‘Breaking’ nature’s rules

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Friday - April 27, 2007

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Surfers, sailors, paddlers, fishermen and Ala Moana Bowls
come alive

Aloha surfers and beachgoers! First Wave: We may have just had our last winter-like swell, which cracked the outer reefs. The fact that it even happened this late in the season was really rare. Normal springtime conditions push in 3- to 6-foot NW swells every four or five days - it seems we’ve been seeing plenty 6- to 10-foot swells every few days. Nature always has exceptions. Remember last June? It was up to 12 feet and super “West” - one of the entire season’s best swells - in summer. Hopefully, we can experience more exceptions to nature’s rule on the positive side of the wave ledger.

Second Wave: Tons of events will be in the works. This weekend at Sunset Beach they should get going with the Steinlager Shaka’s Long Board Series. It’s great to have this back in the competitive lineup as long boarding needs and deserves a circuit.

Next up it’s the Billabong Pro at Teahupoo, Tahiti, May 4 for one of the heaviest “left-handers” (equal to or heavier than Pipeline) on the World Tour. Andy Irons has won more than once here and is looking to take his No. 9 rating and bump it up with a BIG barreling victory.

This year’s Foster ASP Tour is XTRA exciting because many are claiming this to be Australia’s year to produce a world champ (Mark Occhilupo won in 1999 and before that it was Damien

Hardman in ‘91). Having only two years out of the last 15 is not happening, to say the least - especially when you look at the majority numbers Australia has in the Top 44. The problem was and still is, of course, nature’s exception: Kelly Slater. He’s an actual, factual freak of nature (the greatest compliment in surf parlance). I’m not going to leave out Tom Curren’s and Andy Irons’ combined six titles either. The bottom line is Australia is hungry and wants to take a bite out of America’s best surfers. Will this be the year?

Next event is back in Hawaii Nei for “Surfers Giving Back”: a contest with a high cool factor. Surfing The Nations Foundation, a local, charitable, community-based company, has received a grant from the Honolulu City and County Office of the Mayor’s Task Force on Drug Abuse. They will hold a drug-free surf contest May 12-13 at Queen’s Surf Beach in Waikiki in order to increase alcohol and other drug awareness within Hawaii’s surfing community. The drug-free surf contest is in support of Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s new campaign to establish a drug-free City and County work force. For surf contest application forms or volunteer and sponsor information, please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (808)838-SURF (7873). Contact person is Stephen Suzuki (808)258-8278.

After that, it’s the perennial Local Motion Surf into Summer at Ala Moana Bowls from off Magic Island. Get those entries in, because this is Hawaii’s biggest amateur surfing event - it is also the official kickoff of the summer of 2007 and is sure to “sell out.” So, don’t miss out!

Once we get to June we won’t waste any time finding and claiming Hawaii’s No. 1 State Amateur! Yep, the Burger King State Surfing Championships will be a Whopper June 7-9 at Bowls again. I’ve got this and everything else on a new surf calendar now at SURFNEWSNETWORK.COM. It includes all competitions, swell and surf-cam archives ... even box jellyfish arrival dates. Check it out.

Wow, are you ready for all this good stuff?

Stoked! See you back here and in the waves.

GQ, Dropping in 4 U!