From La Maison to La Union

Started the weekend with birthday lunch for my brother at La Maison (got free birthday brownies!!! Woot, woot!) then off to La Union for another weekend of sunshine and surf.

The Point was glassy and big and peeling and perfect. Getting out was the opposite. Wild. One million duck dives plus extra strong current. So... I went to Bacnotan instead. Hahahaha. Same thing for Sunday. It was smaller there but so much easier to get out to the line-up. .

Highlights:
- Akaw Daluyon is now in the hospital :( His deck buckled while Moro was using him at the Point so now he is in the loving hands of Aki Akinaga, the Yoda of LU Surfing.
- Angel made a special batch of turon for dinner. Sobrang sarap!
- Scored three extra stoke rides that I continue to replay in my head
- The standard LU sunset never fails to take my breath away.
- Lunch at Hacienda this weekend came with sinigang! Woohoo! Love sinigang.
- Hangin' out with Paolo Babycakes ni Bjorn Soler again. It's been too long Pao. Glad to see you back in the line-up.
- Moro shredding on his new 7S superfish (no name yet)
- The ride home with only me in the backseat of the Santa Fe = snoozing the whole way down to Manila.

North Swell Na 'To!

First long weekend of the 'ber months! :) Chest high with shoulder high sets at both the beach break and the Point. Clean and glassy. Surprisingly not that crowded. Longboard days (taba nung alon!). Scored a super good ride Friday morning that set the mood for the rest of the weekend. And got some fish time in too on Sunday morning.

Rode home with Joncy and his new surfmobile. Not a lot of photos cos we were in the water A LOT.

Some things that weren't photographed but are worth mentioning:
- A full rainbow during the Saturday afternoon session. One end at Surfmaid, the other at Hacienda :)
- My view of Lemon clapping for me as I made that awesome drop :) Moro on the inside yelling at me to keep charging it. Hihihi.
- Daisy framed by the sunset, sitting on her board in the line-up.
- Super good lunch at Hacienda -- inihaw na manok with adobong bamboo shoots for only P75!
- The new lights in the driveway of Surfers' Inn.
- Carla Sebastian charging the beach break on her fifth time surfing.
- Two seven year olds getting their first tastes of stoke for three whole days.

Check out this album for the snapshots.

My new favorite surfer!

This has to be quick cos I'm only tapping into someone's wifi signal and I should be going through my photos. But, blog-whore that I am, I felt compelled to fire off a quick blog about my new favorite surfer.

It used to be Matt Hoy. Then I found out some crap about him and he fell from grace.
So Ryan Agustein, my second in line, moved up. He's super cool, super chill and for a guy who can charge Mavericks, is really down-to-earth. Hella humble. We met him two years ago and it's always so nice to see him on the island.

But... then I met JASON SHIBATA!!!



Shibats is one of the mellowest cats I've ever met. PLUS he's really friendly, super down-to-earth, kalog and he rips like maaaaaad! I'm super duper stoked to meet him. Don't get me wrong, I still love Ryan heaps and heaps. But how cool was it to meet Shibata and find out that he's this really great person?

Update as of Oct 1st: Ryan and Shibats are equal first with me. Super cool, super nice, super surfers. Hard to beat that kind of combination.

Yun lang, sharing from a surf aid.

And already I miss them...

It's my first morning back in Manila. And after the pattern of the last ten days, it feels strange to wake up in my own bed... in my own room. It doesn't fit into my day anymore to walk to a kitchen and jusy grab a glass of juice from the fridge. Most of all, how odd to be back in the city and so far away from the island. Far from Siargao's perfect office view and even more perfect waves.

But more than anything... it's really this that I miss the most right now:


Siargao only feels like Neverland... but unlike it, these kids do grow up. These are my new batch of grommets. My first batch has grown up and declared themselves too old to be hugged, too old to be following my around the island, and definitely too old to be kissed and coddled. So these groms are my ones from last year... a little bit older... but young enough still to think it's cool to hang with "Ate Kage."(In photo: Mike, Ken, Lorse, Enteng, Phillip)

Breakfast beckons. How odd that I can now have pretty much anything I want for brek -- waffles, bacon, three cheese toast, garlic rice - but I would much rather be sitting in Ate Layda's store as the morning sunlight drifts through the trees, sipping on a coffee and budgeting my meal by having only a single egg with toast.