Turtles and waves on the North Shore

Sunset, Diamond Head

The last 10 days of my trip have been spent on Oahu with my friend, Steph. I met Steph through a mutual friend in Bali at the very beginning of my trip and spent the first week with her surfing Canngu and Kuta. I love the circular motion of my trip....starting and ending a long journey with a wonderful new friend on a tropical island.

Steph lives on the south side of Oahu and surfs Diamond Head, a great longboarding wave breaking over reef. It is an incredible beautiful 'local', a very long and crowded ride, full of that Hawaiian spirit of Aloha. The swell was pretty small but we still had some super fun sessions on 9 foot longboards.

We also spent a few days on the north side of the island checking out the famed breaks of Pipeline and Waimea Bay. I loved the North Shore and really hope I will be back at some stage to stay a little longer. Some how, amid the circus that is professional surf competitions and heavy tourism, the small town of Halie'wa has maintained its beauty. The first day we visited the swell was huge with 8 - 10 foot sets coming through. The famous breaks of Waimea Bay, Halie'wa and Pipeline were all breaking and full of professional surfers waiting at the start of the HIC pro. I didn't paddle out. Heavy was a understatement.

We drove back to the North Shore several more times over the week. Both days were incredibly beautiful and made me fall in love with this little piece of paradise even more. On Thursday, I watched sea turtles feasting for an hour on one of the reefs and surfed a super fun Lani's on Steph's 7'2. The winds came up early on the Saturday so we spent the morning with Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii cleaning up one of the beaches up from Waimea Bay. Marine debris is starting to wash up on the Hawaiian islands from Japan - fridges, old bombs, washing machines. Its quite amazing what a big shake up like a tsunami will do.

I was really inspired by the clean up and will definitely look for opportunities to organise / participate in similar events in my home town of Fremantle. I'd also love to initiate / support similar events in Bali. The issue with plastics in Indonesia is unbelievable, incredibly sad and really takes away from the surfing experience. I am not sure what the answer is considering waste management practices are primitive but its got to begin with something.

Steph and I at the Sustainable Coastlines clean up

I head back home on November 13. I'm looking forward to settling down for a while, unpacking my backpack, sleeping in a king size bed and catching up with families, friends and my boy.

Nor Cal.......Ocean Beach

My friend Brad and I headed out to Ocean Beach for a late afternoon surf while I was in San Francisco.   Surfing this part of the world takes the sport to a whole other level. Hoodies, gloves, 5ml wetsuits are the norm. It definitely goes above and beyond what I am prepared to give on a regular basis. I'll take my bikini and 25 degree Indonesian water any day!

Ocean Beach is a well known, world class wave which handles some serious size. Peaks line up for 3 miles breaking on sand banks and still peal on 15foot faces. I'm not a big fan of beach breaks. For starters it can be challenging to get out the back with regular close outs and shifting banks. Increasing in size by one foot can take them from super fun to extremely scary. My worst wipe outs have been at beach breaks and they can hurt. Being slammed into wet sand feels the same as being slammed into concrete.

I have struggled to surf well in California. I've found the temperature of the water extremely challenging even with a thick wetsuit on. I also find the density of the water different to the tropics so I feel that I sit lower and can't paddle with the same strength and speed that I am used to. The cold water makes me sluggish and my body just doesn't respond the way I want it to. Needless to say, I had a really bad surf, lasted little over an hour and took three really bad waves.

I met Brad at Cactus Beach, South Australia while he was travelling Australia four years ago. He was on an 8 month 'radical sabbatical' through Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand carting around four boards and a desire to nail his backside tube riding. He had thrown in his job, his girl, saved a bunch of money, bought a car and was driving from West Australia through to Victoria surfing as much as possible along the way. He surfs with a finesse that I will never have, a skill level honed after starting early in life and surfing as much possible over the last 30 years.

Cactus Beach is on my surf hit list. I have been there several times driving from Melbourne to Perth but never really caught it on a good swell. It is one of the Nullabours famous desert breaks full of isolated barrels and great white sharks. It is a surreal place, wind blown, salty, lonely but it has this amazing energy and attracts a very interesting traveller. Its beauty is intensified by the fact that it is 4 hours from the nearest town of any decent size. You basically pull up on the sand dunes, pay $8 for a site and camp in the elements. One day I'll take a wave.

I'm heading to Hawaii today for the final week of my trip. I've been craving the routine and rhythm of home for a while and am looking forward to seeing friends and family. I am missing working and being part of something bigger then myself. Naval gazing is good for the soul but too much can be self destructive. It will be strange though, being on the other side of this trip.