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I’m Going to Fall off This Ship! When I finished high school, I was ready for some adventure. College just didn’t seem to be the answer, so I started looking around for other options. My dad was a master gunnery sergeant in the Marines and was very traditional. He had made it clear that I’ll be on my own when I turn 18, so when college didn’t work out and I decided to do something else, I hit the road. I headed for Reno, Nevada, where my aunt lived, and started working odd jobs. That got old pretty quick, so...

Member of the Month is our VIP member, Kyle Lee This month’s Member of the Month is our VIP member, Kyle Lee. He comes into the shop full of positive energy you all can feel, it’s contagious and we love it! In the past few months, he’s picked up a few Thunderbolt Technology boards. He’s given us several video reviews that we’ve posted on Social media. It’s awesome because after seeing the reviews, others picked up the board and are stoked because of Kyle’s review. When and why did you initially get into surfing? As far as I can remember,...

The battle for the world title and Olympic qualification continues this week as the world tour moves to Bells Beach, in Victoria, Australia. Bells has been the setting for some of surfing’s most pivotal performances. It is the longest running world tour-level event, having run consecutively for over 50 years, and helped reveal the thruster to the world in 1981 when Simon Anderson took the win in maxed out Bells Bowl. Always run over Easter weekend, the event draws thousands of surf fans, and has been won by some of surfing’s greats, including Kelly Slater, Mick Fanning, and Andy Irons....

Kelly Slater is the undisputed greatest surfer of all time, particularly when it comes to competitive surfing. But even the GOAT gets old eventually, and at 46 Slater’s career is nearing it’s end. He still amazes us now and then, and is still a contender in big, barreling waves, but he’s starting to struggle to keep up with the youngsters on tour—which is understandable, since he’s now competed against four separate generations of world tour surfers. The 2019 world tour kicked off last week on the Gold Coast, with Slater coming up short in his round one heat. He was...

NOW IN THE NEW MODEL PUDDLE JUMBER HIGH PERFORMANCE!  It's the WORLDS MOST Environmentally Friendly Surfboard Made in the USA. "If you are one of the thousands of surfers that enjoyed the Puddle Jumper Series, the PJHP allows you to take your small wave surfing to the next level."- Matt Biolos NEW LIBTECH PUDDLE JUMPER HP  A mainstay of the …Lost quiver, the Puddle Jumper HP is a revved up, slimmed down variation on the classic Puddle Jumper, designed for high performance surfing. The pulled-in nose and moved-back wide point allow the board to shred like a normal shortboard,...

Oahu is the center of the surfing universe, and most pros stop through the island at some point in their careers (if not every season). But for every visiting professional surfer there is an Oahu local who shines just as bright—whether you are talking about longboarding, barrel riding, high-performance surfing, or big wave charging. Trevor Carlson is part of that last category—a world-class big wave expert who holds it down for Hawaii season after season. Because he doesn’t have any major sponsors, Trevor isn’t as well known as some of the other local big wave guys—but that’s also part of...

While big wave surfing as a whole has been progressing by leaps and bounds, competitive big wave surfing has sort of been stagnating over the past few years. It all started with the abysmal call at Nazare last season, when the world title was decided in waves that were barely big enough for a step-up, let alone a gun. Then this 2018/19 season continued with woeful calls, as both the men’s and women’s events at Jaws were plagued with questionable judging, with many people agreeing that Kai Lenny and Emi Erickson both got robbed. To make matters worse, it has...

RADIO TAISO AND A SURF AT KEWALOS David Kelly | Owner, Hawaiian South Shore The other morning when I was getting ready to surf, I heard some music playing. I looked around, and realized the music was coming from the docks. I could see a group of people doing calisthenics, and it appeared that they were doing it in time to the radio music! This reminded me of when I was growing up in Okinawa. Every morning during summer break at 6:30a.m., we  would all  line up at the community center (“kominkan”) and do something called radio taiso (“radio exercise”)....

 NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2019 MT. FUJI David Kelly | Owner, Hawaiian South Shore Everyone can use a little luck in their lives, and my wife has her own fun way of finding it.  For the past few years, we have done trips back to Japan each January, and legend has it that it is good luck to bring in the new year by gazing upon Mt. Fuji. So every time we book our trips, my wife always makes sure that she will get a chance to see Mt. Fuji. Sometimes that might mean staying in a ryokan that has a good...

With all of the heavy-water antics that the best in the world are doing these days, and the non-stop media coverage documenting every monumental ride, it is easy to become desensitized to big wave surfing. These days it can often seem like if you aren’t charging 50-foot Peahi, then you aren’t charging at all. But the reality is that we all surf at different levels, and that big waves and the fear that comes with them are largely relative. While it might take a massive Mavs bomb to get Aaron Gold’s blood pumping, for the beginner surfer who has only...

Over the years, surfing has had a wide variety of characters, ranging from chargers and contenders to kooks and clowns. While these luminaries have worn numerous coats as surfers, shapers, documentarians, and innovators, true renaissance men have been few and far between. But Hawaii currently has a true renaissance man in its ranks, a surfer who brings together academia, philosophy, environmentalism, innovation, athleticism, and marketability. Clifford Kapono grew up on the big island and comes from a respected Hawaiian family. While he was a talented surfer growing up, his family emphasized the importance of education. After graduating from Kamehameha High...

MY THOUGHTS FOR 2019 AND BEYOND! THE LIFE EXTENDER David Kelly | Owner, Hawaiian South Shore As the calendar switches over to a new year, many of us start to think about time and age. Specifically, we look at how old we are and how much time we have left. If you were to ask the average person how long they thought they were going to live, most would probably tell you somewhere between 70 and 100 years. Recently, I listened to a podcast and read an interesting book about the lifetime extender exercise. The author talks about how he...

Here’s one for those of us who have been missing competitive surfing. It has been seven months since the last world tour event when the Pipe Masters finished off the season and Italo Ferreira was crowned world champ.   The entire 2020 season was subsequently canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that no one can travel anywhere, which means no pro surfers in jerseys and no contests for fans to watch. But that all changed on Sunday, August 9, when the World Surf League ran an invitational contest at the Surf Ranch called the Rumble At the...

When you surf a spot for long enough, you start to get to know the familiar faces in the lineup. Surfers are creatures of habit, and we all have our favorite spots that we frequent day in and day out—whether they happen to be well-known North Shore spots like Pipeline or Velzyland, underground secret spots on the West Side, or uber-crowded Town waves such as Queens and Threes. Ala Moana Bowls is arguably the most crowded wave in Town, but it still has its crew of regulars that you’ll bump into every time you paddle out for a session. One...

Today marked the solstice—the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere—and we certainly had a lot of winter activity to celebrate. The biggest swell of the year steamrolled through the Pacific, bringing large swell to Hawaii before blasting the West Coast with back-to-back XXL pulses. The action started on the North Shore, where the Pipe Masters, Triple Crown, and world title were all decided on Monday. Joel Parkinson retired, Jesse Mendes just barely squeaked by Parko for the Triple Crown title, and Kelly Slater made the semis at Pipe after making one of the most amazing wipeout to in...