Tribute to a Fallen Warrior

I'm going to start by taking a moment of silence for the recently departed. He was a brave soul. He always stood by my side and never let me down no matter what the size of the waves. Today he met his demise after dropping into an overhead closeout barrel at one of the more powerful breaks on Kauai. When he surfaced again, there was nothing I could do to help. He was a goner. Now before anyone gets too worried, we are talking about my surfboard.

The morning started off well enough. I found some waves at a break called "Targets". It got this name because it is in front of what used to be the target range for the navy base on the island. It is a strong break with sand bottom known for its fast barreling waves. To get there you exit an old sugar cane road to the beach. From there you drive onto the beach (4-wheel drive a must have) and down the beach about a half mile. The lazy side of me was very disappointed however to find that recent rains had knocked a tree over blocking the entire beach to drive on. So I was left to walk.

In retrospect, it wasn't so bad. As you can tell, there weren't many people there which made the waves that much more exciting. The walk was a nice time to take in everything. I took a deep breath of the fresh ocean air. Mild breeze blowing and the sun was out the majority of the time. I couldn't help but smile. 

I paddled out and started my session. I was a little timid to start as the waves in Hawaii are generally stronger than they are in the mainland. After 30 or 40 minutes, it came back and everything started clicking. As I grew more comfortable, I started pushing myself more and more. Finally it happened. I saw a larger set coming in. I paddled over to take off on it. I dropped into the barrel (easily overhead) and watched as I saw the wave start to closeout in front of me. I bailed when I saw this happening and that's when I felt it. When I popped back to the surface, I found my board like this:

The other half was taken out to sea as I was unable to swim myself in while holding on to it. I swam in, gathered my stuff and started my walk back. 

In the end it was a good day. I got about 2 hours in before my board broke. During these two hours I got myself comfortable with surfing in Hawaii again (something I go through every time) and some nice rides. Also, breaking is really something that happens to every board eventually, it's existance comes to an end. Sitting here now thinking about everything I can do nothing but continue my day and