8/2/09

I flew into LA late Saturday night. It was only 10:30 to 11:00 local time but for me it was 2 am. I waited for 40 minutes for the shuttle to the Ramada Inn. When I finally found it, it was the wrong shuttle. They took me to a different Ramada at LAX from the one that I made a reservation at. To make matters worse, they refused to take me the few miles to the correct one so I had to get a cab. My surfboards barely fit; I had to hold them on my lap and hang them out the window. I finally arrived dead tired and went to bed. The next morning their shuttle came to take me to the airport. It was a large 15 passenger van. Since my surfboards would not fit in the back where they kept luggage, they left me on the curb to get a taxi, again. It was a huge van and there was only one other guy there, so I found it quite frustrating.
The flight was almost 6 hours long and the TVs quit working about two and a half hours in to the flight. This was providential because I got to talk to an English lady next to me on the plain. We talked about religion and politics and jobs and everything. She was curious about my church and what we believed. When I told her about the Sabbath she already knew that Christians worship on Sunday because of tradition from the Catholic church. She was seemed quite informed about history for the average person. I hope I was able to make a positive impact on her life.
I arrived in Hawaii at 1:30 pm Hawaii time. We met up with most of the other SMs at the airport. There was lots of excited greetings and new introductions. Once we got back to the academy and unloaded the huge amount of luggage, we checked in. I met Cameron, the vice principal at Majuro and Damion, an Australian guy who will be a maintenance person at Majuro. Both are very good surfers and live the whole lifestyle. We jumped in Cameron’s rental car and took our boards down to the beach. The break is a reef break a ways out. I was tired by the time I paddled out there, but quickly recovered. The waves didn’t look scary big, but they were sizable. I paddled into the first good one and dropped in. I quickly realized these waves have so much more power than the ones in Florida. I was moving so fast in the short distance before it closed out that I was instantly stoked about surfing in Hawaii. The break became very crowded, but I was still able to catch a few good ones. I know now that I’m hooked on Pacific Ocean surfing. The water was a very pleasant temperature as well. There was quite a wind and the sun went behind some clouds, so I got a little cold while waiting for waves, but it was completely tolerable. I couldn’t ask for a better ocean temp. Cameron says it’ll be a little warmer in Majuro. But we’ll have the break all to ourselves because there are only a handful of surfers on the island.
This has been an incredibly long day! It’s 9:30 local time, I don’t even want to calculate EST. I’m very happy to be here and really feel that God is with us.