Heath's Hawaii Trip - Dec 04

Heath

Hawaii is a trip I’ve been looking forward to all year. The waves are much bigger, more powerful and there’s so many different world class breaks all next to each other. The whole joint’s got a sick vibe and an energy that seems to make everyone happy and excited. It’s amazing. When the swell comes up the place just explodes. No one can hold in their energy and just has to go surf. It’s the only remedy.

The trip started off a bit slow and for the first two weeks the swell didn’t really rise above 6-8ft, which is small for over there. However it was still a heap of fun and there was still unreal surf compared to what I’m used to. During this time I mainly surfed Backyards and Rocky Point. These are two reef breaks that are peaky and don’t always break in the same spot. They are also mainly good when the surf is smaller. Backyards was situated right out in front of where I was staying so it was convenient too.

Hawaiian Quiver - 7'6", 6'10" 6'6", 6'4", 6'2", 5'8", 5'8"

The second two weeks were a whole different story. The swell you expect when you go to Hawaii came. The first swell was a really windy one. It was about 8 – 10 ft but really messy. It was still great fun and I got to ride my 7’6” in some waves that it was meant to be ridden in. It felt great and I was stoked that we finally had some swell. On my last wave of my last surf at Sunset in this swell I got hammered. I was going across the wave face when a section ahead of me started forming up on the inside bowl. I thought that I could maybe get a big barrel so I positioned myself for the tube but then at the best minute wussed out and tried to straighten out. Instead I just got nailed by the lip and did about three front flips underwater to finally come up and get hit by another set on the head. I was actually happy that I had got a decent hammering.

A couple of days after this swell my mates and I were riding on a go cart. I was sitting on top of the seats on our way back from Teds Bakery when we hit a speed hump and my head got thrown in to the metal bars. My two front top teeth were perfectly carved into a shape by the metal bars. I got an appointment at a dentist that afternoon and my teeth were repaired.

The next and last swell that hit the north shore this trip was a good one. It was clean and big. I had two really fun surfs at Pipe and managed to get a couple of little barrels that I was stoked to get. It was really crowded but I love the atmosphere and watching people got huge pits so it wasn’t so bad!! I also got to surf Sunset another four times in this swell. In my last couple of surfs out there I really felt like I was starting to get a bit of the hang of it out there. I was going for and landing moves I wouldn’t have tried out there in my first few surfs out there.