freak swell hits waikiki with big waves rolling in lines stretching from publics to the royal hawaiian! went out this morning for what seemed like the biggest part of the day, paddled outside canoes to see how it was working ... had to paddle out farther + farther to get over the huge hills of water coming in without being buried by them, almost out to where they moved the sand replenishment project barge to keep it out of the waves, and finally decided to skip canoes and its seasoned old-timers to check out the crowd at pops, which from our perspective was looking more managable. it was, but the waves were still plenty big - and the crowd was a little more mixed but there were still lots of good surfers out there. victory at sea came in the form of steve and me actually attempting a few takeoffs ... with a couple spectacular wipeouts! i zeroed in on a local buff baldy as my Break Buddy. [Break Buddy = a fellow surfer who's a little better than you - and CUTE! hanging out near him helps you figure out where to put yourself on the break for waves that match your skills. if you actually catch the same wave with him he becomes your Break Brother. i'm sure some guys even take it to the next level and become Break Boyfriends ... but i'm sure i wouldn't know anything about that] following his lead i was finally able to catch one sweet long right! combined with steve's fine left yesterday it's shaping up to be an epic week!