The ancient Kahunas‘ hang out?

[oldmansurfer]

I have been very fortunate in my surfing. The way everything played out in my life could have been scripted from when I was very young yet it was entirely unplanned. Learning to swim at a very young age, taking swimming lesson after almost drowning then finding I enjoyed swimming lessons so taking as much as I could joining the swim team, learning to bodysurf in bigger waves, Learning to paipo board in bigger waves. Learning to surf as it seemed to be the way to go and my parents had given me a state of the art surfboard when I still wasn't interested in it. I had zero plans for my life except to move out of my parents house after I graduated from high school. I never expected to make it to 18 years old as I had several medical professionals warn me to change my ways or I would not see 18. I turned 18 and suddenly I was like "I'm still alive! What do I do now?" The job I got was taking care of a small zoo in a hotel near Wailua beach. I found that I enjoyed working with animals so much and recognized that I would not be able to surf as much as I want once the journey to a veterinary medical degree started so I got a passport and planned to go to California and work my way down to Mexico and maybe further south if money held out. I had saved up some money and sold my car and had a good little nest egg of cash to use. Lucky for me I stayed on Kauai and got to surf as much as I wanted there and used the money to finance 4 years of undergraduate school.

I was very fortunate to meet Greg and that he decided to take me along with him on these surfing adventures around Oahu and lucky that I didn't know his level of surfing or it would have bothered me. I would have been looking out for him and concerned for him in conditions that were not a worry for myself. Worried that he was bored not catching waves or might get injured. As it was my ignorance was a blessing for me and maybe for Greg as well. He didn't want my help.
Lucky to have caught so many awesome waves. Lucky to have survived relatively unscathed. Perhaps some of the luck was just me taking advantage of what was before me. I assume that there are lots of surfers who have similar stories. The one I read that I can relate to the most is Barbarian Days A Surfing Life by William Finnegan but if you have read it, it's obvious my experience was different from his. It's the way he relates to the ocean that seems similar to me. I can tell he feels about the ocean similar to me. Or maybe not lol I am so bone headed sometimes.