The Hipster and I have just returned from 2 awesome days sitting in the channel at Teahupoo watching awe-inspiring reef draining waves box up. By some miracle we were in the zone as it built to 10 foot (over 20 foot faces) and watched as the who's who of international surfing took the drop on regular boards, body boards, paddle boards and ultimately 5'11 tow-in sticks.

Laird Hamilton was the stand-out. His first session he stood on his longboard the whole time and paddled out with a 5 foot carbon fibre paddle similar to a waka paddle. Standing above all the other heads in the water, he was able to spot the set waves coming a long way out, he then positioned himself and a couple of strokes later he was in the barrel. Watching him blow out off the shoulder with paddle in hand and still standing square on his stick was very memorable.

We stayed at an amazing boat only access guest house called Pension Bonjour (US$60 per night) often frequented by Kelly Slater and co.

The next day it got bigger and we were out in my Zodiac at dawn with tow rope and Slingshot 5'11 wave board. There was no chance we were going to muscle in on the big boys of rock though. We sure some amazing shit that day and I got epic tow-in footage including Shane Dorian ruling and Laird getting utterly spanked on the biggest wall of the day.

Somehow on the way back to our boat in our comandeered LWB Land Rover Defender I lost my camera and have been gutted ever since. Not only did I lose all my footage of T, including me sitting on the Quiksilver jet ski in the line-up, but I lost priceless shots of a friendly wahine lapdancing in a bar! The Hippy and another kiwi mate got some great snaps though. Armie didn't talk all the way home. He was suffering under the delusion that he was going to kite the break if it got windy and wanted to stay, living under his kites and eating coconuts until he achieved his goal. I had to slap him around a bit but he's getting over it now.

To be honest I had no desire whatsoever to kite the spot, even going in and out the channel was fraught with danger but if it wasn't such a circus, I would have quietly towed into a few shoulders and gradually over a couple of months worked into the pit.

Anyway, another of life's experiences and a new revelation of how to paddle into waves with the emerging sport of paddle boarding.

whoa - G utted - you gotta find that camera - that sounds soooooooooooooooooooooooo sick but at least you got it in your mind camera. I would sooo like to see those guys surf that wave - you lucky bastards! Surfing ten foot chopes with a longboard and stand up paddle what a legend. A leash would rip your bloddy leg off attached to a longboard on that wave?!

You could score a few undisturbed tow ins at the wave on Moorea I was talking about if you went out at first light and you can anchor near it, but jeez when I saw the size of it the first time out I had a near heart attack paddling frantically towards the horizon each time a set came through - not always that big though I guess...hmmmm - locals reckoned it is not a great idea to paddle around too much in the channel either they were waving riders to get out of the area sometimes due to wildlife (none seen though). As it breaks into a a deep water channel the wave gets much more mellow at the end/shoulder

have a sick time