Waves! Shrimp!

Last week we escaped from Honolulu (a very rare occurrence), rented a car, and drove up to the North Shore where, by coincidence, the best surf of the winter so far was waiting for us. And no, I didn't get in the water, on account of I didn't want to die that day. Here's some video from Pipeline.



Down the beach a little farther, the O'Neill Men's World Cup was happening. It was cool and all, with the 20-foot waves and obviously very athletic surfer-dude-brahs. Four guys at a time paddle out for a 30-minute session and try to rack up the highest score they can, while trying not to get pummeled too badly. Because of the obviously challenging conditions, some guys might catch only one or two waves during their whole session, so there's a lot of waiting and watching involved. The scoring system was a little bit lame to me. A high score seems to depend on how many times you can cut back and forth from the crest to the trough of the wave (typically about three times before the wave closes out). Then you get extra points if the wave barrels over you and you get to ride inside it for a while. My problem was that getting the highest score wasn't necessarily about the most skillful or risky riding, it was only about waiting for the type of wave that would let you get a few good turns in before you could bail out. I thought there was a lot more potential for the guys to show off their style and their skills. Instead, every ride looked pretty much the same, and it got kinda boring after a few minutes.

For a delicious lunch, we went in search of the shrimp truck. This was something we'd been hearing about for a while, and it was totally shrimp-tastic! We got what everyone gets, the shrimp scampi. And no, it has nothing to do with pasta. It's a plate of twelve shrimp, in their tasty shells, smothered in garlicky butter, with a couple of scoops of white rice. And a cold beer. For good luck I got a little of the burn-your-face-off hot sauce on the side. I can't tell you how satisfying that was, after a long, difficult morning of beach-bumming.