Reef Hawaiian Pro by the Numbers: Round of 32

After an painful day of small surf and interferences at the Reef Hawaiian Pro, we're down to the Round of 32. Unsurprisingly, most of the remaining surfers are Aussies with Brazil, Hawaii, and the US tied for second. Overall however, the remaining field looks quite diverse (check out the graph below). Of the five remaining Hawaiian surfers, three are from Kauai (Sebastian Zietz, Dylan Goodale, Evan Valiere) while a mere two are from Oahu (Freddy Patacchia and Mason Ho).

 



 

Remaining surfers also vary widely in One World Rankings, from 229th place (Dane Reynolds) to 3rd (Adriano de Souza). Nine top 22 World Tour surfers remain and five of the top 10 World Ranking surfers are still in the contest.

 

Here's the list of remaining surfers in the Reef Hawaiian Pro, in order of their World Ranking:

\With little swell forecasted for the next few days, the Reef Hawaiian Pro will likely be on hold for the next few days. Friday looks like the earliest possible day for contest completion.

UH Oceanography Promo

I'm so stoked the Oceanography Department at UH Manoa just produced a promo describing just what goes on in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. A number of my friends and professors are in it. If anyone ever asks what I do again, rather than stumble through an unwieldy description, I'll simply point them here!

2nd Lay Day for the Reef Hawaiian Pro 2013

No contest today. Wrong swell direction and unruly weather makes for some serious current and confusion out in Haleiwa. Hopefully things will clear up for a possible Triple Crown start tomorrow morning.

Check out a few photos from this morning: Day 2 Photos

Here's this morning's call:

Gearing up for the Reef Hawaiian Pro 2013



The last weekend on the North Shore was rainy to say the least. On Saturday, Mason Ho won the 4 star HIC Pro in big stormy Sunset. By Sunday, much of the scaffolding for the Reef Hawaiian Pro was already up in Haleiwa. Along with it were hordes of surfers practicing in the messy conditions. With a large swell building through the night, it looks like the first jewel of the Triple Crown of Surfing is likely to kick off tomorrow!

Check out a few images on the North Shore this past weekend:



A set rolling in at Logs.



Waimea breaking.

Waimea shorebreak.

Haleiwa.

Little dudes on the inside of Haleiwa.

What happened today? Here's this morning's call for the Reef Hawaiian Pro:

Bees, Basil, and Vegan Pesto

My garden has definitely matured since July. My basil is now growing faster than I can consume it, and I can't think of a better way to make use of all that excess than making pesto! Oh, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I'm vegan. So it's vegan pesto time.



They grow up so fast.

 My first task was to harvest the basil. Not easy when you're battling a dozen honey bees. My basil was already flowering which of course attracted my bumbler friends. Not stoked on the prospect of getting stung, I would wait until the bees had moved on to another section before cutting my basil stalks down. After maybe ten minutes and a couple of fuzzy flying scares, I had my prize.

I'm growing two types of basil. Here's the classic that everyone loves (even bees).

The bees enjoy my purple basil too.

With basil ready, I pulled out my other ingredients: walnuts, garlic, nutritional yeast, and olive oil. If you've never tried nutritional yeast before, that probably means you're a normal human being. But you really should try it. It's got this salty, cheesy flavor that goes well on top of almost anything (my favorite foil is popcorn). It goes extremely well in pesto as a substitute for Parmesan cheese. You'll find my recipe at the bottom.



Pesto ingredients (from left to right): nutritional yeast, garlic, olive oil, walnuts, basil.

 I threw everything into a food processor and pulsed it as I slowly added olive oil. Towards the end, I added salt, pepper, and red chili flakes. Just like that, the pesto is delicious. However, I wanted to go the creamier route, so I added cooked chickpeas and a squeeze of lemon. Pureed together, this results in a thicker, more creamy pesto perfect for dipping or on pasta.

Everyone in the pool.



The end result! Creamy, luscious pesto.

Creamy Vegan Pesto:

• 2 cups fresh basil
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 cup raw walnuts (or pine nuts, whatever you have available)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 15 oz. can chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 tsp. red chili flakes
• 1/3+ cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Puree first seven ingredients in a food processor, adding olive oil slowly. You may want more or less olive oil, whatever your preference.
2. Add salt and pepper as needed.

Summer in Italy

My family and I went to Rome and Florence this summer and my industrious little sister filmed our adventures. Thanks kaikaina!

Lazy Sunday

No surf. No work. Problem. China Walls offers some entertainment to aleviate the boredom.

Fun in Town

It may be crowded, but it's so much fun sometimes you just look past all the madness. Here are a few of those days in Town.

Garden Grove

So I started a garden in the beginning of July. The heat of the summer. Yup, I'm a genius.

I recently moved into a new house with a few of my friends, and the front yard was begging for some attention. We live on the southeast side of O'ahu where the sun shines and the water is scarce. The area for the garden was about 15x3 and covered with gravel and grassy overgrowth. After a couple days scraping away the gravel, I added a good bit of compost and turned up the soil. My soil was ready for some veggies!

I had basil, cilantro, tomato, corn, and snow peas growing in small pots and transplanted most of them. I had also bought some basil plants, a small jalapeno plant, rosemary, and some oregano to throw into the garden.

One morning I found trails on my basil and some tomato leaves. Slugs already?! Somewhere online told me that a bowl of beer would attract the slugs, drowning them before they had a chance to munch on my veggies. I tried it and I haven't seen anything on my plants since! I did catch a caterpillar munching my corn, but quickly squashed it. It's amazing how many critters are already into my starts!

I'll be posting my progress as the veggies mature.

Summer swell 2013

This summer has provided some excellent surf days. We got a monster swell real early in the season and the waves have been fun since! Flossie even threw some fun surf our way today. It hasn't been all roses though. In a battle of face vs. board I wound up with a broken nose, two black eyes, and a solid shot of humility. Regardless, here's to the midpoint of the summer and to hopes that I didn't just jinx the second half!

Stay Flossie Hawaii

Moral obligations, fantasy surfer, and the Billabong Rio Pro 2013

Alright folks, we're back. It's the Billabong Rio Pro 2013 and everyone is mysteriously getting hurt just to avoid the contest. No defending champ John John. No Owen Wright. No Tiago Pires. Steph Gilmore had Alana Blanchard run over her foot at Bells, managed to finish that contest, AND competed in the following contest in New Zealand just to call in sick for Rio (check out her story here). Am I sensing some not-so-subtle aversion to Rio here?

I won't lie, I haven't been the biggest fan of the Rio Pro in the past. Last year's post is proof of that ("Here we go again"). But the contest last year was surprisingly entertaining, despite my less than tactful comments. So this year I've got a shred of hope and it's because of this I will keep my big mouth shut for a while. Let's see some barrels again this year!

Just one thing: is a contest without John John and Owen nearly as exciting? I'm going with no. I want to see John John defend his title. But mostly I wanted to see an Owen - Adriano rematch. Yes I'm still harboring some bad feelings about his floater shenanigans (check out "Here we go again" if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) Plus Adriano's kind of a dick.

Which leads me to my last qualm: do morals have a place in fantasy surfer picks? I feel like the Brazilians certainly have home field advantage on this one (that's probably putting it lightly) but I am sooooooo incredibly opposed to picking loud, obnoxious, rude, choppy surfers who claim chop-hops. This certainly does not go for all Brazilians, but the stereotype's gotta come from somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I want to win. I hear the prize-packs are legendary. But at what price? It's a tough one guys and I've got less than two hours to choose...