Hey friends!
It's been over a month since we left
Fakarava so I figure it's time for an update! After one last amazing
snorkel of the pass in Fakarava we made the 2-day passage to Tahiti.
This was my first taste of blue water sailing and I couldn't have
asked for a better intro! We had decent (albeit shifty) breeze and
reasonable seas the whole way so I didn't get too seasick but I
definitely felt it coming on. We landed a nice size skipjack tuna
while trolling underway. According to Dave, this fish was
surprisingly good eating compared to other skipjack he's caught.
We had a lot of business to handle upon
arrival in Papeete, namely bureaucracy, boat work and food shopping.
I also got my first taste of Tahitian surf, and more aptly, my first
taste of the reef! The wave, called Taapuna, is a dredging lefthand
tube. The takeoff is steep and the lip lands in no more than two feet
of water over a very sharp coral reef. The local surfers and boogie
boarders have it dialed and this is a tough spot to get waves. I paid
for the scraps I got with skin and dings to my surfboards. You most
definitely have to pay to play around these parts. At least we made
time for a post-surf sand-barbeque one fine sunday afternoon. The
locals here are about as friendly as they come.
Next we headed down the coast to the
infamous slab at Teahupoo. We arrived just in time to witness the
best day of the year thus far. The experience was nothing short of
spectacular. You can sit in the relative safety of the channel and
still feel the spit get blown out of the barrel of these giant
perfect waves. The surf was out of my league on this day, fortunately
my boards were safely stowed on Tusitala so I couldn't be tempted. I
still wanted to get a feel for the lineup so I swam out with my GoPro
and got a couple of shots.
The next day most of the crowd had
disappeared and there was still some mixed up swell, with the
occasional bomb in the water. I knew we were leaving the next day but
I needed to have a piece of the action. I gave the beast a paddle. I
was scared shitless to be completely honest. It's hard to tell how
big a wave is going to be as the swell approaches. The wave drops out
below sealevel more than it rises as it breaks. Adding to the
intimidation, I was sharing the lineup with pro-grom phenoms Taylor
Clark and Jack Robinson and a few other surfers who surfed nearly as
well. I scratched around the lineup trying to nab a small one without
getting caught inside. After about an hour I finally mustered the
courage to get into position and push over the ledge on a smallish
one. I aimed my big-wave 6'7 pintail straight down the line and shot
like a rocket right to the boats. No barrel, no turns but I didn't
care, I was psyched just to get a wave out there. I decided to stop
while I was ahead since we needed to get going to the next anchorage.
A few days later we cruised over to the
island of Moorea and surfed a much more friendly left-hander at
Haapiti. This spot is idyllic, with beautiful mountains and a
relatively consistant wave in perfect, clean blue water. We've spent
the better part of the last month here surfing ourselves silly. My
surfing has definitely improved leaps and bounds; I've never spent
this much time at a lefthander before. Surfing a long wave, frontside
is a whole new world for me and I've really gotten to practice just
the functional fundamentals of riding waves. My timing and
positioning has improved, my balance for manuevers etc.
Surfing has been great, but boatlife
has it's pro's and con's. The hours and hours of downtime when the
surf's not great or it's raining can most definitely can mess with
your head. You have all the time in the world to make mountains out
of mole-hills and it's important to stay busy and keep the mind
occupied lest you go crazay!
Till next time folks!
