My god, Brian's new story is phenomenal. Please, read it now and hope he'll send more soon.
From : Brian herron
Sent : Saturday, June 12, 2004 10:34 PM
To : thepatrickrafter at hotmail.com
Subject : BLACKMAGICINULUWATU
Tonga is a tiny island. Say that twice to yourself. Tonga is a tiny island, and thats where i am right now. And Matty is here with me. Usually. Usually we just hang out and read, sometimes we play guitar, sometimes we say stuff about the past and a lot of time we say stuff about the future. We explored a cave the other day. It was filled with a deep pool and we swam in the dark water. It reminded me of tahiti. Anyway right now i'm gonna say stuff about the past.
For most of our time in Indonesia Matt and I relaxed in a small village on southwest coast of Bali that goes by the name of Uluwatu. When i say relax i really mean realx. Most days we woke up around 8 or 9 to a pinnaple pankake and a huge mug of tea. I always tried to get the mug that said guiness on it. By the time we finished breaking our fast's the trades would be up. The trade winds in uluwatu blow straight offshore, and 10 times out of 10 they blow into perfect 6ft, 200 yardlong lefts.
Now; one could get up early and surf when the air is calm and the ocean looks like cut glass, by why. Sleep a bit, you deserve it, and let the magic wind come from the east and make the waves magic too. Then stretch a bit, put on some blue and white zink warpaint and follow the breeze down to the cliffs. Usually when i got down to my resterant on the cliff overlooking my waves I would have a second breakfast. Sometimes an omlete with Avacado on top, sometimes a smoothie, most of the time both. Then if i was feeling sore from yesterday's session i would get an hour long full body massage, from not one, but two 60 year old indoniesan women who looked like Yoda and smelled like squid. I would use this time not only to loosen up, but also to try to get myself excited to surf. Some days I would come strolling out of the jungle and the surf would be like 8 feet in the face and real long and I would just sit there eat and then go back to sleep. This is me, the guy who looks at choppy 2ft 10th street, calls it head high, and then proceeds to jump up and down crying until someone either smacks me or paddles out with me. You all know this. and DougDeegan You know it all too well, for your usually the one who has to smack me, but anyway it was just that good. I was close to happiness, missing only one element, but she was in florida so i had to settle. And settle i did.
Then one morning I woke up at three o'clock am to the worst bloody murder screaming and fear i have ever experienced. I was sleeping really nice, dreaming about clouds or something and then I opened my eyes and thought to myself for a split second "did I just hear a scream". Then the other half of that second in time engaged and the screaming continued. This wasn't screaming like you have heard before. It was a mixture of a deep man's voice and a shrill very high pitched girls voice. The man Was screaming in pulses and it sounded deranged like he was being murdered very slowly. The girls screams were long and held me to my bed, I couldn't breath or move when she screamed. On top of the screaming there was a bit of muffled banging and scuffling going on. Going on outside our door, at three in the morning, in indonesia.
About a week before Matt and I left Bali, there was a soft murmer of the words BLACK MAGIC slowly meandering throught the village. Robbberies were occuring. My Friend named Bagi, (which means sunrise in indonesian) had about 500 dollars stolen from under his pillow while he was sleeping. He explained to Matt and I that the thief used black magic to put a sleeping spell on him. We laughed in his face. "Black Magic","Ha what a joke", we thought. A few days went by, nothing happned. Then one evening as Matt and I sat down for dinnner I noticed that "Lisa" the lady who owned the house we were staying at seemed nervous. She was tense and worried. It was hot.
later yet, we were liying in our beds reading, door wide open, same as any other night. Lisa comes by all the rooms and tells everyone to shut and lock our doors and windows. The windows of these rooms swing open outward from hinges on the top of them. They open to less than a foot wide at the bottom. We got locked out of our room one day and even Matty's skinny ass couldn't squeeze through the window, so we Laughed at Lisa. We were strong, brave Americans who know everything and only I believe in Magic, but not BLACKMAGIC. I only saw magic in wind and waves and whales and turtles and my grilfriend's eyes, so I had no fear.
To appease Lisa we shut the door and locked it from the inside. We left the windows wide open. It was hot. I fell asleep. I woke up. I looked at my watch, it was two o'clock am. I felt a strong sense of fear in my bones, I stared at the window. A shadow passed by. The hair stood up on my arms. Another shadow passed. "What was that?" I thought. " Just a shadow or was it something else". Everything I am made of, every atom I am, was screaming, " it was something else, get up and look you fucking idiot", but my damnn brain said "nah don't get up." "Calm down, don't be a wimp, don't forget your an American you fool." "Go back to your nice soft pillow, go back to dreamtime."
Why I listened to my brain that night I'll never know. Brains are not for that sort of shit. Brains are for for math homework... Brains are for TV....Brains are for WAR......
This was a matter of the heart. Nevertheless I listened to my brain, I smoothed the hair down on my arms told myself that the shadow was one of my best friends, the wind, but my heart knew that it was a black breeze.
Again I woke up to darkness, but this time it was real darkness. Pitch black. The man fought and screamed his horrable screams, and the girl screamed me into a black pause, not shock, a certain blackness came over my entire body. 10 precious seconds went by before I broke the transe. "Matt! Matt!, what the fuck's going on." I jump out of bed, it's pitch black in our room I go back to the bed for my glasses. Matt is up. He turns the light on. A look of absolute horror is on his face. The mans screaming fades away into the night, but the girls increases to short bursting pulses that almost make me hide under my bed. I go to the door and listen first, visions of a maniac with a Machette or a gun pass through my mind in slow motion, "Fuck I gotta do something" I think. As I open the door a sort of calm comes over me. I walk out onto the Patio. I'm tense, I'm ready to fight, I'm a warrior in the night. The girl is in the corner screaming and crying hysterically. She's wearing a short nightgown. Silk. she's shaking and crying, but otherwise she looks to be ok, there's no blood atleast. Matt comes out behind me, boxers, glasses, no shoes. "What!, What!" he yells. She points to the road. "Hayden's gone after them alone." She screams. Matt runs by and I'm right behind him we cross the yard to the fence. The stones in the driveway jutt into our feet and steal our speed. In the street we find Hayden the girl's boyfriend he's walking slowly towards us, head bowed, blood dripping from his right hand. He looks up at us as we get to him. He was so fired up that he almost hit us. "I had them." He screams. "They got everything." "The camcorder, 500 cash, airlinetickets, Passports, everything."
Brian, please send the rest soon. We're waiting.
The latest message from Brian was, "I'm freaking out right now, I'm sending email, I'm going to Tonga today, and everyone's yelling at me, so they can eat."
These kids are very short on the commentary, lately. There's a sweet shot of Brian surfing, Skillet, and some girl. I'm tired of them not giving commentary, so I decided to write it just like Brian would.
From : Brian herron
Sent : Wednesday, May 26, 2004 6:40 AM
Subject : pics
This is me and Skillet, aka Mike Matthews, we climbed up this mountain to meet the New Zealand Yeti. He gave us a mystical stick, with which we will bring back to New Jersey and we will plant it. A tree will grow from the stick and it will grow a magical fruit. The Yeti didn't say anything else.
This is me after visiting the Yeti, life seems much more serene and in focus now.
After visiting the Yeti on the top of the mountain, we needed to cleanse ourselves in this mighty river.
The mountain Yeti told me there were no Sea Yetis down in New Zealand anymore. There were at one time, but they have gone west with the rest of that world. This turn I do in memory of the Southern Ocean Sea Yeti.
After our visit with the Yeti, we have grown in the mind and the body. See us here, sitting down for dinner, we are much taller. Just like the Hobbits who drank Treebeard's juice.
Here we are relaxing in a hot spring.
A camper and I am almost naked... as usual
The yeti touched me...
And I started to look like him!!!!
HAHAHAHAH, that was fun writing like Brian. Actually, he does a much better job of writing just like he does. Anyway, they seriously look like some bears or something, they are going to scare people when they get to Tonga.
No Commentary, just pictures--May 16th, 2004. Check out the streak of white in the lip of the first picture... probably from Brian dragging his hand in the barrell, shows he's been in there for a little while. Nice.
Finally, some official communications from the kids on the other side of the globe. I've seen several unofficial emails concerning these adventurers and they speak of dark things... black magic, mad max, and even beyond thunderdome. However, they have not yet elaborated upon these things, but swear to write more about them in the future. What is this? Some kind of marketing scheme to keep us tuned to our email accounts, eagerly awaiting their next transmission? Well, if so, they got me... For now we will have to make due with some surf photos of Brian Herron, presumably taken by Matthew Pellini at a break called Uluwatu. Until then, be like the frog, if you see a fly, eat. If you get cold, hop.
From : Brian herron
Sent : Thursday, April 29, 2004 6:03 AM
Subject : some more photos
this is the peak at uluwatu, it's just a big wedge and then this 200 yard long wall called racetracks!
From : Brian herron
Sent : Thursday, April 29, 2004 5:55 AM
Subject : some photo's, i hope theyre not too big
From : Matt P
Sent : Thursday, April 15, 2004 8:33 AM
Subject : the journey
i'm writing all my surfing buddies to see if anyone wants to join up for a few weeks in july. i think i am going to make one last stop before i head home this summer, i'm scheduled to arrive home on june 30th but and going to look into a flight to puerto escondido for the first two or three weeks of july. is anyone interested in meeting up there? it is july and a lot of you can get away for a week or more then, the east coast is probably going to be flat and puerto could be sick. let me know - matt
From : robyn
Subject : Oz recap
Hi everyone,
i have finally found my way out of the down under and into Bali,
Indonesia. It is definitely a different world over here, but before i get into that i will share some things that i wrote while traveling on the west coast of Australia.on the west coast, brian, matt and i spent most of our time in our rented caravan riding the breaks of margaret river.
3/11/04 picking up the paper yesterday i found out that 10 fisherman had spotted a five meter white pointer shark in the bay just to the south of the break we had been surfing every-other day. five meters! that is like 17ft i think. the article claimed that the shark came just a few meters from shore and poked it's whole head out of the water and was described as the size of a 44 gallon drum. people tell me that this is lobster season and traps are set all along the coast and this tends to draw in the sharks. now i have to figure out some how to forget that i read this article so i can continue surfing.
3/12/04 This morning was probably my favorite surf session all around. I awoke just before sun rise to a strong off-shore wind and to my dissapointment, the waves half the size of yesterday. I know that if i had paddled out to beat the crowds at this time yesterday i would have had a blast on the head high peeling left barrels. With Brian and Matt deciding to sleep in i walked down the half mile path to a pointbreak called lefties. I could see no sign of civilization in any direction as i looked miles up and down the beach. On arrival to Lefties i was surprised to see only 6 guys bobbing in the water. i was even more surprised as the early morning crowd diminished until there was just me and one other. the surf was far from epic but i will take perfect chest high lefts to myself anyday. As the hours passed by, the crowd replenished itself but i had plenty of waves under my belt. while waiting in between sets i pod of three dolphins were traveling our way to pay us a visit. i have always tried to get as close to dolphins as possible and one day i hope to they let me touch them. that day would have to wait but this was pretty cool. Dolphins usually head around you or go right beneath you. i assumed that they would travel around me as i was sitting in just 6 ft of water. as the pod took there last breath before crossing, the guy 10 ft in front of me abandoned his board and to dive underwater. It seemed like a good idea so i followed. Opening my eyes underwater i realized that the dolphin were going to swim right below me. i made a few strokes to the bottom to meet them. they were swimming extremely slow and seemed to want to check me out as much as i wanted to do the same. when they came to my side i swam next to them as long as my breath could hold. the closest one was about 3 feet away, just under an arms distance. in the past when i have attempted to get close to dolphins the water has always been deep and the dolphins usually blend right into the sandy backdrop. In this case, the dolphin to my left was glowing over that mud colored seaweed that covered the reef. after running out of breath i swam to the surface to find that a set wave was just a few paddles away. with a quick look around i found that i had the inside right away to the wave. taking off down the line of the left hander i realized that i was not alone. the 3 dolphins that i was swimming with just moments ago had decided to join me on the wave. The 4 of us were now bunched up in the face of this small chest high wave. they rode it in all the way to where the depth was around 3 to 4 ft deep then continued off into the ocean. now i have seen hundreds of dolphins in the water through out my surfing career. I've had them swim with in few feet of me and I've also shared waves with them, but this experience blew all of those out of the water.
3/13/04 BIZARO AMERICA i often find myself walking around Australia thinking that i am in America but everything is just a little different: everyone has this weird accents, you drive on the left side of the street and for some reason there are only white faces parading the street (for the most part). surf t-shirts out-number the nike ones 10-1, there are no luxury cars and it make you realize that there really is no need for one. you can drive hundreds of miles with out ever seeing a stoplight too. ALSO -no one lives here and i have been the most populated areas. -depressing to think that all of this land is eventually going to all be strip malls and suburbs. -there is no room for 50 cent or hip hop altogether in AUS. where is the bling, bling in a hillbilly pick up?? -no image. logos are absent from most clothing like everyone shops at the gap. it is nice to be able look at the people instead of everything that is cluttered around them -no one is a stranger to another and no one is too bust to say hello.
3/15/04 Just heard on the radio. anti war activists broke into a AUS naval base to graffiti "John Howard (AUS Prime Minister) US bootlicker."
AUSSIE FUN FACTS BY ROBYN 1)More people live in NYC than all of Australia (which is about the size of the USA) 2)People of non-European decent were not allowed to migrate into Australia until 1970. 3)Dec 17th 1967 Australia's prime minister went for a swim in the ocean and never came back. the body was never found. 4) Between 1910 and 1970 it is estimated that some where between one tenth to one third of aboriginal children were taken from their parents and sent to foster homes or state training centers. the idea was to prepare them for a more rewarding life in the western world. 5) AUS is home of the largest earthworm, which has been known to grow 12ft long and 6 inches thick.
congratulations! you have now made it though the e-mail feel free to block my address to avoid further nonsense.
robyn
i wanted to attach some pictures that i have saved on CD, but it seems that that invention has yet to make it to bali as there are no disc drives in any of these computers.
From : Matt P
Subject : indonesia
we made it and everything is great here, we got a taxi straight to uluwatu and set up camp, everything is dirt cheap here and its kind of crazy. its common nature to haggle over prices and we find our selves getting a meal down from say 10,000 rupiah to 8,000 rupiah which sounds good and is good but the 2000 rupia difference is equal to less than a quarter. so our meals cost about a dollar or a few if we go all out( just imagine brianès gut!!) our room includes breakfast and we have two rooms for the threee of us which come to $5 a day. we are about to get some motor bikes which will cost us about $60 for a month for a moped or $120 for a motorcycle so well see. we surfed some but its been small , but a swell is on the way so we should get some waves soon. the full moon tide brings in swells also and that is in about two weeks, so we should be getting some fun waves. i got to go, just thought id let everyone know were here and all is well. everything seems safe and people here are all hindu and very friendly, we met an australian who is very friendly and giving us good advice for planning our trip out and where to score the best waves. so long, hope your all doing good. we are supposed to be here for 45 days but there just started a new thing where you can only get a 30 day visa, which we got. luckily (and unluckily) there is a fair amount of corruption here so we should be able to get another 30 day visa towards teh end of our first 30 days for about $150, otherwise weère going to change our tickets and spend an extra 2 weeks in new zealand (where i believe skillet might be joining in our journey) - matt
From : Brian herron
Subject : more pics
If you look hard enough at the pic of the cliff, you can see matty sitting at the top
unfortunatley we don't have any shots of the actual jump, but matty videoed it.
I will not do it again.
From : Brian herron
Sent : Saturday, March 13, 2004 7:54 AM
From : Brian herron
Sent : Saturday, March 13, 2004 7:47 AM
Subject : Still Kicking
On the other side of the world the ocean is dark. Dark navy blue, and the reefs are covered with thick green moss and Bull kelp. When the swell stands up on the reefs it changes. The colors blend and the waves reach up towards the sky like emerald dreams.
They can be like dreams, soft and smooth, or they can be like nightmares--Monsters-- dark and deep. The coast is raw and rugged, littered with shadows. As the sun sets I feel as though I am on the moon. Alone. Alone is a good word for describing this place. It's quiet and filled with things that will kill you. Even swallow you up whole if you are unlucky enough. In fact two days ago a 5 meter white pointer was seen swimming in the shallows just inside of Margret's. I'm sure it swam by Matt and I when we surfed the box by ourselves just up the beach. I guess it wasn't hungry for us, or maybe we were just lucky.
Anyway in spite of all of the fear and danger that lies within this place we have been making merry. Drinking wine's and eating cheeses, discovering caves and cliffs. Yesterday we found a beautiful natural cove surrounded by giant rocks rising 50 or so feet into the air. Amongst these rocks we stumbled upon the most radical cliff jump I have ever done. Scale the rock 45ft or so then shimmy out onto the ledge. Once on the ledge slowly slide out onto the point which is about 2ft wide on either side. Try to stop shaking and focus on breathing. Be thankful for the life you have lived, the people you have known, the wonder of it all, and most importantly the love you have found, then jump and fate lets you go and teaches you that you are lucky and stupid at the same time.
In any case we are still alive and we are going to Indonesia. So thanks to all of you guys for being in my life, which I am feeling especially proud of just now. Love All, peace. PS. Thanks Pat, your always sitting way up with the others in my hero's place.
(Ed. Note: that last part he wrote gave me a tear in my eye)
From : Matt P
Sent : Saturday, March 13, 2004 6:18 AM
Subject : cliff jump
yesterday we found a huge rock to jump off, and brian jumped off the highest part which was just (explicit) crazy. i videoed it so you'll see it when we get home, it was just a really sketchy jump cause you had to climb this extremely narrow rocks and then jump off into a small swimming hole with rocks all around it, i can't even explain the fear and adrenaline i felt when i climbed to the top, i knew immediately that i wasn't going to do it, i've jumped things this high but not this sketchy, just crazy. i ended up jumping from half the height brian did, which wasn't a huge thrill but was still fun. he said he was giving himself a 50-50 chance of living (i was hoping he'd just climb down). he did the jump anyway and on his way down he almost threw up, you can here him yell and then make a noise like he was about to puke on the video. anyway he made the jump and was a bit jittery when he climbed back to dry land. originally he was going to do it twice so that i could take a sequence of it too, but it was just too sketchy to do a second time.
also the reason for the lack of pics is that robyn sent his laptop to NZ before we came to the west coast, so we haven't been able to email any of his digital pics. all my pics are slides and i am sending them home so i don't even know how they are turning out. sorry but we'll email pics as soon as we can, which will most likely be in NZ in may
West Oz kicks ass. i was so relieved to be over here instead of back on the east coast. we spent the last few days on the gold coast. the waves were impressive but i felt like i had traveled half way around the world to live in a van at a parking lot in san diego. the surf was even more crowded and to top things off there were 2 contests going on, with one being the quicksilver pro. so not only was i fighting for waves with a bunch of surfers but some of them had names like Bruce and Andy Irons.
After arrival it was immediately apparnent that i was in a different part of town when every 10 km there were street signs that read "land sale" and cafes selling emu burgers. we passed one interesting bumper sticker that read "i vote & and support retail fireworks." the advertising is a little more blunt down here as one fast food sign read "put you mouth down south." i didn't see it long enough to see what it was talking about, but i was not very hungry afterwards. the landscape looks like what i would imagine the plans of africa to look like except instead of girafees there are kangaroos.
We are renting a van that sleeps 3 and has a little more class and way less style than the van back east, which brian nicknamed that "fucking van." for the last 4 days we have been staying in a winery/surf town, margarette river, and we will be here for our remaining 10 days in AU. we left a huge swell on the east coast. the word was that it was the largest swell that sydney has seen in 60 years. now that i have spent a few days in the west i have learned one thing. the waves out here are a lot bigger. 2 days ago i bought a 6'8" to handle the larger swell only for the swell to jump again to where i can't paddle into a wave. i call it double to triple over head while the locals call it 5 to 8ft, i think that they are crazy. on monday it could twice as big, wish me luck as i am about to buy a helmet to match my new board. surfline is predicting that it is going to be 16ft. (the surfers are really hardcore here. they all paddle out about an hour before sunrise and i even whitnessed some surfers finish there session before sunrise yesterday.)
the waves are good but the wind is even better, at 10 every the wind turns on big time at about 20-30mph till sunset. there is not much protected surf from the south wind so we are mostly hanging out and reading all day. we eat dinner at about 4 and are in bed at 8 only to be awoken by the howeling locals at 5am. i swear the locals cannot show up to a surfbreak with out hooting and hollaring fo about ten minutes before they paddle out. c'mon, we are trying to sleep here.
well that about does it. next time i will come back here with a kite as there are hundreds of reef breaks that are covered with wind.
g'day, robyn
Various Authors on February 28th, 2004. Are our friends getting in over the heads? Why are the communiques so short (and did I use that word correctly?)? What exactly is going on down under with these fellows? I think there is more to this than they are letting on andI don't think we will really know until they get back, if they come back. Please read the unedited journal entries of the three travelers and decide for yourself...
Hi everyone, just an update since i haven't sent an email since tahiti. east coast of australia was fun but we didn't get many waves. we traveled around and had good times, you can see some stories and pictures on pat's website, www.prafter.com he has a link for our trip. finally after a month we got a big swell to come through and surfed 10-15ft faces at lennox head for two days. the second day we got chased out by a shark that was feeding right next to us. i thought it would go away so i got two waves and paddled out and it was still cruising around after each time. it got within about a foot of me and i decided i should go in. we also got a wave at snapper rock, but it was crowded and there were really good surfers, i mean really good. the one moring we were out with andy and bruce irons as well as cj hobgood, since the quiksilver pro started yesterday. well, we got to the airport for the west coast a day early by accident and were able to change our flight, when we got in we picked up our camper van we rented and headed straight for margaret river. its been pretty big there, i took out my shortboard yesterday but the gun today. i consider it 12ft faces easy and tons of water moves through that place, however the australians here are calling it 5-6ft and said it should be 8ft tomorrow, with a solid 12+ ft swell coming in a few days, so it should be interesting. hope all is well and if you want a more personalized email feel free to email me, but it might take a while to get back to you. - matt
02-10-04
We all woke up at about 5:30 to surf this morning. I think that I was the only one that was not in denial that the waves were horrible. Everyone acted so excited to paddle out. I guess the lack of sleep was also affecting my attitude. It was also affecting my surfing as I surfed worse than my average sub-par abilities. There was actually a few nice ridable waves, but I think that I caught and blew it on the wave of the day as I couldn’t get down the line fast enough. Oh well, I will probably catch one just as nice in a few weeks or so.
021204
Visited the official Steve Irwin (Crocidile Hunter) Zoo. Awesome day. We got to lounge with kangaroos and their joeys, pet koalas, and watch some big ass crocs. It was definitely worth the trip. The roos were so layed back and friendly. It was as if they were all stoned. Now we are baby sitting the kids of the family that we are staying with. (matt's uncle) I’m glad that I’m back in the bedroom writing cause the baby is crying like crazy.
Log date 02-26-04
It is late Thursday night and we are parked on the same bluff that we parked on 2 weeks ago. The only difference is that there so much has happened and now there are waves. Besides that fact that I rode the longest wave of my life today at lennox head, I’m a little tired of talking about surf, so I won’t. Earlier this week when the pacific was a lake. matt left the safety of the van and headed south with his visiting uncle and family. Brian and I went about 4 hours north to bundaburg home of the famous bundaburg rum. They really have to figure out how to make some decent rum around here. Before arrival we had booked a day trip out the Great Barrier Reef. The trip was beautiful but far from adventurous as we were loaded onto a giant ferry with 30 Japanese tourists each armed with at least 3 cameras. At the reef we were suckered into taking a tour of one of the near by small islands which ended up taking precious time from out snorkeling. The one interesting fact learned was that the aussies used the island for target practice during WW2. The snorkeling was cool but the reef protected us from any large animals such as sharks or dolphins, so it could only get so fun.
The real adventure started when we headed 2 hours south to Hervey Bay. Here is where we departed for our 3 day adventure to fraser island but before any of that happened we met scotti. Brian and I drove in to town exhausted from our reef experience and the drive south and we just wanted a beer. After finding a bunch of closed bars at 11 on a Monday night I thought that there wouldn’t be a problem in asking the local bloke sitting on the grass in front of a hostel for some advise. The word bar triggered a chain reaction that could not be stopped. Before we knew it this sweaty fella in his early 30’s with no shirt or shoes was in our van telling us to hop in. his energy was immense and to top it off he had a powerful resemblance to Steve Erwin the crocodile hunter. The only thing telling them apart was the fact that he was not wearing boots and the giant barbarian tattoo on his arm. On the ride to the pub we found out that his name was Scotti and at arrival to the pub the look on the bartenders face told the story that we had just walked in with the towns local vagabond. All of the other tables were filled with youths reminiscing about their trip to fraser while we were chilling with shirtless scotti and his 50-year-old mechanic. Oh well, more entertainment for us. Nothing to out of control happened, we just heard stories of mud crabs and him picking fights with one of the many boyfriends of his girlfriend’s 12-year-old daughter. The night ended with scotti trying to convince us to crash out the van in his back yard through the method of slapping brian silly. Taking the few senses we had left we took off and hunted for a shady spot to put up for the night.
In the morning I awoke to brian driving all over town as I tried to sleep in the back of the van. When bri finally settled we parked on the beach and watched a storm roll through. There we met another local who filled us in on lies of waves, a incoming cyclone and sharks. i will have to fill in the fraser escapade later.
2-24-02 post-fraser island
Scotts head
It’s 7:30 in the morning and we just got back from checking the waves. The skys are filed with clouds and rain and we seem to be on the front of the first swell since I arrived in Australia so long ago. Brian, Maggie and myself arrived in Scotts Head 2 days ago to a nice two level house overlooking the water. Once again, Matt’s uncle Mike has pulled through again. We dropped off Maggie at the bus station yesterday and now just the boys are left. Hopefully the waves will get better as the day carries on, but not too good today cause I have to finish this website for Scott.
02-28-04
we are now in coolangata and about to depart in 2 days to the west coast. the swell is huge(at least it was south of byron) i must run. i can't wait till indo. AU is cool but it is basically the US (minus a few years) all over again. i will try to put a little more action into my next email later, robyn
(Ed. Note: aka "Brian Herron's Incoherent Rambling from Down Under")
Subject:Miami+SoCal=Gold Coast
Still on this fucking shithole of an east coast. Sorry Oz worshipers. Swell hit a couple days ago. 10 to 15 solid., Surfed lennox head with some sharks, they were boiling up all around us. It was really fat and heavy, long rides. I think it was my biggest waves yet. Now were on the gold coast, traded off waves with bruce and andy irons at the super bank for awhile this morning. Matty filmed some stuff.
Tommorrows not here soon enough.
In two days we will be surfing real heavies on the west coast. I'm sort of scared of being hunted again.
I love you all's. Twice to gully!
aka "Matty Pellini's Slightly More Coherent Rambling"
we just got out of the water it got bigger here. i'd say solid 15ft faces, solid. def the biggest i've ever surfed but i felt pretty comfortable out there. got out of the water cause there was a shark though, i gave it a change and took three waves each time i paddled back out it was closer, the secont two times it was a foot infront of my board and its fin was an inch unter the surface of the water looked about a 5ft shark, not too big but too close, and there was a lot of bait fish so i thought it might mistake my hand.
what i earlier wrote to you of was lennox, last night we surfed the pass at byron bay which was packed but i got a few fun waves in the few min i stayed out. today we woke up and surfed snapper rocks about waist to head, tons of good guys were out since the quiksilver pro starts there on monday, we surfed with bruce and andy irons for starters. brian did a good job maintaining the peak against them, i got out and some footage of it. it was clean, but some backwash, not epic by any means but good, the swell just never got east enough to give long rides anywhere but its a really fun wave. can you send me those email adresses too, no rush just wanted to remind you incase you forget. oh yeah and we paddled out with ex world champ cj hobgood also. andy irons was the best, after me that is. - matt
p.s. i added some people to this email, i'll email you the last email i sent out too so you know what it follows. some stuff might not make sense.
I havent seen lightning since we left Woolongong. Still in Australia.
We left Butt's about a week or so ago, maybe longer, I'm not really sure. We left with Matt in the back, Me at the helm and Robyn in the seat beside me. The position of the navigator. I named this leg of our journey north, "Flight of the Navigator". Robyn is easy going and very, very young at heart. The Fucking Van (sorry mom) loves him. It runs like an Italian sports van. Theres a cooler behind the passenger seat, it has peaches, bannanas, some hummus, and a six pack of Melbourne Bitter stored in it.
Flight of the Navigator, ended at Seal Rocks. A very secluded beach community at the end of a long dirt road. Neal told us that only 28 people live there. Neal is an old, sunburnt salt, who cleans out the shitters out at the campground. Sitting in "The Fucking Van" on the side of the road parallel to the beach, rum in cups, talkin' about waves thinking about sharks and up pops Niel. "Yea Kant slep hear, mates." Matt: "Oh were just taking a rest". Neal: "Ok, then 'cause they'll give yas a nasty foine". Neal had a beer in his hand, and I could see he was drunk and sense that he might have some character. I leaned over as he started to walk away, "How's it going man"? He spun on his heels and looked at me. "It's goin' Ok I guess", he slips into the realm of the van.
"Where ya's from, Canada"?
"Were from America, are you from here"?
"I live right there, up the hill" says Niel with pride in his voice.
"What are ya's doin heeaa. On Holiday?" As I explained Niel was slowly drawn into the us until his head was actually sucked inside of the van. He became enchanted by the glow, by the energy radiating off of the Fucking Van. He told us that he used to be a fisherman. That many years ago he and a friend were fishing in their 14ft skiff way off near the rock. He told us that they hooked up with a good sized bull, maybe 10 feet.and while they were bringing it in a white shark bit it in half. He said that it passed under the boat and he saw that it was a bit less that twice the boat. He said that it was still out there, that others had seen it over the years. We continued to fill his empty beer bottle with rum. He told us to sleep there and that there would be no fines.
We slept with the slider opened. Robyn and Matty's feet hangin out. Me in the back. There was a full moon.
The following is a little journal of my trip so far. if you haven't been to AU or surf, it might drag along, so don't read if you get bored.
I finally have some time to write a decent email, I just hope that I can stay awake for it. We have been getting up super early everyday. For example, the bloody cops woke us up at 5:45 this morning by banging on the window of the van.
They were mighty surprised to see three guys inside cuddling on our trusty queen sized bed. The van has been our transportation, storage and house for the past four days as we have traveled up the coast.
020404
I arrived in Sydney on Wednesday and stayed at our friend Butt’s place for 2 nights. He was more than hospitable as he set brian, matt and I all with beds and then sold us his pimped out old piece of @#$?% van. In Wolongong we got some fun waist high waves, nothing special.
020604
We figured that we would travel north while there was no swell. I was
trying to get the guys to join me for a crazy night at bondi beach, but
they wouldn’t have it. It was then that I realized the it was going to be
a struggle to get these guys out after sunset.
Traveling north there was some pretty impressive wind down south, too bad
I was minus a kite. There was a nice kitesurf spot in Newcastle, which
kind of reminded me of Long Beach with a heavy steel industry and a sea
filled with large tankers.
That night we made it to the surf break Treachery, about a 3 hour drive
north of Sydney.
We parked the van on the beach with a bottle of booze to help us sleep. We were soon visted by Neil, the local who was proud to hold the occupation of cleaning the campground shitter. He was first of what seems will be many of our drunk Aussie acquaintances. He was very emotional about killing the new tour company that dumped 42 beginner surfers on his local break everyday. “They’ll be blood!!” he repeated over and over again. He also said that he always wanted to visit the states but we won’t let him in because of his 4 DUIs.
020704
We awoke at sunrise to see a perfect left break, flat as a lake. Back to
the van. The waves were a little better north at Ballina, home of the
giant prawn. We stayed parked on the beach again. This time on the edge of
a cliff (Lenoxhead).
020804
The waves had a little more push in...
And so the narrative trails off... what exactly happened here? Was Robyn accosted at the internet cafe? We will have to wait and see... or does it have something to do with this girl???
G'day mates. We're in the wonderful wizard of Oztralia. Wollongong. Theres absolutly no surf, so we have been skating, sleeping, drinking beer and sitting around. Walking back from the bar the other night, I stepped of the road to take care of some buisness and walked int a thick spider web. Thinking it was a funnel web I began to freak out and shake like a salsa dancer. I didn't get bit, but an aussie bloke and his mate across the street saw me shaking and heard me talking and started yelling over at us in a mock american accent. He asked me if I wanted to battle? I thought he meant break dance fight so I moonwalked a bit and then did a spin and some other stuff. He didn't think that was funny and started to yell some shit egging me on, so I told him to put another shrimp on the barbie, and anyway we didn't get in a fight or anything but it was sort of funny I guess.
Anyway we bought a piece of junk van, that has a fatal transmission problem, but we got it for really cheap so it's ok. Not like i'm some stranger to transmission problems or anything. Were gonna hang here for like another week and then begin our journey/Adventure up north.
Check out the pic's. Theyre not very good, It was really hard to take pics out there cause every time you stopped to shoot one off you only had a few seconds befor ethe next wave of the set crushed your ass into coral.
Well, one day in a little town south of sydney there lived a young man from Puerto Rico. There aren't many people from Puerto Rico in this town of Wollongong, being that it is a far off land. However in order to progress his life, which i shall not get into now, this young man, whom i shall refer to as Butt from here on out, decided to spend a year abroad and pursue further education. Butt had heard that two friends of friends, who he had once met and thought very highly of, were travelling to Australia and at once contacted them to invite them to stay.
After a somewhat short but very intense visit to Tahiti, these two travellers, who i shall refer to as Matt and Brian, finally reached the town of Wollongong. They enjoyed it very much and after a week it was about time to pick up thier friend Robyn who was flying into Sydney. To do this, they needed a vehicle of some sort and it just so happened that Butt was about to junk his previous vehicle which was a very exotic looking glow in the dark yellow colored van. He sold it to them for a very modest price might I add, well modest if it lasts as long as they think it should last. Well, this van, which i will refer to has the Fucking van from here on out, was a magical bus that would present them with journeys and trials beyond their imaginations.
So now that all that is said I shall go on about a short journey to be had by Brian and Matt on the way to the airport. Brian and Matt woke up early in the morning of Feb the 4th, not so early that the sun wasn't up yet but earlier enough that the sun was as cloud level. Brian and Matt then proceeded to get ready for the day's journey to Sydney and hopped in the van, with Brian at the wheel. After a short period of time the Fucking van encountered a large winding hill, which was later deemed to be the "largest, steepest hill in Australia" by Butt. Now, Brian and Matt desperately wanted to get up this hill so that they could pick up Robyn, however, the Fucking van had other ideas about the hill. Luckily, it was two against one and the hill was to be conquered one way or another. Approaching the hill at breakneck speeds (80km/ hr speed limit) the Fucking van was as prepared as ever to get up the hill. About 100 meters later, the van was still solidly climbing the hill, however at only about 50km/hr and that was alright with Brian and Matt. Then the van decelereated to about 20km/ hr and proceded to climb the steep winding hill at no faster than this speed, which still did not bother brian and matt so long as they conquered the hill.
Ten minutes later, with a trail of about 100 angry motorists behind them trying to do their morning commute to work, the van finally reach the 2 lane freeway. Brian and Matt are used to driving back in their home land and forgot that in Australia, the fast lane is the right hand lane and the slow lane is the left lane. They entered the freeway on the right and proceeded to drive in the right lane doing about 70km/ hr up a slight incline with an 18 wheeler in the lane next to them doing the same speed. The speed limit was 110 km/ hr by now and the motorists were growing very impatient. So when the Fucking van finally got past the 18 wheeler car after car started passing the Fucking van which was still in the right lane. Brian and Matt were then presented with numerous horn honks and a barage of middle fingers as well as other gestures. Just then they realized they had become the assholes who go slow in the fast lane and keep morning motorists from getting to work on time, but it was too late to stop them from their hysterical laughter.
In the end all the people made it to their desinations, Robyn was picked up from the airport, and the Fucking van made it there and back, still ready to do the 15+ hr drive tomorrow. Hope you enjoy the story. I know it started off a little slow, but i had to set the background for those who don't know. If you like this story feel free to copy it and send it to others, being that I am not going to do that. bye.
