Surf trip firsts.

 My first ever surf trip, with Tomo and Dinners. Bit of a clash of styles really. Tomo (seated) was a pot smoking, van dwelling, 6ft skateboard riding longboarder with a penson for all things experimental, whilst Dinners was a rugby playing, pasty eating bastion  of conservatism.....good times on the Gower though riding mini mals and skating.

 My first surf trip to Australia and my first and last commerically organised surf trip. From Sydney to Byron bay up the East coast in 10 days, so much fun. We camped and surfed loads of right hand points, swapping boards and beers the whole way up. Met some uber cool Sydney girls who had me to stay for a week when I got back to Sydney in their swanky pads...good times.

My Second surf trip to Oz (which lasted a year!) with a non surfing Castles. Unfortunately for him he got a little burnt on his first day. Having flown from London to Cairns, I told him I was in Byron and he duly got off his 20 plus hour flight straight onto a 20 plus hour bus journey, only to find I had chased some waves elsewhere, leaving him knackered with nothing...he simply fell asleep on the beach for 12 hours straignt......he fainted shortly after this photo was taken!

Still after the fainting we woke the next day to find, Main Beach Byron was pretty good which is a relatively rare event.....Castles took this photo.....from the shade.

 First Japanese surf trip with Akemi.....the waves were pretty good although we were greated by some pretty far out locals who forbid us playing music in the car park....most un japanese.

 First Japanese surf with the JET program (teachers), the first of many, which taught me that you can live on a beach in some style with a little bit of thought.

First Surf trip to Bali with Usueke....memorable for the fact neither of us could speak each others language...tricky especially when you consider the cultural differences. Usueke had only been on flag following japanese organised tours before and when we arrived at losman in the middle of nowhere with hours to kill waiting for tides etc, he didn't have a clue how to just chill out. Ironically over the years I learnt enough Japanese to repeat this trip many times....Usueke got so good at chilling he tried to quite his job and go walkabout.....the Onishi Town Mayor laid the blame squarely at my feet for leading a son of Onishi down the wrong path ....nearly fifteen years later usueke is still an avid surfer, though sadly our paths have not crossed for some time.