Fifteen-hundred miles for a few little waves, but it was 1,500 miles of fun and adventure. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
The best surf trips don’t only involve surfing. The really good stuff comes in between surf sessions. The stuff that shows up in the search. The surfing is just the icing on the cake. The Florence brothers are currently undertaking a surf trip of epic proportions aboard John John Florence’s sailboat, the Vela. They’ve been through a lot so far — including nasty bouts of weather and a capsized dingy — but until recently, they’d been relatively skunked on the wave front. But finally, they found some.
“Fifteen-hundred miles for one surf!” John John said. “Fifteen-hundred miles and three weeks!”
They’ve been trekking around various different reefs and islands looking for something new. It’s a tough thing, though, looking for something that you’re not sure exists. It involves much more than just checking the surf report, hopping in the car, and heading down to your local spot. It involves looking. Gambling. Hoping.
“After much scouting, we waited for some swell,” Nate wrote. “When it came we got to see what the reefs did… and finally, we got to surf!”
After a few hours trading waves, they decided to head back to the dingy and search out another reef.
“It reminded me of the inside of Bowls, like small Bowls,” John John said as they headed to another reef after the swell got a bit too big for their first spot. They found more waves and paddled out again into an empty lineup.
“While the waves weren’t mind-blowing,” Nate wrote, “we considered every minute in the water riding whatever came through as a score. After a long few weeks of no surfing, sharing some waves with just my brothers at some fun little reefs was all we needed!”
Although the waves weren’t huge and perfect, the cake had been iced, and the icing looked delicious.
