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THE DAILY QUOTE
Where’s Steve? I don’t like it. he should be here by now!
Bali Strickland recounting the words of fellow On The Rock team member, Dave Sparkes. After two weeks of hurrying up and waiting for the Maui event to run and losing his mind in the process, Sparkesy had adopted a pet cockroach, which he named Steve. Every night Steve would turn up out on the porch, Sparkesy would pat him and talk to him about his day. On the last day though Steve never showed, and Sparkesy was freaking, thinking Steve had been on the wrong end of a can of bug spray.
See 'em all...
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KOA KOMMUTES FROM KAUAI
December 19, Da North Shore
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THE DRIVE TO TOWNWith the North Shore winter on the wane, all roads are heading south.
The bright lights of Honolulu are just an hour’s drive from the North Shore, and a giddy respite from the increasingly sleepy backwaters of the North Shore. In town there’s all the things that aren’t readily available in the 96712 Haleiwa postcode – a beer under five Australian dollars, available women, Christmas shopping, strip clubs.
The drive into Honolulu is an interesting cultural affair… interesting the first time you traverse it, anyway. Here’s a quick rundown on the towns you’ll pass through along the way.
Haleiwa: Like the Dodge City meets Honolulu, the old girl has some real charm these days. A 10-minute drive from Pipeline, it’s the place for to go sustenance if your body is rejecting 23 straight nights of Foodland sushi. Driving north from Haleiwa through the pineapple fields, you’ll see the pass in the mountains where the Japanese planes flew through on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor.
Wahiawa: A bit like Mos Eisley from Star Wars meets South Central. Up on the plateau, a short drive through the pineapple fields away, there’s plenty of fast food joints, tattoo parlours, traffic lights and a good, cheap supermarket.
Schofield Barracks: And if you bypass Wahiawa, you drive through Schofield, one of largest military instillations outside of mainland America. The place, as you’d imagine, is full of GIs and has a slightly strange air to it. Curl On The Rock photographer, Sean Davey and I once drank at a bar on the river up here one night. I was wary at first – imagining myself getting snotted by some cammo-clad guy with a buzzsaw haircut – but the bar was cool, and looked out over the local river lined with Australian eucalypts.
From this point the H1 into Honolulu becomes a four-lane piece of spaghetti.
There’s seven exits for the same place, and the fact the Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters means all the exit signs start to read the same after a while. For surfers looking for a good time, there’s only one they’re after – Nimitz Freeway, Waikiki.
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Feature StoryFIVE MINUTES WITH KAUAIAN SUPERGROM, KOA SMITH.
On The Rock: Koa, can you remember the first wave you ever caught?
Koa: First wave I ever caught? Hmm, no. I was only four. But I think it was at Hanalei Pier. I remember back in the day it was the best wave ever, because we were so small. It’s like a pier with a little left running off it, but it doesn’t break anymore. My brother, Alex taught me how to surf. He’d taught himself to surf because Mum and Dad don’t surf. He learned by himself and passed it on to me.
How’s the rivalry between you guys?
I have two brothers, we’re all two years apart. One’s a bodyboarder, Travis, and Alex who’s a surfer. I don’t know, mostly the tension and rivalry is more between Travis and Alex.
Describe Kauai.
It’s pretty beautiful. It’s green, there’s waterfalls, it rains pretty well every day.
Do you feel lucky to live there?
For sure. I always want to go home if I’ve been away for more than three weeks. I go to California for a month and we went to New Zealand and Australia for six weeks. But if I go away I start getting super homesick by three weeks. I’d rather stay home, but I like travelling a lot too, it’s a good experience.
What’s the favourite place you’ve been to?
January last year I went to Fernando De somewhere in Brazil, and that was probably, like, the best trip I’ve had, so fun. I travel a bit for contests and photo shoots and whatever.
What’s the focus of your surfing at the moment?
I’m dong the NSSA, which pretty well every amateur surfer does until they’re about 17 or 18. I’m just doing that right now. I’m a little young for the junior pros, but I’m gonna start taking ‘em serious in the next two years.
So you’re home schooled, eh? Hows that go for you?
It’s good. I start school at 10 and go to 2.30. But its pretty much like a regular school day, we get teachers coming in and if the waves are good during school hours we gotta stay in school. We can’t get out of it.
How do you find the difference between surfing at home in Kauai and surfing Oahu’s North Shore?
It’s only a 15-minute flight but it feels like a whole different
world. There are so many people out on the North Shore, but if you do
get a good wave you’ll pretty much make a name for yourself. There’s
also a lot more beachbreaks back on Kauai.
Coming from Kauai does the crowd here on the North Shore do your head in?
I’m fine with crowds I guess, but I’d rather find my own peak down
the beach and catch a million waves than share a peak with a million
guys and catch one.
You’ve
done quite a bit of surfing out at Off The Wall this year. How’s the
scene out there with all those maniacs out there pulling into anything
that moves?
Pretty much when you’re out there at a place like Off The Wall or
Backdoor, if a wave comes to you, you have to go. Even if it’s a
closeout you have to pull in. There’s a little pressure there, but I
kinda like pulling into closeouts I guess anyway.
What’s your big wave board you’ve got here at the moment?
Well, I bought a 5’6” over with me but I was only coming for one
day and I broke it anyway. But when I come here I don’t usually bring
big boards, but I’m going to start for sure.
Kauai breeds a lot of tough surfers. Do you know many of those high profile guys?
I know Dustin Barca pretty well, I’ve met Kaiborg and Kala a couple
of times. but I’ve never sat down and really talked to them that much.
So if you accidentally dropped in on someone out at Backdoor and got whistled in, what would you be doing?
I’d swim back to Kauai pretty quick.
Do you prefer the quiet of home or the semi chaos of the North Shore?
I like mixing it up. I can come here for like, a week, and not
really have a ticket home, but then book ticket and be home in two
hours for $50. There’s six flights a day back home.
Did I see you in Bali this year?
Yeah, I was in Bali for the Rip Curl Search event this year. It was
super fun. I never got to surf where the contest was because it would
run from dark to dark, but I had a lot of fun there, good waves. It’s
so different to anywhere else I’d been. It was my second time to Bali,
and my fourth time to Indo.
Who are the your favourite surfers?
I like a lot of surfers. I like Joel’s smoothness, I like Mick’s
fastness, and I like Andy’s style a lot. You have to like Kelly because
he’s the best in the world.
What’s the plan for next year?
Next year I’ll finish the NSSA for the year, do some photo trips, and kind of cruise.
Any one place you wanna go where you haven’t been yet?
I want to go to Micronesia. My brother went there and said it was the best surf he’d ever had.
And I notice that after Mick left
the team house yesterday you moved straight up into his Presidential
Suite upstairs. Are you laying a claim on that for later years?
If Rip Curl’s back in here next year, Mick will get it, but who knows down the track.
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