and how to get there.

     However I needed something and asked Oliver the hostel owner and he gave me three little tiny tweak adjustments to try the next time I went out.

     The good news is that Mike is getting even more gourmet with his cappuccinos in the morning:

     That night I suited back up and headed out. I paddled out to where it was quite heavy and went for the first one that rolled through. I tried Olivers first tweak, a matter of moving my hands 2 inches down the board when I pushed up, and it worked! I flew down the wave and had a great ride. That was it, all I needed. I had the best session to date, for that matter the best session of the trip and at one point actually received some whistles and shouts from the locals out in the lineup as well.

     That night I decided to cook dinner for the boys. Shark Kabobs. That’s right, shark.

     It tasted a lot like a big white fish (surprise right?), like mahi mahi or  swordfish and was excellent. The guys loved it and although it is a given that Kevin is the master of the kitchen I think I earned the title of master of the grill between the Shark Kabobs and the Taliban Chicken I made the other night.

     Oliver was the only one who didn’t eat it. He looked at it with pain in his eyes that yelled how much he wanted to try it but said in a solemn voice, “I don’t eat shark, and they don’t eat me. We have an understanding”.