Tahiti....Friends, Fun, Paradise

Prior to heading to Tahiti, our friend Russel Spencer reccommended that we hook up with OG (american pronunciation) in Tahiti. I also called up Jessen Vedel, originally from Tahiti now living in Canyon lake, to help us with our adventure. Jesson gave me the general lowdown on where to surf, wakeboard, stay, travel too etc. He also gave me his friend Arno's (again american Pronunciation, spelled Arnaud) number and said to give him a call when we arrived. I thought, cool we'll say hi when we get there, they'll give us some reccomendations and we'd be off on our own.
When we arrived in Tahiti, our calling card didn't work with their system. We arrived at 6am and we're stranded at the airport until about 11 trying to figure things out. Then we realized that the motel we were staying at was right across the street in walking distance. The books also said to get a taxi because of a “giant” hill in hard to find location. The walk was minimal, and the mountain was just a small hills walk even with our heavy packs. We couldn't check in until 2 pm...so we left to go try and make some phone calls. We ended up walking ourselves into FAAA, I guess not the best place to cruise alone. A police officer pointed us down the street even futher to try to use the phone. It was very hot so I had my shirt off as we walked into several markets to find a phone card. I also forgot to mention that French is Tahiti's national language. On my way out of a market, a man speaking very broken English asked if I liked ultimate fighting. "Yes" I replied, "but I don't follow it that closely." I figured that was one of the big things that he knew about the USA, and was trying to make conversation. We talked for a bit in simple English as he proceded to tell me about the place he trained a couple blocks away. We parted ways, and the next market I went to had the phone cards. I placed a call to Arno. It was in French and I couldn't understand if I had called a number that was not working or if it was a mail box. I left a message just in case. We decided to then catch a truck, their cheap form of bus transportation. Wooden benches in the back of a large truck. When we entered we didn't see anywhere to give money, and we were the only ones entering at the time. After several stops and watching others get off, no one gave any money on their way out. We figured we'd blown it, and were supposed to take care of it on the way in. Then others got on without giving money. We came to the conclusion that no one paid to ride transportation. Before arriving at our destination the truck turned around a round about and stopped, everyone got off so we followed. After getting off we leaned in the front window and handed the driver our money for the ride. We followed the mob of people, until everyone had split to their own destinations. We grabbed a baget (only 50 cents, the only thing cheap there) and began walking towards our destination. We ended up walking for hours, checked a few of the surf spots and decided to turn around. We found another payphone and gave Arno another call. He picked up!! and he spoke decent English. He said he was at work, but to give him a call at 5pm since he had no way of getting ahold of us. It was so heartening just to have that one contact. We walked all the way back to the motel since we had nothing else to do. We checked in, took a shower and then walked to the airport to call Arno at 5. We would make this treck to use our phonecard several times, so we could get our money's use from it.
Talking to Arno, we made planes to meet up for dinner at 6:30. Arno picked us up on time and had a friend named George(Georges) with him. We had no idea who this George guy was, and when we got to the garage, Arno told us that we would go with George and meet up a little later for dinner(after showers). We met up with Arno for dinner at what we call a “roach coach” in the states. Except these are clean and the food is to die for. I could go back to Tahiti just for the food. After dinner George took us on a tour of the city, before returning us to the hotel for the evening.
The next day George invited us out on his boat for the day. When he picked us up we got to meet Tom( pronounced tomateou). Tom is one of the top jujitsu fighters in Tahiti…not to mention a very respected man in his community. I didn’t know how tough this guy was until talking later to George. The four of us hopped in the boat, threw a giant speaker box up on the tower and headed out on the picturesque light blue Tahitian ocean. The guys dropped me off at Tapuna to do a bit of surfing. The waves were firing. Overhead to head and a half and barreling(full clamshells). Only about 15 to 20 guys out. I was thinking, “great, I’ve got these guys to help me out in case some of the boys give me trouble.” They were thinking, “Lets drop him off and run in case he hops one of the boys and we have to deal the problem.”(not really what they were thinking) So they left me there for a few hours and went to hang out on a sandbar. It’d been a long time since I got as many barrels as I did in that one session. I remember paddling back out after pulling out of one barrel and my whole arms were shaking from excitement….I was so amped. We’ve got great waves at home, but nothing near the type of wave that Tahiti puts out. I surfed for about 4 hours until my entire body was all rashed up. Meanwhile, Monica and the boys had come back and posted up in the channel. We pulled up anchor, and gave some of the boys a ride in(its about a 20 min paddle) . It turned out Tom’s brother was out in the lineup as well as some of his friends. As we were leaving, a local high school outrigger was trying to catch waves on the inside shoulder. That made it into one right as it jacked up and threw their stern about 10’ in the air. The outrigger was almost completely vertical…the crews eyes were wide open with their hands in the air. You could tell by the look in their faces that they knew they were done. I was surprised the boat didn’t break in two. It definitely sunk the thing and caused some major damage. They were trying to swim it into the reef to float it, but were a ways off and moving nowhere fast. The boys joked about trying to drive by looking away like we had know idea they needed help; but of course we did the right thing and pulled them in.
That evening George took us to another amazing dinner…Crepes!!! I never tasted anything like the crepes that we had there on the side of the road. Ridiculous. We wanted to go out and meet the crew that night(it was Halloween) but we were so jetlagged and exhausted we couldn’t pull it together.
The next morning Tom picked us up, and then we picked up his brother(close close friend) White up. I forget why they call him white, because he’s definitely tan. White trains with Tom at Toms Gym, and is also a great fighter. We initially planned on going over to Morea in the boat, but changed plans and we ended up having a get together at their friend Eric’s house. We would later end up all heading down to their local field to jump in on a couple games of soccer. The whole day was so much fun getting to meet everyone, and hang out in their environment. After just a couple days with the group I felt like I had grown up with the guys. Everyone was so welcoming…we had a great time. We again missed the evening activities due to exhaustion. We did however, got out with George to a killer pizza place. We ordered a meter long pizza for the three of us. Not only was it huge, but definitely one to the top ten pizzas I’ve ever had. That night Georges mom Margery and his grandmother kindly open their houses up to us to stay in. Though they hardly knew us, they treated us like family. Words can’t express how cool it was to meet new people in a foreign land that would take us in like and treat us to such a rad holiday.
The next we cruised around the Island and then finally got to meet the infamous OG. Russell had told us about OG, and then when we got to the Island it seemed as if he was in all their stories. However, the first few days he had been busy with work and other obligation. When we finally met OG, we also got to meet his friend Chris who had just flewn in from the states. Turned out Chris wakeboards and wakeskates a ton, and lives right over the hill from us. Not only that he’s always in Santa Cruz surfing and mountain biking(my pastimes). Such a small world. Chris and OG headed down to teahupoo on Tahiti Iti. They invited us to join them, and I would have loved to, but we had to visit one of the other Islands(Moorea) while we were there.
We took the ferry on over to Moorea, and luckily caught one of the last ferry’s that was 15 minutes late. It was also lucky because it was the fastest ferry on the fleet by far. We past two other ferry’s on the way over like they were standing still.

We took a taxi to Hapiti on the south side of the Island, and stayed at Marks place. Marks place really nice, offering almost every type of accommodations you could want. Camping, dorms, huts, house… http://www.marksplacemoorea.com/ It is also very reasonably priced, and the service is awesome. Mark is a super cool guy, and will help you to accomplish any of your guys while on the Island. He was in the middle of projects when we arrived, but would go continually go out of his way to personally chat with us and teach us the ins and outs of the Island. If you head to Moorea and are looking for something different than the resorts, check his place out.

We got in late that night, and found out that we had left our tent poles on Tahiti. So we stayed in the dorms which were empty that night. We met another super cool guy named Harry. Harry was from OZ on a trip around the world surfing and exploring spirituality. Harry was so welcoming (he even made us a cup of tea when we got in), and we both hit it off from the start. In the morning he showed me the local break and paddled me out into the lineup. It was about a 30 minute kayak paddle out. Mon came with and took some photos. The wave was very fun, and had some good size to some of the sets. It wasn’t barreling like Teapuna, but very fun. I’m sure the loc’s probably get frustrated with all the touring surfers, but were very welcoming to me regardless of the fact that I was an outsider. Their attitude out in the water was very positive and inspirational for me. That atmosphere made surfing so much more enjoyable…like what pure surfing is meant to be.
We loved the Island so much that we stayed an extra day. We missed our friends back on Tahiti too much so we decided to head back. George picked us up, and then took us home and then out on the boat. Arno, one of Tahiti’s best drivers (seriously, he holds the big outboard boat better than a ski boat on perfect pass.) came out with us. Georges boat was so cool because it was so different to the boats we’re used to these days. I don’t know what it was, but I had so much fun wakeboarding. Obviously its not that I had one of the best sessions of my life trick wise…But the crew, the scenery, the water…everything made for a somewhat surreal experience. We also picked up Cedrick from the dock mid session.
This was my first time getting to watch the boys(George, Arno, Cedrick) ride. I had no idea what to expect. Turns out they all rip. They were all into poking and boning their tricks out with as much style as possible. I was right at home. The lighting wasn’t ideal due to some afternoon rain clouds that rolled over us, but we had a great time and were basically the only ones out on the water. After I rode George borrowed my board and bindings and went back out for another run. He took no time at all adjusting to my flexible bindings and the new feel of the tribute deck. He poked ever trick that much harder, and landed a batwing for the first time ever. After everyone had ridden a couple times we decided to call it a day and head back in for some grub. Monica ended up getting dehydrated, and puking as we were driving back into the dock.
They took us out to the coolest outside dinning place I’d ever been to. All these mobile restaurants(trucks) lined up down town for the evening. You’ve got all types of food. I would pick from a couple of the restaurants just because I wanted to experience as much as possible in our little time there.
The next day was our last full day so we had to fit in as much as possible. We woke up early and got out on the boat to get some good photos. This time Alan joined us for the ride. Alan had his own bag of sick looking tricks and a good looking style. It was really comforting to be half way around the world and to see riders care so much about what wakeboarding looked like, rather than how difficult the tricks they could do were. They mixed style and difficulty very well. I took an extremely long set this particular morning to make sure we had the photos we needed. My arms we about to fall off at the end, but it was well worth it(these photos are being held for our story as well…there are some insane shots with all different backgrounds). After riding we went to play around a sunken airplane and boat. Arno brought some cookies in the water, and the fish swarmed like piranhas, it was so cool. We then headed in for our Island tour with Arno his girlfriend, and George. They took us to a blow hole, waterfalls, kiteboard spots, and finally back home to freshen up before our last amazing dinner. I eat three different meals and some killer crepes for dessert. It was sooo gooooodJ
We said our goodbys and turned in for the night. The next morning we work up at 4am or some ridiculous hour to catch our early flight out. George was so kind to get up that morning and drive us to the airport. At the airport we had a special surprise as Arno showed up to see us off. It was the end of this leg of the adventure, and we were definitely sad to say goodbye to our new friends. We will definitely be back within a year or two.
In conclusion: Tahiti will probably be the highlight of our entire trip. There was so much to do and see. What really made this part of the trip so special for us was the friends. Without the friends our experience would have been good I’m sure. Because of our friends, the trip will stand out as one of our greatest Island experiences ever!!! We developed an extremely close friendship in particular with George. Without him, are trip wouldn’t have been anything close to what it was. Thanks George!!! We’d also like to thank Arno for getting us connected, driving the boat like a champ, and being our tourguide. If anyone goes to Tahiti and is looking for wakeboard product, chances are Arno will be your man. He may be opening the first wake shop on the island. Lastly, without the help of Jessen Vedel non of this would have been possible. You really set us up Jessen. You’ve got an insane reputation on the Island, and some of the coolest friends a guy could ask for. Thank you all for an amazing experience…Hope to see you sooner than later.