My Coach Josh Wilson left me instructions via text message before I left to Hawaii... "Take the biggest, best formed waves, time your drop in, set your rail and for goodness sakes keep your eyes open and watch the wave." Sounds easy right? Josh's advice is made in a split second decision when dropping in on a wave, but when you're going for a tube ride in crystal clear water with gapping fangs of whitewater wave lip coming down toward you and protruding razor sharp reef coming from below it's easier said then done.
Going for the tube ride or barrel as surfers call it, is the ultimate thrill and is often described as the pinacle of a surfers riding abilities. I'm not sure, but I tell dad that when I'm in the tube... time stands still and my ability to move is diminished considerably. It's as if I've entered a dream world and I'm no longer in control, the wave now has control and I'm just intrusted as it's traveler.
"Surfing is an extreme sport when waves of consequence are riden", explains my dad. "Danger is turned into an adrenaline rush that the surfer learns to embrace and leads him/her onto the next wave. It's a high that no other thrill seeker can comprehend except a surfer that's been there."
Josh Wilson puts it another way. "Surfing is about the tube ride... there is no other part of surfing the compares and all surfers like to go there as often as possible."
Below, I drop in on a hollow North Shore barrel... notice on the bottom turn (2nd frame) I look at my father before entering the tube as if to take one last look before time freezes and I become one with the ocean.
Maholo Hawaii and my new North Shore Friends and Aloha til I visit again. |
