Surf's Up Dude

Wow, sunburn in December, that’s a first. My nose looks like a little cherry. And a pale kid like me really stands out at the beach in Hawaii. I spent a couple hours at the beach yesterday to relax and do absolutely nothing. That was at ‘Ewa Beach. Today, however, I found myself at the Banzai Pipeline, at the site of the Vans Triple Crown surfing competition and the Rip Curl Pro Pipeline Masters. The best of the best surfers from all around the world come here, especially right now.

I used to want to be a professional snowboard photographer, well, I still do, but I’m reconsidering. A snowboard photographer has to do all kinds of hiking in the snowy mountains and on miserable days. Well, a surfing photographer can just hang out on the beach with a huge telephoto lens, 80-degree weather, and check out babes on the beach between waves. Yes, I might have to reconsider. As for being one of the photographers in the water, I think I’d be too scared to get my head knocked off from one of the surfers.

The powerful crashing waves left me in awe at the beach. It’s a first for me to see something like that. I pretended to be a photographer. Surrounding me were professional photographers with well over $10,000 camera setups. If only I had that! So I kind of wandered to where the amateur photographers were. Haha. Actually, I got to meet a couple people just because I had a camera strapped around my neck. I met Josie from Indiana who is beginning her studies for missionary work around the world. And I met a videographer who is from Hawaii, but ran off too quick to get another angle before I caught his name.

Personally, this is one of the highlights of the trip. Starting in high school I was obsessed with the skateboarding and snowboarding culture. Of course there isn’t much surfing on Lake Superior, but that same culture lives with all three sports. It’s a culture I love. Laid back, yet crazy fun and is all about pushing your limits. I just keep wondering, if I grew up in Hawaii, would I have become as passionate about surfing as I was with snowboarding? It could have been nice, surfing year round, rather than only a few months of snowboarding. And surfing is free! No lift ticket!

All in all, I think I walked away with some good photos at the end of the day, a big sunburn (oops!), and with an amazing vibe of the Hawaii surfing. …a day where many images will be burned in my memory forever.