Bonga, practicing for the contest at Kewalos

Date: July 25, 2003
Time: 0745--0945
Spot(s): near Kewalos
Conditions: Light offshore trades, no crowd br>Swell: Small south
Surf: 1-2’ Haw’n

Words: Hadn’t surfed for a while; waves were small; I had to try somewhere different. Ended up choosing Kewalos. When I got to Panics, I found that I didn’t have a leash for the shortboard. I’m still quite bad on the shortboard, but decided to chance um anyway. A little swimming never hurt anyone.

Paddled out and found it to be pretty fun, with some tiny wedges coming through mostly from the southeast. Surprised that a lot of longboard pros were out in the marginal surf. Eventually found out that a contest was about to begin. Bummers.

So I paddled over to the next peak over and ended up having a pretty fun time. The rights were lining up quite nicely over the shallow reef (with a coral head semi-sticking out to add a little bit more excitement). An occasional left peeled sweetly right into the contest zone.

In the short time that I was out, I got more than my share of rides, catching some pretty fun stuff. I was being conservative, not trying too many floaters (or what seemed to be floaters in my naive mind).

My demise was this long left that I snagged that wedged up on the inside. With a weak backside, I dug a rail after the wave steepened unexpectedly. Made the long swim in and decided to check out the contest.

Turned out to be the pro/am division of China’s event--guess they had to start the contest on Friday if they had any hopes to finish on the weekend in Waikiki. All my old friends were working and judging the contest so it was nice renewing friendships.

After a while, I made the paddle back across the channel and back out. It was a short go-out, but still heaps fun, especially interesting because I went sans a leash.

Aloha from Paradise,

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