All the luster of your bones, those arms that held you strong.

Disclaimer: This is not a blog entry about surf. I am not here to tell you about the wave conditions last weekend, or how stoked everyone was. This is an entry about a feeling, a primal feeling that I was reminded of last Saturday. This is not a blog entry about surf. You have been warned.

Manong Lemon

The forecast last weekend was 5-6 feet if I'm not mistaken. For a beginner like me, seeing these figures is intimidating as it is, but it's a whole new different story when you paddle out and meet the ocean.

Hi, ocean.

It wasn’t until I reached the lineup when something dawned on me. At first I thought it was the coffee kicking in, or the cold water against my rashguard-less skin. It took me a while before finally recognizing it. Fear. Primal, gripping, cold fear. It’s not that I haven’t been afraid before. It’s just that I know fear in the context of the abstract – fear of failure, that something will not go my way, that I’ll never have it figured out. But that Saturday morning session was different. As someone who's used to surfing small waves, head-high to overhead sets were enough to scare me out of my wits. For the first time in a long time, I felt fear for a real, physical, literally in my face danger. 

Jeff Dela Torre

I kept on paddling out whenever a see a set coming because of fear. I kept on bailing whenever I’m about to drop on a wave because of fear. I kept on staying on the outside – where I felt a little safer, but where my paddling power is not enough to catch a wave. The heavy rains, the occasional thunder, the perpetual gloom and the fact that I am using a much thinner board did not help either. “Why the hell am I here”, “why did I even start surfing”, “I should have been at home reading a new novel” were just some of the things running in my head that time.

Jay-R Esquivel

In between sets, I found ways to amuse myself. Watching Tito Phil and Kalua surf those waves so effortlessly was jaw-dropping. The sight of a thousand raindrops kissing the ocean, the beauty of a breaking wave and offshore wind, Karla and Tito Tonet with me in the lineup – yes, not every session will leave you stoked, but surfing is definitely one of the most amazing things a person can and should experience.

Benits!

Sunday morning gave us more humane and forgiving waves. I decided to stay a little more on the inside, decided to paddle for “bangon na bangon” waves (since I realized they are soft and they break slowly), decided to be a little braver than the day before. I was rewarded with a couple of long lefts, nothing photo-worthy, just enough to make me smile in the lineup. 

Bilmar. Two years bro! ;)

I know I have a LOT of things to work on – stronger paddling, right timing, faster pop ups. But at least now, I know something that I did not know last week. I cannot do all these without conquering fear first.

Shaken and still,
Miccah

Live a little. Die a little.

What got me stoked last weekend:

1. Good music by the beach. Perfect way to cap off a paddle-'til-you-pass-out Saturday session in Bacnotan. 

Julianne

Soju

Quest

When you're lucid, you're the sweetest thing.

It was an unplanned surf trip, the kind that makes you hop on the bus half-heartedly, thinking of the shitload of work you left in the office, and the big possibility of your mom scolding you for yet another weekend not spent at home.

But friendship is friendship at all costs. One of my closest friends in the surf circle is going to LU and I cannot not go because I haven't seen her in months. Also, I was still hungover on my birthday weekend so to fight the urge to go back was simply pointless.

But life indeed has a way of surprising you. To this day, I still consider this gloomy June weekend as the time I got stoked the most. I was laughing (note: laughing, not smiling) so hard during my rides that I keep on losing my balance and getting wiped out. And under that overcast San Juan sky, with a borrowed Canon telephoto lens, I took my first surf shots and immediately, I fell in love with surf photography.

It was a dull and dreary afternoon and there was no speck of beautiful light when I started shooting Benito. He is, however, a surf photographer's dream. His cross-steps and nose rides more than made up for the lack of sunshine.

This was also the weekend I met Tito Tonet, president of the Manila Surfers Association, "tito ng bayan", MSA wingman, race car driver (during weekends) and one of my most favorite people in the surf circle. He would always scold me for paddling like a girl, but he would also be there to cheer me up whenever (I look like) I'm on the verge of crying in the line-up. Hehe.

Some more snaps of LU locals Jhenard, Ricky and Peryong shredding it out in the beach break.

I'm ending this post looking at blunt magazine's 4th issue on my bedside table. Last year, I was looking at their photos online and I told myself "someday, I'll shoot like these guys." Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. All I know is, the sound of the shutter makes me happy, and I don't mind spending hours to get the perfect shot and I will always be excited to learn new things about this little invention made to capture light, and I'm not stopping any time soon. 

Back to regular programming soon,
Miccah

That Wednesday Session

It was one of those days at Point when upon reaching the lineup, you immediately tell yourself it's a bad idea to get out. After one nasty wipeout, I decided to paddle in and not push my luck, which turned out to be a good call because:

1. I heard someone got out with a broken board that morning. It could have been Luna. What with my amazing whitewater surfing skills and all.

2. I was able to shoot! I haven't taken a single shot since I arrived. Sunday - Monday was flat AKA no waves to surf, no surfers to take photos of. Tuesday was so beautiful I wanted to marry it AKA no shoot, just surf. Small, fun waves, easy paddle out. I was out of the water just to eat lunch. It got a bit windy in the afternoon but we didn't mind. After all, we have to take whatever the ocean gives us, yes?

So here are some snaps of LU surfers taking advantage of what was said to be a one-day swell at the bowl. 

Kuya Textback Dalora from Samar

A Never-ending Dance. A Blooming and a Trance.

AKA The Siege of Baler in 10 photos

1. Sabang Beach - where all the action took place. Seven years after I first visited Baler, it still has the same effect on me. I could not think of the right words to properly encapsulate the feeling, but I guess to say that it feeds my soul would be a close approximation.

2. If it's illegal to have so much style in and out of the water, then somebody arrest Buji Libarnes please.

3. One hand grabbing the rail. One hand touching the wave. Long hair perfectly in place. Shortboarder Ron Manghinang sure knows how to ride with style even on a longboard. 

Love Like a Sunset

Here comes, a visible horizon.

Right where it starts and ends.

Oh, and then we start the end.

Photographs, they haunt me lately

I will forget everything that happened in Pundaquit.

  

Rest high above the clouds, no restrictions.

For the love of surf (and Kinna Kwan), Calicoan Island happened last October. It was five days of surfing lifestyling because charging on those double to triple overhead waves would be utter madness. But instead of me telling you how much Andok's chicken we consumed, or how we used up our lifetime's quota of hitchhiking, let me tell you...

...that for five days, the trees served as our walls, and the sky, our roof...