The lastday of August, 2016....surfing

Surfing, or learning to surf, parallels life.  It is the toughest thing to learn.  It's physically and mentally demanding.  Some days are good, some are great, and some just completely suck.  Either way you learn something more about yourself, or about how beautiful the place is where you are at that moment, even if its challenging. 

This evenings session started at 3:30pm, after work, because James and I are going in at 5am these days.  High tide was around 4:30.  It took me a while to paddle out.  It was like a bit of a crescendo...the farther I got out the bigger the waves got. There were some huge sets coming in.

I've described the ordeal getting out in a bigger swell before on here, but that was then, and now there is a little more knowledge in my head about the swell and surf, at least there should be.

There were big sets and small sets, not much in between.  John, the grumpy surfer, was out.  He's been surfing for a very long time, and is completely tuned in to what's going on out there.  He told me tonight that the waves are very hard to catch, but big.  Not what I wanted to hear.  He said they "close out quickly", which is a common deal here, but him saying that meant they were peaking and dumping even quicker than normal.  They were.  I took a beating.  I'm not bruised or anything, just some little scrapes from hitting the reef, and a renewed deep deep fear of waves.  I haven't hit the reef at the "Shark Pit" for a year.  I got rubbed along it for a while this evening after thinking I could jump a 7ft tall wave that was getting ready to close (read crest, slam, dump.....) on me. Ok so picture riding a wave.  You don't ride the wave 90 degrees to it, you ride it as parallel as it allows.  So, you're cruising down this huge powerful wall of water that is peaking (read crest, slamming , dumping) right behind you. Most times here on Kwaj they "close out"....they dump...they stop being this beautiful wall of crystal clear water that is so clear you see the reef like a magnifying glass thru it and the wave starts turning into whit water at its crest.....Its a huge amount of water, and I chose the wrong method to avoid it....so it slammed me.  In the midst of being churned around like a rag doll for 5 seconds it rolled me down enough to bump along the reef.  Its not so bad, the reef isn't really sharp or anything in that spot, but it is kind of hard and scary.

The problem with the "big sets" and the "small sets" of waves is that the small ones lure you in.  Ok, so the big waves break way outside compared to where the small waves break.  I like the "smaller" waves so I hang out on the "inside" remaining vigilant to avoid getting slammed by the larger sets rolling in.  Tonight it didn't always work out.  At least once it didn't.  I was sitting a little inside of John's position far enough that a wave got between us and I couldn't see him for a second.  The next time I saw him he was "contemplating" a wave.  I could see he was going to take it, and I looked at the wave.  Huge. Huge.  Immediately I put my chest down on the board and started paddling towards the wave trying madly to get out to it before it broke.  Going up and down a "swell" is fine.  Getting caught under a breaking wave is not.  Its such a fine line.  The difference can be 5 feet.  Tonight some of the bigger waves were probably ten feet.  I know this because one came and John was just down wave of me when it went thru.  I thought I was going to land on top of him.  He thought he was going to get slammed...dumped.  I looked down at him as the wave crested under me.....and I guarantee I was ten feet higher.

It can be dangerous, it was more scary for me today than anything.  The waves hold you down for a while, but mostly they don't slam you on the reef.  The holding down part is a little ordeal, but not too bad.

August...middle weekend...camping trip to Mann or Torruji

So 6 of us plan this camping trip, or try to.  There was a lot of talk, inner island relationship talk in the beginning.  It escalated a bit maybe, but not really.  It got complicated another way before the week was over, but completely worked itself out by the time Saturday came around.  Being vague in this blog is sometimes a great idea.....

So it all worked out.  We took 3 boats and 6 people Sunday morning at just after sunup, and headed up the lagoon to an island on the west reef.  I had planned on taking the Hobie Getaway, but the doldrums have arrived here in the Marshalls and the 2.5 horsepower back up motor would be a little time consuming to get to an island 17 miles away.

I'm not quite in the spirit of this at the moment, probably just drained from such great weekend...

Here's a pic...that explains it all....10 o'clock at night, everyone (else) is in their tents sleeping like they should be.  Jobe and I are out tossing a light up Frisbee in a fish trap...

Thank you Steve for setting up your gopro to catch us having fun....in the dark (yes it was pitch black)

August 13ish....

So, we did our usual Friday night Frisbee deal.  They have been really good lately, as opposed to the Monday games which are at 5pm (2hours from sunset) and way too hot.  At 6:30 its still too hot, but the sun is mostly gone by 7, and we turn the lights on by 7:30, and its a little nicer after dark.  The Indonesian battleship (?...it had guns) was at port.  Several of the "Wolf Pack" showed up saying they had invited the crew to come play Frisbee and at 7 there would be 15 guys from the ship there to play.  Ted told me he gave one of them our Ben Potter/Ted Shultz designed Kwaj Frisbee's and he thought it was a dinner plate.  It doesn't matter, we are Frisbee missionaries.  So, in the middle of the Friday night game, 14 Indonesian soccer players showed up to play ultimate Frisbee, well some of them were sold on the idea anyhow.  We had 8 on 8 before they got there, then we dumped half of our teams and took on 8 guys who really know how to laugh at themselves and realized we didn't care if they made mistakes.  Smiling, laughing people are just so much better to be around....I commend our guys for making sure every pass went to an Indonesian sailor.  NO one who plays ultimate the first time is any good at all.  They proved to be no exception, although for barely having seen a Frisbee they didn't do so bad.  Mostly it was just fun because they had the balls to try a completely new game and fail....and laugh at themselves.  A quality to emulate (mental note).

I'll add the random pictures tomorrow