New Heavywater's Out!

today was a delivery day... my back's been hurting pretty bad since the last one so i wasn't looking forward to this at all. a box weigh about 25lbs each and there are hundreds of them... and top of that i need to constantly lifting them out of the van in weird positions. it's impossible not to use my back to lift those boxes. shiiiiiiit. my back is killing me now. hey, but someone gotta do it, right?

after driving all over the island (north shore, waikele, pearlridge, kailua, town, waikiki, etc) my jess called me up and told me she's at the new Up&Riding location on ward. i still had to go over there so it was perfect timing. Up&Riding is a surf shop specialize in kids stuff. super cool place if you are a kid, if you have kids or you are looking for gifts for kids. check them out!

jess works for billabong and she was setting up displays and merchandises at the store. i got my camera phone out and snapped a photo of jess. here she is working hard. ha ha. i think she was scratching her eye.

sister (kelia) is getting huge! everywhere i go i see roxy posters with her in them. when i first walked into Up&Riding, this is what i saw.

here's a close up. i didn't noticed till i looked at the photo but the poster on the left got sister in it too. she's the one on the far left. good job sis!!

Go-naminori had a contest at kewalos today. i really wanted to take some photos there but i couldn't... delivery takes all day (12hours). check out kirby's blog for all the fun they had at the contest!

not so exciting day, specially when i knew everyone was having fun at the contest... new swell coming soon!! can't wait to go shoot!

Not so perfect waves, but a perfect day!

waves weren't the best but all the kids were at kewalos today enjoying another beautiful day. i took out my camera and started snapping some shots of what these kids do when they are not surfing.

from left: derek, kapu, alyssa, cody. just hanging out, don't know what kapu was doing...

sister and derek.

kapu brought out a marker and started sniffing like he wanted to get high off of it. man, kapu's one strange guy... nah, he's a cool kid.

here are some of the younger kids. from left: shun, seth, kaulana, josh. again, kapu's doing who knows what in the back. i don't think derek knew he was in the photo. ha ha

kids + marker = tagging on each other's bodies. here's kapu attacking seth.

seth and kaulana tag each others foot and kaulana tagged himself with some cool looking flames on his legs.

shun started tagging in japanese! shun's pretty much one of the gangs now. they can't communicate with words but they were all laughing hanging out all day.

i started packing my cooler when i go down to kewalos 'cuz some of these kids are there all day and i know they get thirsty. kids attacking the cooler!

kapu disappeared for a while and came back with a coconut. football hawaii style! ha ha

i went out and surfed for little bit while kids were on land playing. as soon as they started padding back out, i was done. i can't compete against these guys. they never get tired!! so instead of paddle battling i grabbed my camera to shoot some action in the water.

here are kids' biggest fans and supporters! well, and brandon (kuakini) in the middle. he was showing them his nasty cut on his leg. these parents are amazing! they are alway bring the kids to surf even on the weekdays and they don't even live in town. no wonder why these kids surf so well. it's always nice to see parents who are so involved with their kids. i hope the kids realize how lucky they are one day.

cass (kuakini) got all excited when i swam out there with my camera. ha ha

cass has been surfing really well these days. it's amazing how these kids get so much better at surfing almost everyday!

seth is usually the youngest and the smallest one in the water but he surfs way better than lot of the guys out in the water.

alyssa was out there having fun too. pose to the camera! ha ha
showing the boys how it's done!

matty's backside attack! talk about being vertical, this is as vertical as you can get.

waves weren't the best but another great day at the beach. it's time to hit the shower!

I thought I was gonna have a crappy day

today was kouki and yuuko's last full day in hawaii. i picked up kouki and we were off to the beach. derek called me earlier in the morning and told me the waves were super crappy in town so we've decided to just meet up at kewalos and venture out to somewhere else. well, that was our "plan" untill derek fell sleep at home and wasn't answering his phone...

kewalos looked surfable but not that great and top of that, it started raining super hard. kouki and i were sitting in my car waiting for the rain to stop, that's when kirby drove up.

kirby's a pro surfer in japan and owns www.go-naminori.com. not only he's a great surfer, he takes awesome surf photos and he's a master of spear fishing. i knew if kirby's at kewalos, this was the best spot to surf on the island. so instead of waiting for derek to wake up and call me back, we changed and paddled out while kirby went out for a spear fishing session.

this kid, shun, from japan is staying with kirby so shun paddled out with us to surf too. man, this kid can surf!! he's only 11 and he was making me look really bad out there doing nice snaps, sick cutbacks, etc. shun got vana (sea urchin) stuck in his hand from taking one of the waves too far in. he was tough tho. he kept on surfing. it's kindda hard to see in the photo but he had about 20 little thorns stuck in his hand.

i knew kirby was gonna catch some fish! if i were to be in that tv show survivor, i want him on my tribe for sure. with kirby on the tribe we'll be gaining weight while the other tribe will be starving. ha ha

took a little food break and we were back in the water. the surf actually got really fun! i was so stoked for kouki cuz after today he's back in japan, working everyday and surf every once in a while.

for the 2nd session geoff, dana, zeke, and finally derek joined us. here are some shots i took in the parking lot after our session.

just hanging out enjoying our sunday early evening.
i guess this is how kids now these days kiss. ha ha
derek was trying to look cool changing. i don't think it worked, he doesn't look cool at all...
everytime i take my camera out, zeke wants to pose and get some shots, camera whore! ha ha

i thought we were going to have a crappy day but ended up being a fun day again!

Da Hui Bash 2008

i got a call from sister (kelia) right when i was about to leave my house to go to the beach. she's stuck in waikiki but want to head over to kewalos to hangout with her friends. so kaz's cab service went to her rescue! ha ha

when i got there i saw a lady collecting bottles to recycle with this bitching hat/umbrella thing. i thought it was one of the funniest things i've seen in a while so i had to take a picture of her.

here's sister enjoying a comfortable vip service of the kaz's cab service.

everyone was at kewalos! all the kids were there ripping even tho the waves weren't that great. my friend jess showed up with phillip from RVCA wear. phillip hooked me up with some sick shirts and a hat. cheee hooo! i love RVCA stuff. thanks phillip.

da hui bash was tonight at pipeline cafe so i headed over there to take some photos. da hui throws this party every year and it's always super fun. this year was special 'cuz this was uncle ed's (one of the founding mambers of da hui) 60th birthday party too! happy birthday uncle ed!

live bands, tons of give-a-ways, surfboard raffles, and great people. super fun night!

here's Typical Hawaiians rocking the house. troy fernandez from Ka'a au Crater Boys joined them to jam his amazing ukulele skills.

this kid was super happy! i would be to if i won a brand new surfboard by Vercelli. Vercelli shapes some awesome boards and he's super cool guy. go checkout his site and call him up for your next board! tell him Kaz send you!

here's Makana and Kahea. these girls surf at the same place as i do and they are tons of fun. they are getting so tall now. they are almost as tall as i am... oh yeah and i'm rocking my new RVCA shirt!! ha ha

here's kala alexander taking his time to take a picture with the girls. girls were stoked!

here's makua rothman posing with kids.
i got to surf and hangout with bunch of good people. another amazing day here in hawaii!

YES! It's Windy and Raining.

woke up yesterday morning to super windy ugly weather. YES! you know what that means, i get to surf!! what a treat 'cuz i haven't surf in a while since the waves been firing. called up kouki and alyssa to see if they want to go surf.

i went to pick alyssa up and surprise!! kelia (sister) is back fron france and she was hanging out with alyssa.

got the girls and picked kouki up and off to the beach!

super windy but the waves actually looked really fun. so it was time for us to surf. i didn't even bring my camera so i took these photos with my camera phone. the girls are usually all into taking pictures but i guess not with my camera phone... they were being camera shy. ha ha
after the first session kouki and i picked up yuuko, kouki's wife, and went got some food at rainbows inn. it's a must stop for anyone who's visiting. kouki was craving their loco moco ever since they landed here.

we went back to the beach for a 2nd session after the food. man, we surfed a lot today. waves were super fun too.

we went over to my buddy bobby's boat for a little bbq after to wrap up our day. what an awesome day!

Old friend and Bunch of Kids!

my friend kouki is in town from japan right now. he's stoked because we got some waves right now.

i picked kouki up early (like 530am) yesterday and met up with derek and kapu (ping) at kewalos for a little photo session.

look how white kouki is, i guess he still has to wear wetsuits in japan to surf so no tan on him at all. ha ha

warm and clear water and sunny sky! he was stoked!

derek was little out of it yesterday morning. i guess little too early for him. he landed on top of me AGAIN! 3 times in 2 days... shiiiiiiit. i guess rippers have off days too. ha ha

managed to get a good shot of him tho.

the ride of the morning goes to kapu! he was busting some nice airs.

in the afternoon, we (me, kouki, derek, zeke, matty, kaulana) all met up at kewalos and packed up my wagon and went to the beach park side.
the kids were going nuts!!

zeke!

matty boy!

introducing kaulana (apo)! he's the older brother of nahe from my previous blog. he's so young and tiny but he rips!! remember his name, cuz your gonna start seeing his name everywhere.
what a great day it was!

i woke up today at 630am to check the waves. it's super windy!! i'm going back to sleep for a while and check again around 10am.

and the Winner is...

another day of being sick... woke up again with sore throat, stuffed sinus, headache and sore body. i had to head down to bowls to cover the Macy's E-series tho.

when i got there, the waves were going off! perfect condition 3+ft waves. i was feeling super tired and sick but i got my camera ready and i was in the water.

i must've been really out of it 'cuz i didn't even set the camera right. i had it set with super low shutter speed... i didn't realize it til the final heat. shiiiit.

this shot came out cool with the slow shutter speed tho. it got so much speed blur, you can feel how Flynn was whipping his board super hard. i'm kindda stoked.

it was staked heats quarter finals on. at the end here's the result.
1st: Flynn Novak (Haleiwa), $2,500
2nd: David Gonsalves (Honolulu), $1,000
3rd: Jason Shibata (Haleiwa), $800
4th: Kaipo Jaquias (Lihue, Kauai), $700

flynn was ripping the whole day. he was finding barrels almost every wave he caught.

davey boy had a sick perfect 10 wave during the quarter finals but i missed the shots because of my camera setting... shiiiit.

he was wipping around his board like a mad man! he was going way beyond vertical and whipping his board back, again beyond vertical. siiiick!
i'm still feeling sick but no time to rest, the waves are too good not to shoot!! i'll rest when it goes flat. ha ha