E's Surf Report

rough rugged and farking shithouse out there this A.M.
I mean, really pretty bad.
As a born and bred east coast surfer my initial thought upon seeing the beach this morning was, "eh, at least there's a few waves." But.. as a trannie California Surfer my impression was, "holy mackeral it's horrible out there!" I was kinda psyched because i wanted to work through some guitar shit but felt that need-to-surf-if-it's-surfable pang. After seeing the waist-high, wind-ripped, gargly crud i happily returned to my couch for some exploration in the diminished scale.

The diminished scale is pretty weird-sounding. It's a nine-tone scale (including both octaves). Start with the tonic (I'll use C for explanation) then up to the second (D) then to the minor third (Eb) then to the fourth (F) then to the flat 5th (Gb), then to the minor 6th (G#), then to the major 6th (A), then to a major 7th (B) then up to C. It's weird jamming in a scale with no 5th, but also with both major and minor 6ths. You can find some bad-ass intervals and create some eery tension. I'm digging it.

David Lindley plays tonight at the Tongue and Groove. I'm thinking of checking him out.

word!

centralcoastgrom or "CCG" is a legend on the surfermag bb. I think he's 16 yrs old and recently went to indo by himself for 2 months.
(hope he doesn't mind me posting here?)

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well i think i will try and write something up now, its 12:30 but i dont really feel like sleeping, actully i havent felt like sleeping the whole time i have been back. The last 2 nights i took sleeping pills and i have sleeping pills tonight but i dont want to take them. I dont want to sleep. Not sure why. so i figured i would try and start on my bb writing assighnment. Be warned, my brain is all over the place meaning this will probaly sound like alot of nonsense and it is. But i should try and write something up. so i will.

Here is my first journal entry from the trip

3/31 LAX airport

My first entry right now i am sitting in the terminal to a new stage of my life, I have just said my goodbyes to my family, and a sad goodbye it was, my little sister was bawling her head of and I can't get her tear soaked face out of my head.
I have a complicated confusing mix of emotions swiriling my brain, i am excited and stoked beyond belief that in 25 hours i will be living my dreams but also it was sad to say goodbye to my familly, really sad. expecially my sis. I hope they are ok without me, i know iam only 16 so i shouldnt have to worry about my family but for some reason i kinda feel like iam the whole opperations backbone.
but now iam just chilin in this lonely quite sleeping terminal, i seem to be in a dream, strange forighn langauges being wispered over the intercom long dark halls and a plane waiting outside, iam am ready to get this thing underway

4/2
Watching the asian sunrise, drinking a cup of coffee and listing to bob dylan from the singapore airport, my god what a trippy airport! its like a ***** city in here i tell ya. live music, free internet, hot asian girls, enough shopping to satasfy the most consumer hungry american alive and more people running around then in my hometown. Only about 6 more hours

4/4
my 3rd day in bali, yestarday i had my first surf at ulus, ***** unreal wave, it was pumping around 6 foot (DOH) not the easist way to break myself in, after a couple hours i tried to paddel in on the lunar high tide and found myself getting washed half way to padang and having to paddel back out around the break. I was stoked, this place is beautiful I love it. Right now i am staying at the bukit inn and i must say that place truely sucks ass. Yes the rooms are very nice but i dont trust the workers there. Need to get somewhere differnt.

Now the next enterys are me just rambeling on about how stoked i was on the waves, i wont write all that up for you. Just give you a brief sumarazation.
After the first couple days we got a freakish amount of rain, i had moved down to the beach at bingin, the surf was small and blown out, I had no idea were to go or what to do but i knew the surf would be better soon. And soon it was

4/16
Heaven! surfed about 7 hours at ulu's today and had the best session of my trip and maybe of my life, the waves just kept getting better and better all day long, around lunch time the crowed thinned out to about 10 guys scattered along the many excellent sessions. ***** stoked! But let me back track a bit, this is my first entery after a bit of time in lombok. Not sure why but i forgot my journal, last monday the brother of a good local friend of mine asked me if i wanted to join him in lombok, not knowing anything about the place I had to say yes but it was hard because i hadnt really scored bali yet and i knew it would be good while i was gone. But waves or no waves it didnt sound like an oppurtunity i wanted to pass up. A good first outter island trip. Well we didnt score deserts so we went over to kuta lombok, fun california style waves but nothing to special, However it was very cool searching around the coast a bit and having fishermen take you to the breaks, and i did get to surf a very fun right all to myself. I am glad i went, and then i came back today and scored in bali, ***** stoked!

4/19
I hate night here, i really wish it didnt get dark, there is just to much enery for me to get any sleep, to many ghoast, to many freakish unexplainable noises to much stoke, I just cant sleep, I cant wait tell sunrise because then i can go surf again, its unbelivable how good the waves here are and they seem to be good everyday. I feel like iam livin in a dream. Today was expecially good, and i got the best barrels and waves of my life! I love traveling, just being in some place new and finding my way around kicks ass, But it sure is lonely down here at this beach right now, strangely emptyed. I am the only person staying in this warung and the owners are sleeping at there house, but i kinda like it that way its like i have my very own beach. Still really wish i had a girlfriend down here with me or something, i need a bit of lovin right now. And sanur doesnt help. well doesnt help that much. Its a shame cause i have been meeting some very lovely european girls, but they always seem to be leaving the day i fall in love with them. I guess i am just lucky. I really should get some sleep tonight (I rambel on for a couple more pages in my sleep deprived state, sorta like now)

Alright let me updade. I became pretty good friends with the nephew of the owner of my warung. And he invited me to stay up at his house with his family and this seemed like a pretty good idea. This turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip. The setup was a classic baliness familly compound with anyone that ever ***** anyone living togeather in one big happy community. Made was the only one who spoke fluent english but me and the rest of his family got by on a langauge of smiles and hand gestures. There family became my family. the extended family i never had. It was beautiful, i felt home. the days passed quickly with The waves were so good almost every day, surfed mostly at ulus, scored outside corner one day, got bingin good, but not padang then i would come back and live with the balines. I was flipping out. It was just like how i had dreamed it would be. so ***** stocked ya know?

5/5
I am sorry for it has been a long time sense i last wrote, I just dont really know what to say, seeing as how the waves are the same everyday my journal enteries seem to be the same everday. Its a beautiful thing. Luckily right now the surf is bunk, and its a damn good thing to because i am still recovering from that malararia i picked up in lombok. That was the first time on this trip that i questioned if i was really old enough to be doing this alone, I was ***** scared. But i did get threw it. I reamember i sorta felt fluish for a couple days but i wasnt to concerned, one night i decided to sleep back on the beach in the warung. still no one down there but i liked the isolation. Then about 2 in the morning i wake up shiviering cold, then i got colder, and colder and colder and even colder still. It felt like my heart was pumping ice. It was so ***** cold. I would rather have been burning hot then being this cold it was terriable, I was scared shitless to. Then i started to shake and shake uncontralbaly, my mind no longer controled my body as it did whatever it wished, and then my mind fliped of its rocker and i started hallucanating, i thought there was a group of monkeys invading my mozzie net, being comanded my the head monkey (quite possible satan) who stood ontop of my mozzie net. *****! i had to get out of there and get out of there fast. I ran out onto the beach in my undies were to my horro i found the shadows had come to life and were dancing in circles, perhapse performing some evil satanic ritual. I really hoped it didnt involve me, but hey i wasnt cold anymore. Now i was so hot i had smoke coming out of my ears, a welcome relif for half a second and then even worse then the cold. And then i became drenched to the bone in my own sweat. I was so scared. I wanted my mommy i wanted my american doctor, i wanted my bed, my family i wanted someone to tell me i would be alright. I screamed I cried. I prayed. Ok enough of that bullshit now

I just booked my ticker to sumbawa for tomorrow. I cant wait.

Ok so i did recover once i went to the doctor and got medicine, really quite painless.

4/15 SUMBAWA
New places and new waves! the adventure excitment and stoke goese on, this place is even better then bali! way better. But i already miss my baliness familly. But this place is unreal theres like ***** 7 world class waves all within walking distance, iam flipping out. My first session out there I got barreld on my first 4 waves. What a sick wave. holy hell. Everyone staying in the camp right now is so ***** cool, all have become instant friends, and i dont become instant friends with anyone. the good times go on in and out of the water, in the water everyone is hooting eachouter onto wave, everytime i paddel for a wave everyone is yelling "go grommet! go!" its awsome. I wish everyone could experince this i really do. and then at night we all party togeather.
Surfing has got to be the best thing that has ever happend to me, look at these places it has brought me and these people i have gotten to meet. I am such a lucky bastard its not even funny,................

Alright iam going to go to sleep now, tomorrow maybe i will delete this and rewrite it. and then go on with sumbawa and java and then go and fill in all the gaps, cause this is just a sumarazation to give you guys an idea of my itenerary. goodnight

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Fanning wins in St Leu

Some schmoe (mwsf photos)

Santa Cruz shredder