The Gitzo tripod after a pipe washup set wave snuck....sorry, raced up the beach and past the fence line I was standing against taking me and everyone else on the beach out.
I was in waist deep ocean for about 4 to 6 seconds struggling to hold on to everything and save what I could, and shock for about 5 minutes after that little episode, but as I said in a previous post. I got off lightly compared to a lot of other people who lost every thing they had down there.
A link to a Volcom clip of a few smashing wipeouts from the comp over previous days http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yvXZEAmBuSw
A locksmith had to come across the island from Honolulu and opened about 20 cars and cut keys to get them going again as the owners had lost all their gear in that washup....bags, wallets, phones, keys etc. etc, whatever they had on the beach was gone and probably sitting out on the Pipe reef somewhere. He was charging about $250 a pop to do the job so he had a very profitable little afternoon. I lost one thong that had pretty well had it's day anyway....I got camera gear and tripod damage but at least I still have everything.
Meta.....thats what'you call it. The shooter shooting the shooter shooting the subject.
Please tell me why !
Read the freeking blog if you want to know what I'm on about.
Hands up....who wants to be here !!!
Today was a bit of an R n R day, surf is small (by Hawiian standards anyway, the photos will let you make up your own mind about that) so I borrowed a bike and did the pedal from Pipeline west along the bike track as far as Sharks Cove to the surf shop which is owned by Liam McNamara as I wanted to catch up with him and let him know that I shot and filmed the wild ride Garrett McNamarra had at Pipe a couple of days ago in that huge swell.
All went well there and I headed back along the track and home to fix a scraping back wheel mudguard on the deadly cycle that was driving me nuts. I filmed the ride on the little GoPro camera (hand held though I have to say) and you can hear the back wheel scraping the whole way.
Got back to the house and fixed the wheel then hit the bike track again but this time up to the east to Sunset Beach and beyond (hand held camera again) no mudguard sound thank god.
Stopped here and there, nearly mowed down a bus load of pensioners at Sunset wandering all over the bike track and not looking around them (it was big time wobble cam around that area) and kept going until the end of the track.
Turned around and headed back home stopping at the Volcom Houses for a look at the beach on on the way......the big clean up after the comp was happening.
I ran into one of the girls there who is a good friend of Sion Milosky's wife (Sion died surfing Mavericks in California last year.... click on link below)
this link doesn't work, just GOOGLE Sion Milosky.
Had a short talk and then back on the bike (it's pink to would you believe, GOB....no smart ass comments from you) and on the track back to home.
I wandered down to the beach at OTW to see what was going on once I parked the trusty steed behind the house and it looked like a nice little arvo shooting session there would fit in well for late afternoon/sunset on my second last day, I love shooting Off The Wall, it's so " in your face" so to speak. I can set up right on the waterline a lot of the time on small days and shoot straight into the barrell a lot of the time, and with the 600 lens I can tell "if they've had a shave or not" as someone so apptly put it a couple of days ago after asking for a look through it at the boys out in the lineup, I thought it was a pretty good description of it actually....................which brings me to the question of why two beautiful young girls in G strings would walk up the beach (from behind) three photographers, all busy looking through cameras out into the lineup, and all with serious equipment for pulling images in close and doing it very well....continue straight past us for about 30 meters to line up perfectly with the surfers out the back and then proceed to drop towells and go and frollick in the ocean pointing their butts directly at us.....the whole three of us just looked at each other at exactly the same time in disbelief, smiled at each other all thinking "what the hell's this all about" and hit the shutter at 12 frames per second in unison and then got back to work.
They eventually went up towards the Oakley team house up to our right, and I'm guessing that they will be scanning the surf mags in the coming months to see thier butts starring in them.
Tomorrow is my last day on the island and there is another expected kick in swell overnight, so hopefully I'll get another day down the beach before I get on the big metal bird to fly home. There will also be packing etc to be done, so I probably wont get to post here again until I get home.
It's been the trip to remember in more ways than one I can tell you.
My dear mum has passed away and will be dearly missed, and I will remember exactly the moment I found out.
I've seen Pipeline at it's absolute epic best which has been a lifelong dream. It's even like mum "gifted" this too me as I was seriously contemplating cancelling the whole trip due to concerns about her health.
I'm coming home to have 9 hours at home if I'm very lucky and then get on another plane to go and do one of the hardest things in my life.
One very simple single thing that happened on the beach the other day on the final day of the Volcom Pro seems to put it all in some sort of frame for me tonight.
I got down there (to a new spot on higher ground up at Ehukai Beach Park after getting washed out the other day) set up all my gear and realised that I had left one thing at home..... my water bottle (in the rush to get down here for the finals}
The lady and guy next to me started chatting over the next hour (her more than he). She had recognised my Aussie accent and mentioned a house swap sometime as she always wanted to check out AU and figured out that I come here a bit.
In the course of conversation, she must have gathered somewhere along the line that I was waterless in the Hawaiian sun and on my own with equipment that I couldn't leave unattended.
I thought nothing of it.......I was just going to deal with it until I went back to the house. She said something as I was looking through the camera (I thought she was talking to her partner) and then she walked off up the beach and he stayed.
Ten minutes later she turns back up while I'm shooting....says something to her friend and I think nothing of it again. She waits until I'm not shooting and then holds out her hand with a smile and a can of drink for me...........I thank her profusely and offer her money, she refuses with a "hands up gesture" I thank her again.
Fifteen minutes later I feel bad about not paying her when I had only met her half an hour ago, I just go into my backpack and pull out two "greenbacks" and hold it out to her and say "please take it" ......she just looks at me and says "no.............Aloha"
And that my friends is the true Hawaiian spirit.
And on that note, it is 12.25am (my last day) and I can actually hear the swell building, so uploading photos may have to wait until tomorrow if I get time ........I suppose I had better put at least one up tonight in case tomorrow is all beach and doesn't happen. But that's all good with me I have to say.
Check in tomorrow or in a couple of weeks , but do come back as I will update on things that I haven't had time to do over here.
Thanks for tuning in on this trip.
Aloha and mahalo for the "big west".
