Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Dog eat Dog and Gerry Lopez

Damn.
I don't know if it's the weather, or what,
but I'm feeling the Dog eat Dog aspects of life.
Everyone out for self vibe... and I'm right there with'em no matter how much I may try to be a nice guy....
I'm just another guy catching waves... catching dolla bills.

But I won't go into what sucks in my life right now...

What was really rad for a moment was a few weeks ago (about 2)
the Friday before the Stand up Paddle Board race from Molokai to Oahu,
I surfed Rice Bowls with Gerry Lopez.

I didn't want to surf there at first.(I wanted to surf my new favorite spot)
but my friend Luke said our two friends Johnny and Joah were going to be surfing at Tongs,
which is right inside of Rice Bowls....
so I said ,.. I'll go session with some bros instead.

Rice Bowls is the high performance wave on the South Shore, second to Ala Moana Bowls.
The only difference is that Bowls catches almost every swell and breaks every day from knee high to double over head.
Rice Bowls only starts breaking at head high.

I never saw Johnny and Joah as I paddled past Tongs straight to Rice Bowls.
There to my surprise was, not the normal 5 extremely aggressive guys and the other 15,

but 4 other dudes and myself... and in a few minutes of catching waves....
Gerry Lopez paddles into the line up.

The next wave I caught, I rode all the way in. It walled up nice and I did a few cut backs stoked smackin' the soup,
and then racing down the line into a head dip...
When I popped off the backside of the wave... I see Gerry on the wave behind me flying down the line with his paddle dug into the face of the wave....
"I scream yeah Gerry!" stoked.

as we paddle back to the line up I said, "how was that wave?" and he said "ok. I saw you catch a good one earlier"
Soon another wave approached and I say "here comes your wave Gjer Gjer"
and I think to myself, I just called Gerry Lopez, "Gjer Gjer"
After some small talk, I find that he's in town to surf the Molokai channel race.

he then paddled off to the next break outside Tongs ( I believe the break is called Zeros)
and that's one of the last stoked days I had.
Besides last sunday. and my wedding on July 28th 2009.

-Mandog

2 comments:

kainoa said...

You'll be ultra stoked to read his book, Surf is Where You'll Find It." His mention of Surf Realization in his stories have deeper meaning. Check out the mission statement he wrote at www.srfhawaii.com.

Manny Aloha said...

Actually, I did read his book and its one of my favorites.
thanks for the link.
I liked the mission part that relates.... "
That these moments happen seemingly by chance out in the surf or deep in the snow is no reason why they can¹t be saved and brought back into service when needed to overcome some obstacle in life, to solve a problem, or merely to be resurrected and savored once again. This is what SRF is about and where we are going with it. We will continue to apply the lessons learned and wonders discovered in our surf and snowboard adventures towards improving the quality of life within us and for the people around us.

Aloha