A cool quick edit by Blake Kueny from one of our not so epic days, as we were waiting for the Hurricane to arrive during The Hunt. Notice the quick clip of us passing the time playing with Sanuk’s Soft Bocce Ball set… The best travel companion of all time!!!

Straight from Hurricane Alex in Texas to a Southern Hemi swell in Costa… That was a super fun week of wave searching in July… Blake Kueny, (aka Vincent Calico) came along to shoot and edit this super sweet shred video… Thanks O’neill for making this happen!!!

Alex was the first named tropical system of the season… Cory Lopez and I went to Texas of all places to try and intersect the swell that Alex was producing. Expectations were low knowing where we were heading. One of the forecasts had Alex turning north which would have left us with good waves and offshore wind conditions. But the tricky thing about hurricane season is you never know what is going to happen till it happens. Alex took a southerly track making landfall a couple hours south of where we were staying, leaving us with sloppy on shore winds and victory at sea conditions. Cory and I drove down to try and surf a wave near where Alex was coming ashore, but got denied by the local officials closing the bridge to the beach. The day after left us with fun surf and some sunshine. Not exactly the surf we were looking for to kick off Hurricane Season 2010, but the journey and excitement of being in the actual storm out weighed the quality of surf…

Photos from the trip are posted here at TRANSWORLDSURF.COM

Here is the first episode of THE HUNT 2010…

This was such an amazing experience!!! O’neill asked me to be a part of a charity event where I would be pushing young kids diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis into waves. Of course I said yes immediately even before I really knew much about Cystic Fibrosis. I knew that I would be helping kids and when it comes to helping kids and helping them to surf, you cant tempt me with a good time. As Im getting filled in about the day and what the foundation is all about, the person running the event explains to me details about this disease. The disease is terminal for these children, the purpose for events like this is because the ocean water helps to break up the mucus that is trapped in their lungs. So if they start coughing, I should encourage it because thats what we are all here for… WOW, the fact alone that Im looking at all these amazing little humans that know their own lives are cut short, let alone the sickness they have to deal with their whole lives, was almost too much to process at once. But, I was their for the kids and was very excited and honored to be a part of such an amazing event.

It was a warm foggy morning in Santa Monica accompanied by a very calm glassy ocean… I was paired up with a beautiful little blonde girl that proceeded to blow my mind with how strong and stubborn her personality was. I found out very soon that I was playing by her rules and her favorite word was NO!!! She didn’t want to ride waves, she just wanted to float and paddle. After a while, I held the board steady out in the water so she could stand up. Her face lit up and immediately yelled to girl next to her to have a standing contest… She won of course. I noticed she could paddle very good so I encouraged her race me as a swam. After 1 race she was challenging anyone she could find to a race. A guy stepped up to the challenge, after a big push from me to start off the race she whooped him too… Awesome Im thinking, maybe she will want to surf now??? NO!!! she says. Just float and hang out… That was perfect for me because I could see how much fun she was having. We stayed out there till we were almost the last ones still out. It took her dad telling her to come in before she even thought about getting out… Sweet I thought, maybe I can get her on a wave… NO!!! she said but I gave her a little push anyways… we got to the beach and she was so happy and started to tell her dad about the standing on the board and the paddle races… When we were all leaving she looked at her dad and asked if they could get my number so I could come and hang out… I almost lost it right there… Now I don’t think of myself as a very emotional person, but WOW that really touched me…

My point is, no matter what you do, for anybody, sometimes the smallest things like hanging out with a little girl in the ocean for a bit can make the biggest impact… I highly recommend following the links to the Mauli Ola Foundation and figuring out whatever it is you can help out with… It will change your life and help prolong many others

MAULI OLA FOUNDATION

O’NEILL COVERAGE OF THE EVENT

In recent light of a slow heating 2010 hurricane season, I realized that I never posted the only episode I did (due to funding) of The Hunt in 2009. So here it is!!!