Scribbles Abroad

WE WEN GO BACK MAINLAND FO CUPPO DAYS, LI’DAT

Pops and I

Off we go again!

We decided to route our ticket through San Diego.  From there we planned on finding our way up to LA and then off to Nicaragua.  As planned, things didn’t go totally as planned.

Barret picked us up from the airport in SD and took us to his summer house in Point Loma.  He has to move out of the palace every Summer so that the landlord can rake in the dough from the Zoners (people from Arizona).  Thanks a ton to the two of them for putting up with us and all our crap!  While there we surfed a bunch.  The south swell, that we got the start of in Hawaii, was lighting up Southern facing breaks in SD.  We surfed Neubs, Abs, Sub-Abs, Garbage, No Surf, and Bird Shits within one week in the summer.  Slightly unheard of.  The first afternoon I got to share a golden cube (a twelve pack of Pacificos) with Derek Adams, my homeboy fo’ life!  He’s on to baby number two hopefully gonna name her something Hawaiian even though he haole.  Oh wait, I stay haole too.

This is Neubs, It don’t look like much from here but it was pretty darn good.  Super long right.  Point Loma Nazarene College overlooks all these breaks.

While in SD we picked up our new board from Jeff.  Its our first egg twinnie.  Check out his boards they’re sweet.  I think Jeff is still growning, or I’m shrinking.  www.mccallumsurfboards.com.

Had to grub one session of In and Out.

Then had Carne Asada Burritos for every other meal.

Jessica and Roscoe decided to come down to SD to hang out with us and after that we were pretty much all inseparable for the rest of the trip which turned into major road trip.  They rolled down in the dream car of every young person in Hawaii.  A sweet Tacoma.  They had picked it up for a grand up in OC but would be able to sell it in Hawaii for at least 5k.  Roscoe brought with him an Alaia board that he shaped.  Since then that Alaia board and I have become inseparable.  As I write from our room in Jeffreys Bay in South Africa the Alaia sits next to me aching to get back in the water.

The Tacoma and us checking out Swamis

The Team

We got to hang out with Scott (T-Bucket) and Andrea, they be getting married soon, then babies, then golf memberships, then scotch, then lots of it, then……………for sure happiness the whole time.  We love them and hope to see them soon again.  We kicked it with them for a sunset, sipping wine and chugging beer (the good stuff Keystone Light) at Horseshoes in La Jolla watching the mobs of surfers soaking up the summer swells.  Then that night we hit up Ruth Chris Steakhouse with a gift certificate and lived large.  The steaks were so rich but so damn good.  While there I ran into some friends I hadn’t seen in a while, it was Keith and Monkey, two mates of mine that are really good friends with Marcus.  They invited us over the next day as they were living with Markie up on the cliff overlooking Blacks, tough life.

The next day is one of those days that one does not forget and molds into your persona.  What made it so special was the Hawaiian Family Style that we take with us everywhere and how it spreads to many we get to spend time with.  Instead of people going there separate ways, people will tend to come together to spend time and have a good time together.

We did a Hawaiian Takeover at Dukes house.  Louise and I were on the couch and Roscoe and Jess were in the detached apartment (the Tacoma truck bed) out front on the street.  Our shit was everywhere. In the morning while th boys slept, the girls snuck down to get some groceries and then came back and cooked up a feast for breakfast.  When Barret woke up he made us fancy coffees with his third most cherished possession.  But not before going into the Ights with his first most cherished possession.  Much of the California trip was spent in the Ights.

I called up Markie and he said Blacks looked alright.  I called up Merrick and he said he’d meet up with us too.  So after breakfast we all figured out how to fit 6 people and 6 boards into Dukes car.  It all fit!  We all surfed Blacks together and then came up and kicked it at Markies pad.  It was such a nice place, they had a pet lioness, and as we went up into the Ights the lioness became more playful.  We reminisced about old times when I used to live in SD and it was good to see that everyone was still pretty much as I left them a few years back.

We got some lunch and then headed to the other side of SD back to Sunset Cliffs.  It was head high but really fat and it didn’t look like much fun on a shortboard.  So Duke being Hawaiian in his roots dropped a few of us off and headed back to the house to grab 5 longboards.  I decided to ride the Alaia.  We had such a fun session out there at Garbage.  Swapping boards, catching long A-frames both ways, and just sharing in eachother’s stoke.  The sun was out and was keeping us irie.  As it set our hungers grew and a BBQ was now headed for session.

We had a giant BBQ that night along with Golden Cubes and the Ights.  It was a shindig.  The day had come to an end and it was time to head North.

The next few days we spent with the Zuziak Family in Laguna Beach.  Jess and Roscoe took us up there and it was really convenient because they lived only a few minutes up the road. They could live anywhere.  Half of their time is spent sleeping on a boat in Newport and the other half is in the Tacoma.  The Zuziaks opened their homes to us and made us feel like we were back kicking it with them at their home at Velzyland on the North Shore.  Sarah, their daughter, was graduating from Laguna High and the first day we went to help out at a pool party her mom Thasa was organizing.  Louise and I got mistaken for High School students twice!  They told us, “if you leave the pool party you can’t come back!”  I wanted to be like, “I never want to come back!  I’m finally free, I graduated!”  But instead we said we didn’t go to school there and were only helping.  Louise under her breath and pointing to me was like, “he’s thirty!”

That afternoon when Eric (EZ) got off work we headed to Salt Creek for some fun waves.  The South was still pushing through and was meant to build in the coming days.  Louise rode her shorty and I switched up with the shorty and the Alaia.  I learned that you can go backside on the Alaia, just a bit harder.  The wave was crowded but we still got plenty waves.  Saw a kid that surfs with us in Hawaii at Ala Moana, he was up there for the NSSA contest at Trestles, the same spot we headed to the next day.

Salt Creek with EZ

Louise’s infectious smile.  If you zoom in on her face you can see it.  She always surfs with it.

The Alaia doesn’t float very well.

We spent the entire next day surfing Trestles.  Up at 5:45, out the door by 6:15 and at the beach shortly thereafter.  We didn’t get back to the house till 5:00 that afternoon.  Trestles was firing and we scored.  We brought down shortboards, the fish, and the Alaia.

The Alaia

That night, our friends Jeff and Gina came up for dinner.  We met them at the Zuziaks house on the North Shore back on Oahu.  There they found out about our favorite cocktail, the Bloody Mary.  Back in the day Jeff was a bartender and his specialty was the Bloody Mary.  Jeff made some for us while on the North Shore and we were immediately hooked.  Since that day we’ve been jonesing for another.  The few that we had while abroad were terrible by comparison and it was a real treat to share some with them that night.  It was because of Gina that we ended up going to Lovina in Bali and swam with the dolphins so it was really special to share those photos with her.

Jeff shared some of the community drama he was going through.  A council member had initiated a bill to stop all fishing and gathering from Laguna.  These are the same shores he has been diving since he was a kid.  He has his special holes where he can find lobsters and abalones year after year during the fishing season.  There is already a limit imposed and most adhere to it, there really isn’t a problem of over collecting.  But seeing an opportunity to jump on the eco-green-conserve bandwagon, the council member decided to introduce this bill in order to gain voter support.  The council member nor the vast majority of the neighborhood has ever put their heads underwater to take a look themselves.  Last I checked, sadly, the bill has passed.

The next day we went to where Jess and Roscoe worked fixing boats preparing them for resale.  The boats or should I say yachts were beautiful and both of them are very good at what they do.  Its a skill that can take you anywhere in the world.   Only downside is you have to deal with a bunch of self-righteous individuals born into money, but with that there are some good ones.  While at the shipyard we decided to make some adjustments to the Alaia.  We cut off a foot so it would fit into my boardbag, and then raised the conave up the board.  Glad to say that all is fine and the adjustments are working great.

The boatyard and the Alaia under surgery in the background.

After that we met up with Chris Masculino from Quiksilver.  We met him while in the Philippines surfing Cloud 9.  He was inspired by what we were doing and in his position had the ability to hook up free gear for us from Quiksilver.  He first sent us a big box of goods to Hawaii and since we were going to be in his hood, we wanted to say thanks in person and just catch up.  We went to the Quiksilver Campus, like Nike, and got the whole tour and while on it we got our arms filled with more gear.  By the time we left Quiksilver that day we had a giant bag filled with gear!  As a bonus we got a bunch of clothes for kids that we hoped to give to underprivileged children while on the road.  That night we all went to get Pho, our goal was to find a Pho restaurant that had the name Pho and a number in it.  Success, Pho 54.

We headed to LA later that night, thanks Jess and Roscoe once again.  We stayed with the Altschulers in Pacific Palisades.  They treated us to a great time of good food and good company.  We got to kick it with Ethan, a truly talented young man with a memory of an iron trap!  His current passion of roller coasters is apparent in his drawings of which he made one for us.  Auntie took us out to Sushi and kept saying, order more.  But when the food came out everyone was full!  I had to eat so much sushi that I barely made it to the lua.  Auntie bought us a gift certificate to Whole Foods so after dinner the girls went shopping while I sat on the toilet.

While in LA it was our intention to meet up with Maui, my best bud back in the day.  He spent countless weekends at our house in Kailua on Kaimake Lp.  Maui is now a big time film editor in LA.  He wanted to get his hands on our tapes from our trip.  Its his intention to try to put together a teaser in order to sell a show to some channel.  We figured, what we got to lose?  So we met up and had a couple beers before he had to get to work editing a new show for the Travel Channel.

Then it was time to get to Nicaragua, or so we thought.  We bought tickets on Continental Airlines a few days earlier and nowhere throughout the prompts did it say anything about surfboards so I decided to check and found a section that said we would be charged $100 for a boardbag with two boards in it.  The next day I wanted to make sure and so I called the airlines who agreed with me and then said…….wait…….I think there is an embargo.  An embargo, WTF is an embargo on surfboards, yeah I know the definition but why on surfboards.  The lady explained but it didn’t make any sense.  We weren’t going to be able to take boards, unacceptable.  I hung up and ran through my options.  About an hour later I called back because these people mix up their opinions between representatives and I was right.  The next guy I talked to said no worries, that the embargo did not pertain to surfboards and that we would be fine.  I then asked him to put a note on our ticket that said we had spoken with him and that he had advised us that we would be able to take our surfboards despite of the embargo and had him put his name on it which he did.  Although I didn’t feel fully comfortable with this, it was all that we could do.  At this point Continental wouldn’t refund our money on the ticket and the only thing we could do was show up at the airport and cross our fingers.

As we entered the check in lines for Continental the line agents immediately singled us out because of our boards and started questioning us.  We told them where we were going and they said, not with those surfboards.  I told them our situation and they then pulled up our ticket.  The agents note was attached to the ticket and they looked at me as though I had hacked into their system to insert the note myself.  As they discussed amongst themselves they came to the conclusion that, “the agent only advised that we could take our boards.”  They said because he used the word advised and the fact that the country would refuse the boards to leave the plane we would not be able to take them with us.  The following hour was spent cordially arguing semantics and logic.  In the end, they refused to reroute us for free, refused us taking our boards with us to Nicaragua, but I convinced them to at least give us our money back.  We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get down to Central America, lugging our bags around LAX from airline to airline.  But everything was sold out for the next week to almost every town in Central America.  Louise and I made the executive decision that this was a sign and that it was off to South Africa for us.

As I made the phone calls to line up what we’d do next we realized it was for a reason and that all would be fine.  We got to spend a bunch of more time with Maui, the Zuziaks, Barret and Duke, and best of all Jess and Roscoe.  We caught a bus from LAX to Maui’s neighborhood.  Maui just happened to be renting the poolhouse from a hero of mine since I was a little kid.  This man…….Bobby Six Killer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Or his real name, Branscomb Richmond.  He’s been in countless movies and TV shows but my favorite was always the 90’s sitcom, RENEGADE!  While with Maui we got to spend a bunch of time with BSK, he even took us out to breakfast one day!  I know I am using a lot of exclamation points but this is BSK we’re talking about!  BSK was a hilarious guy and with the heart of a HAWAIIAN.  We got to meet Tutu, his mother, his wife (former Miss Hawaii), and his daughter.  The morning we went to breakfast with BSK and his Mom was great, everyone kept recognizing him and those that knew him treated him like a great friend.  He remains an idol and an inspiration.

We also got the opportunity to run into another friend while there.  On condition of anonymity I’ll convey the following while leaving out my bruddahs name.  My buddy had a condition (a sore back) that allowed him to get his legal marijuana card which allowed him to go into his local ganja dispensary and buy weed legally!  He took us one day and I’d have to say it was the best smelling store I’ve ever been in.  I think that every state should instate this program.  It seemed to work really well, while in the waiting room we saw all types of people come through.  We had a good time in the waiting room snapping pics and inhaling the intoxicating fumes.

This was ironic, the co-op is right below this billboard, supposedly completely coincidental.  My buddy took us into the So-Cal Co-Op while he picked up his herbal medication.

If anybody can do it, Barry Can(nabis).

Louise looks so guilty in the waiting room!  But these shops are set up to take the guilt away.  There should be no guilt associated with the practice of entering the IGHTS!  The place looks really clean and smells green.

As you could guess, Jess and Roscoe came and grabbed us again from up North in order to take us back South.  Our plan was to jump back onto our Round the World Ticket which next leg was from San Diego, to DC, to Johanesberg, to Cape Town.  Our leg to Central America was not a part of the ticket and was completely seperate, since we weren’t going, it ends up saving us money.  On the way South we first headed back to the Zuziaks.  We would make it just in time for Sarahs graduation party!  The food was Hawaiian and Eric had prepared homemade poke (Po-kay).  We made a beautiful lei for Sarah and it was good to spend a bit more time with their family.  Just take a look at Camerons shakeface here, he’s learning well.

EZ whipped up this epic breakfast for us.

The next day we spent it in true Laguna Beach fashion down at the beach with, which seemed to be, the whole town.  Eric was jamming slack key guitar while the kids were in and out of the water for hours.  We surfed their local break at Thalia St. and dodged the blackball (the area you can’t surf with surfboards) with the Alaia and foam boards.

Then we headed down to San Diego and stopped at different breaks along the way to check the surf.  But we had a reggae concert to get to and the surf wasn’t that good so we picked up a golden cube and booked it to Barret and Dukes.  After entering the Ights, we all were treated to a great show by THE DEVASTATORS.  These guys fricken rock and I am so surprised that they’re not touring Hawaii yet.  They are just as good if not better than most of our local bands at home and they really get the crowd shkankin.  We rocked till the end that night and had a fricken blast.

The next day we spent packing for cold weather and eating our last carne asada burritos.  We were off to South Africa at 6AM which meant we had to be there at 4AM.  As I was lining up a cab, bruddah Barret out of the blue said he would take us.  I was flabbergasted.  Tried to talk him out of it for about a second and a half and then accepted.  Tanks bruddah Barret.

Now back at the airport we once again felt we’d be alright.  When checking in in Hawaii, United Airlines was going to charge us for our boards.  We explained that Air New Zealand had told us we wouldn’t be charged as long as we were underweight.  Our tickets were not the normal travelers ticket, these were Round the World tickets that allowed for excess baggage.  We convinced United in Hawaii to speak to Air New Zealand which they did.  The tense moments leading up to the big boss (Ben) coming out and Air New Zealand concluded that we would not be charged for our surfboards as long as we were under our overall allocated weight.  A huge sigh was let out and in order to avoid this type of drama again a note was put on our tickets going forward letting all airlines know that this has been decided and we felt confident.

I am also a premier associate from flying so much therefore we headed to the premier line which was two people long vs. 45.  To take you through it quickly, the lady at the front decided that the language was not clear enough on the note and decided that we were going to be charged $250 per board and then she had us open our bags.  Inside she found our boards and we were headed to pay $1,250 for all our boards and that we actually wouldn’t be able to take our 6’6″s because they were 2″ too big.  I once again cordially explained to her, pulled out the business card of the head of United in Hawaii who said if we ran into any drama to give him a call.  But it was 2AM in Hawaii and I didn’t want to call him.  I asked to speak to a manager who came over and treated us like criminals.  Extremely rude, but I thought she was the Customer Service Manager?  I plan on writing a separate piece all about the dramas of traveling as a surfer which should come out soon.  Anyways the Customer Service manager for United in SD and that she would do us a huge favor and only charge us for two boards.  Therefore, unless we wanted to leave our boards, we were going to be charged an extra $500 to get our boards onto the plane.  There wasn’t much more we could do at this point.

To end it all, this lady below calls over another one of her bosses after the lady said ok at $500 and begins speaking to him in French.  I was able to piece enough together tounderstand that she was saying she was going to only charge me for 2 although I had 5 and was he ok with that.  He said ok, but pull his file.  For not speaking french I was pissed I understood her.  Thanks to Spanish and traveling around picking up words here and there.  I must have looked stupid, but you know what united lady, you really made me not like French people even more.

We are currently fighting the charges with United, will let you know how it goes.

Hmmmm, how much should I jack this surfer boy?

Yeah, thats it lets jack him hard!  Going to go have fun?  Not without paying, heeeheeeheee.

So now we are in Jbay, Louise and I plan on making these posts shorter to keep you guys interested.  Although we kind of eluded to it before, we are going to try and make a concentrated effort at it now.  Hope all of you are well.  Much Aloha to you and yours.

Next post, coming from Africa.