It’s raining.

And raining. And raining. Wow, this is a lot of rain. February and March are generally rainy months here in Hawaii, but this is out of control. I’m certainly not complaining in light of how bad Kauai is getting it, but that’s part of the reason I haven’t posted in a while. Water that’s brown and murky from rain runoff = prime shark attack conditions, and I’ve come as close as I want to meeting the Landlord, thank you.

This is not to say that I haven’t been out in a month. Quite the contrary, I went out a couple of weeks ago and trashed the bottom of my board on a coral head. I got that repaired by a guy named Paul Chambers who works out of his garage, and I have to say he did a pretty good job. He’s in Kaimuki and his number is 722-5302 if you’re in Honolulu and need to get a ding fixed.

I also bought a “transition” board to replace my nightmare 6′2″, which I’ll be selling. The new board is a rounded nose 6′9″ Jeff Johnston, 2 3/4″ thick and 20″ or so wide. I’ll post photos soon. It’s basically a really short longboard, and it got the SurfYoda seal of approval the first and only time I’ve had it in the water. Still learning to catch waves on the shorter board, but that’s the point, and I’m looking forward to being able to paddle and ride it properly.

Assuming there’s nothing more to report by next Wednesday’s session, I’m planning to post the various pre-paddling-out-at-Pipeline requirements I’ve gathered so far. I’m definitely not going to surf Pipe before the one-year anniversary of this blog, and the more I read about what a beast of a wave it is, the less concerned I am about surfing it, possibly ever. But I’ll post what I’ve learned anyway. Stay tuned.