Missing Post #1: New Year's Eve day

By KJ

Well, it's apparent that the wheels officially came off on the Surf with Murph trip as we rung in the New Year with an epic two-day bender, which I was never able to fully recover from. Thus, explaining the lack of posts from then-on-out. So, now that I'm thankfully away from Murph and my batteries are somewhat recharged, I'll try to make up for it with a few missing posts.

So, on New Year's Eve day, we hit up the beach at Turtle Bay. It was the most picturesque day of our time on the North Shore and we had a blast just lounging on the beach, having lunch at Hang Ten again and then "taking it easy" before the long night ahead.


Murph, Airasian and I ventured out onto this point at Turtle Bay and the views were amazing. The waves were the biggest that we had seen (yet).

After Turtle Bay, me, Murph, Lapa, Mellen, Mike and Ty decided to head to Sunset Beach with the boogie boards. What a TERRIBLE idea.

It was an angry, angry sea and it was a very dangerous scene. There were waves that were over 20 feet. We only got out about a hundred feet or so from the shore and we all struggled to get back in.

At one point, Mike collided with Mellen, then I collided with Mellen and then Mellen collided with a rock. Mellen tore up his right thigh pretty badly... two cuts and a deep bruise. We were all lucky to get out alive...seriously.

After I collided with Mellen, it took me a wave or two to put myself back together. When I finally did, I looked to the shore to see a man frantically pointing with both hands for me to get right... he looked like an airtraffic controller on speed.

Based on his urgent reaction, I knew that I was pretty much right on top of the big lava rock thing that Murph and I got our honeymoon photo taken on earlier in the week. I looked down and I could literally touch that rock with my right hand.

I was rather freaked out and thankfully there was a small window without any waves that allowed me time to paddle like a mad man to get off of that rock.

The rest of the crew had exited the water from our entry point and they were a little freaked when they gathered themselves and did a headcount to find that they were a man down. Then, a few seconds later they saw me come strolling down the beach WAAAAYYY down with my boogie board under my arm.

Once we were able to get our heads back on straight, we all confessed how scared we were. Definitely don't attempt anything like that if you ever visit the North Shore of Oahu in December during high tide.

Here's a clip that Murph took at the beginning of the boogie board session before the big waves really rolled in. Murph's commentary is great, but if you listen close you can also hear Mellen say "I'm going out KJ, you want to go with me?" And, I say "Sure I'll go out." What the hell were we thinking?!?!



What's a little eerie about this clip is to think that this would have been played on the local news if we weren't able to make it back in alive.

After our near brush with death, we headed back to regroup and wait for the stretch Escalade to come pick us up for the best New Year's Eve I've ever had.