Killer Dana Board Society

Whoops! We totally missed Monday Funday (sticker giveaway) yesterday… our bad. Anywho, we’re doing it today and we’re giving you the choice to choose from FREE Billabong or Mada stickers!!! Sausage fingers holding the stickers up, not included…

All you have to do is tell us about a style or fashion that you’ve been seeing a lot lately… or it can even be something you love, and haven’t seen anyone rockin. We wanna do a Get the Look blog on it!

First 15 or so peps get a little sticker pack of your choice (Billabong or Mada). Free shipping to U.S. residents only.

Tune in tomorrow for free Drifter DVD’s (Rob Machados new movie with Taylor Steele!)

There is something about Hawaii that makes anything and everything that much better. Take work for example. The other day I found myself digging a 500 foot long trench in the sand. With sweat pouring out every gland on my body and blisters forming with every prod of the shovel, I paused and glanced around at what surrounded me.

All of the sudden digging a trench didn’t seem so bad. It’s a small price to pay to be put up on a beautiful island for six weeks, surrounded by perfect waves.

Arrival at the Reef Hawaiian pro

In case you are wondering the reasoning behind digging trenches in the sand, it has a lot to do with the the annual surfing circus that comes to the North Shore every year. You might know this better as the Triple Crown of Surfing. The trenches are necessary for the massive amounts of cable it takes to run an event and webcast it to the world.

This webcast is the reason that for the next six weeks, I will be working on the North Shore; helping produce three webcasts, checking out the people and hopefully getting piped off my rocker.

Just a tiny bit of the gear for the webcast

The sadly ironic part about the latter is that when the waves are really pumping, I will be working. The first week here has been fairly sizeable although lacking the right direction for prime conditions on the reefs of the North Shore.

Haleiwa, the first stop of the Triple Crown has been absolutely dismal and has only held competition one day so far. This is due to a rare swell direction out of the east north east that doesn’t wrap around into the historic surf break.

The trailer set up

After a few days of event preparation, the swell direction graced our crew with not only a few lay days, but fun waves on other parts of the island.

The amount of surfers converged on this rock during this time of year is a sight in itself. Every breaking wave you see is bound to have a couple guys ripping. Usually there are a couple lenses on the beach to follow their every turn.

The first stages of a cable trench

Familiar faces pop out everywhere you go. From checking the waves, to Foodland, to Sharks Cove Grill, it’s hard to go somewhere without broing down at some point. Much like work though, the bro down here is that much better by the simple fact that you are both in Hawaii.

The guys that have been doing this pilgrimage for years have their programs on lock. Crews form, packs converge and cliques rise out of what was a peaceful country town a couple months ago and is now a collection of national and cultural groups interacting with each other. The beautiful part is that everyone is brought to this island through surfing.

Stormy sunset

The eight mile stretch of beach that makes up the North Shore of Oahu is geared up and ready to roll for another season. The boys will have a week or so of small surf, but we can all bet that when that first solid swell rolls into town, everyone is going to be on it.

Hey Oh! Every Monday we like to hook you guys up with some free-bee stickers. This week we’re givin out some super fun Jason Maloney stickers (Hurley artist).

All you have to do to get some FREE STICKERS is tell us about an artist you’d like to see represented on our blog… from there we’ll pick someone to do a Featured Artist blog on. That’s it!

I’d say we have enough stickers to do about 15 or so sticker packs. We’ll give out as many as we can!

Free Shipping to U.S. residents only…

Featured Artist: Jason Maloney blog

Looking at a map, one could think that Tahiti, French Polynesia, located in the middle of the Pacific ocean, is faaaarrr away from everything. This is true, but not quite.

Even though I have to admit that our tourism industry is not the best in the Pacific area, I can not deny the fact that Tahiti and her islands do attract people from many different horizons: for spending so much time in the water, I meet lots of foreigners coming from the United states, France, New Caledonia, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, and even Japan…

Although our islands have always been well-known for what they can offer in terms of quality of life, landscapes and waves, I guess Teahupoo’s exposure has a lot to do with the increasing number of surfers coming over here.

And that is probably one of the things that I like about living in French Polynesia: having the opportunity to spend time with people coming from so many different cultures & backgrounds, sharing waves and stories… just making friends. I get in the water, take a look around and often notice someone new in the line up. “Hmmm… new face… obviously not from here…wonder where he (or she) comes from…”

And the guys always start the conversation the same way: how fun the waves are, how lucky I am to live here, and how well I surfed my last wave. Such a classic, I know!

Anyways… this is how I met this bunch of surfers traveling aboard the beautiful catamaran Natural Mystic, owned by Santa Barbara native Kyber Logue, who one day decided to devote his life to the endless pursuit of fun & happiness, chasing waves and wind around the globe (www.mysticsail.com): the guy sailed all the way from the US east coast, going through the British Virgin Islands, the Carribean and the Galapagos, picking up his crew along the way, to finally reach the islands of French Polynesia a few months ago.

The crew had been scoring waves around Tahiti for a few weeks when I met them in Moorea, and these guys being so friendly (and so cute, ha ha!), I decided to hang out with them as long as my free time would allow me to.

In my mind are memories of those great moments spent together, from the heavy Teahupoo line up (these were not that great actually; I have a few scars to prove it) to the quiet lagoon of Bora Bora aboard Natural Mystic: those moments were all about sharing waves and sunsets, dinners and laughter, drinks and stories, with Kyber the American, Dizzy the Ozzie, Kahlil the Kiwi and Dom the Mexican/Canadian.

I still remember those awesome sunset sessions, all those waves shared, and those evenings spent on the trampoline looking at the stars and making a wish for every shooting star I could see (yes, still a kiddo).

Thinking about them and all the surfers I made friends with (either here or abroad), made me realize that surfing does bring people together, no matter who they are or where they come from… I believe that being in the water, paddling for the same wave, feeling the same adrenaline rush, enjoying every nice turn, cheering for each other, just sharing the same passion for waves and life, definitely break boundaries. And thinking about all the conversations we had, I also ended up realizing that our stories are all intertwined, in a way or another.

The Natty M guys have now gone their separate ways, leaving their Tahitian friends in the wake: Dizzy went back to Tasmania via Samoa, Kahlil made it home to New Zealand after a stop in Fiji and Dom is in Canada. As for Kyber, captain and owner of beautiful Natural Mystic, only God knows where he is, this one is hard to track!

And yes, that’s the sad part about living here: seeing your friends leaving, missing them, but hoping to see them again some time in the future, somewhere on this planet; after all, the world is round…

Vainui

As the founder of Killer Dana Surf Shop, one of my favorite things has been helping customers with custom surfboard orders, and I am still as stoked today as I was way back in 1991 when we opened our first shop. After all, surfboards are the foundation of what we do…GW

Mark has shaped thousands of boards and is a master with his planer.

A custom built surfboard is one of the few things you can still get to order that is truly hand-crafted to your exact specifications. We thought it would be fun and interesting to show you how a custom surfboard is created, from the order form through the finished product. Master shaper Mark Ellis has been making surfboards for Killer Dana since we opened in 1991, and he has shaped literally thousands of custom surfboards for our customers. I asked Mark to build a quad fin for us, and the photos below show how the entire process is done, from start to finish. Enjoy.

-GDub

Hey guys! Every Monday we like to give out some free stickers. Today we’re gonna mail out a mystery sticker pack to the first 15 people. Just leave us a comment in here if you wanna get some!

Oh ya, free shipping to U.S. residents only…

I share my time between the islands of Tahiti & Moorea (say Mo-o-re-a, “yellow lizard”), staying in Tahiti from Monday to Friday, and going to Moorea nearly every week-end: it’s a great getaway, located only 20 miles north west of Tahiti. If I could, I would spend 100% of my time over there, because it is the place where I am happiest.

I fell in love with this island, although I don’t really know why; I’ve always found it hard to answer this kind of question… I guess that’s because love cannot be explained, no matter how hard you try; it goes beyond reason and understanding, despite what some people may think. But I’ll try anyway…

There’s only one road going all around the island, with the mountains on one side, and the ocean on the other. The drive to go all the way to my place is the very first thing that makes me feel good when I get there: I love to look at the mountains and valleys, to check the different surf spots on the way home, to watch the colors in the sky (especially in the late afternoon) and, above all, to say hi every 10 minutes to someone I know, either driving or riding their bikes. It feels like home, way more than Tahiti, even tough I was born and raised on the latter.

Moorea is beautiful, with deep-green mountains, beautiful colors, white sand beaches and clear water everywhere you look. I love the south west side of the island even more, probably because it is so green, with fewer houses (great, that’s where I live!). It is a peaceful and relaxing place (if you’re looking for big parties and city lights, definitely NOT where you want to go): it is just great to have a drink on the beach with my buddies while watching the sunset, or to walk all the way to the same beach in the morning in my PJs with my glass of cold water to check the swell and the wind, and make plans for the day from what I see (“surfing or kiting?? Hmm, both I guess!”).

For sure, the reef breaks the island offers are great: you can find pretty much everything you want: rights and lefts, mellow or hollow… I especially love the one located 5 minutes away from my place, which is a great, long rippable left where most of my friends surf. Depending on the tide and swell direction, you can get barreled really deep or just shred the wave, turn after turn

I even enjoy the 30 minute paddle it takes me to reach the waves; even though it’s a fairly long one, I take advantage of this “me time” to look at the fish and stingrays swimming underneath my board, to appreciate the fresh air and clear water and to watch the mountains facing the break. I try not to look too much at the waves though, especially when they’re perfect, because then the paddle seems twice as long: “What? Nobody on this one? OMG, it’s soooo perfect! I’m not paddling fast enough, it’s going to be crowded when I get there! Gotta go faster, quick, quick!!!” You know what I mean?

As for the kite beach, it is probably one of my favorite places to hang out, and I usually stay there all day long: it’s a beautiful white sand beach with small coconut trees and a turquoise lagoon; there are kites flying everywhere (duh!) and easy going people laughing, chatting, cheering on each other, and playing ukulele between 2 kite sessions. I love to rest in the shade of “my tree”, talking with the girls, drinking water and snacking on cookies, while watching my friends doing mind-blowing tricks, before going back in the water for my second or third session (yep, up to 4 sessions a day!)…

I also love to ride my bike to the north shore of the island, all the way to the bays where I get to see the sailboats & catamarans anchored in the lagoon. When I reach the first bay after a 35 minute ride, I usually turn right and keep biking inland, following a narrow road that goes up in the mountains, where I end up having a great view over the 2 bays with Mount Rotui in between.

The island also offers a great variety of trails to go hiking, from very easy to incredibly challenging, from 30 minutes to more than 3 hours. It’s a great workout, and a nice change from being in the water all day (but to tell you the truth, I only do that when there’s no waves and no wind). I love to walk and run uphill in the tropical woods, to cross the rivers, to look for wild pigs’ traces (although I wouldn’t be very happy to face one) and to admire the view over the ocean and the island when I reach the end of the trail.

Wow… I’ve just realized that writing these words helped me understand why I love this island so much: because when I’m in Moorea, my life is all about fun & friendship, in breath-taking surroundings.

Hhhmmm, interesting… I guess that love can be explained, after all…

Vainui

Photos by: Fabrice Chiausa

Last week Socal saw a super fun combination of swells that provided everyone in town the opportunity for some photo incentive. Killer Dana team riders Nate Yeomans and Jesse Merle Jones both got some play on Surfline and Surfermag.

Photo:Klein

Photo:Aichner

Also, check out this huge rodeo flip that Nate almost rode out of during a similar session last week.

It was about midnight on Sunday when I got the text message from Lounge, “be at my house at 7am.” I wasn’t sure of the reason why, only that I was to bring the camera and be ready to shoot.

My first thought was that some local secret spot must have been firing the last couple days and he wanted to get some footage. Then I realized there was no swell in the water and ruled out the possibility of scoring an epic, rarely breaking wave.

I arrived at his house full of curiosity about what we were going to shoot. As I sat on his couch while his two little groms wrecked havoc around me, he told me a story about a friend he had met in the water a little over 8 years ago.

Being the only two people in the line up, Lounge started talking to the unfamiliar face. As it turned out, the stranger was in town from Holland, gearing up for a long road trip down through Mexico and Central America. Lounge, being an avid Mexico traveler himself, immediately dove into conversation about the many places and people he had experienced in his travels through the area.

Over the next month, Tom from Holland camped out in front of Lounge’s house in preparation for his trip. Since he embarked eight years ago, the two had not seen each other since.

I finally realized why I was sitting on Lounge’s couch at seven in the morning, Tom was back in town. Needless to say, my level of curiosity went up a bit. I knew that people surfed in Holland, but I wasn’t aware of the roots that the surfing lifestyle has planted there.

We followed Tom around all morning, checking the waves and talking surfing. We finally found some rideable surf and got into a few waves before Tom headed out on the next leg of his trip.

Lounge pointed it out best when he said that even over the eight year span when they hadn’t seen each other, they hadn’t missed a beat because of their connection through surfing. I’m sure the next time Tom is in town, it will be the same case for me.

Every Monday we like to hook you guys up with some rad stickers. This week we’re representin Alley Skate Shop, and wanna give you a mix up of shop stickers. Who’s down?!!

All you have to do is send us a link (from Youtube or something) of your favorite skate video… we’re gonna pick the best one and put it up on Alley’s Facebook this week.

That’s it! First ten people win.
(Free shipping for U.S. residents only)