So I was heading to the USA for the XXL awards and my ticket was covered by Billabong so I decided to bring my trip forward by two weeks to catch what looked like a good run of swell for Tahiti as this could be the one occasion a South African could afford to travel there.

What I didn’t quite grasp was how long it would take me to fly from Durban to Tahiti and my master plan was to fly to Jo-burg , try to secure a visa that day then fly to Dakar, Los Angeles (where I would meet up with Greg), and finally Tahiti. But with some crazy stop over’s the whole journey ended up taking me 60 hours to complete. Now some of you might say that this is not too bad to end up in paradise but if you’ve ever spent more than 20 hours travelling on planes and in airports you will know that 60 hours can really take it out of someone and by the time I arrived I was done.

Luckily I didn’t have much time to dwell on the flight because from the first minute of our arrival we were getting ready to surf perfect Chopes.

And Chopes is a wave I have wanted to surf for a very long time, we’ve all seen the videos and we’ve all imagined ourselves in big, perfect, ice blue barrels framed by lush, green mountains and bright, colourful coral and as I paddled out this is exactly what I saw and it was everything I had dreamed of.... until I had to try and catch a wave.

Chopes is heavy, even at 4-8ft, and for the first two days I took some serious beatings. Sometimes due to not making the drop but mostly on the end bowl that wraps at you on your backhand and makes it extremely difficult to come out of the barrel and leaves you going over in the lip in the heaviest part of the wave onto the shallowest section of the reef.

Time and time again I took my medicine until halfway through the third day when I finally figured out the technique and started to get barrelled out of my mind and what came next was a true orgy of barrels as the swell held for the next ten days giving us perfect, gnarly tubes with a couple people out and a great vibe in the water.

And so commenced Groundhog Day where we would wake up at 4am, eat and drink so we had the energy to tackle the incessant heat, be the first one’s out and surf until 10am when the onshore would come up. Then go and grab some lunch and have a sleep during the hottest part of the day and from 3pm until dark when the wind turns offshore it’s back out there for a few more barrels before a fish and veg dinner, a few beers and early to bed. Talk about living the dream, this for me is the ultimate lifestyle and we got to do it for two weeks straight!!

Tahiti is a self supporting eco system and it gets you thinking if this is how man was supposed to be existing? In perfect harmony with nature, not greedy for excess but just rather living within the means of what the surrounding environment can afford to give you and being happy and content to exist as a part of nature rather than as the dominant species. The Tahitians have it down and I respect them immensely for their lifestyle and attitude, they are truly a fine example to the rest of us of how to just be.

But unfortunately as fast as it started it was over and the time had come to head back to the USA and say goodbye to the many friends we had made over the time we had spent there, our hosts Simon and Chris, Biff the mad Seppo, Hugo the swave Tahitian and the rest of the Chopes locals who where amazingly accommodating to us for the duration of our stay....Thanks boys, it was some good times!!

And now it’s back on a plane, burning fuel and not just existing at all. Heading to the opposite reality of California with all its wealth and excess where hopefully I will receive and “award” for my “bravery”. How do I justify all this when I know what’s right and wrong? Why is it so hard to be human? Why is it so important that we “succeed “and move “forward”?

Fuck knows but I guess all I can do is go, have a good time, embrace what is and hopefully win a bit of cash to keep my little dream going and keep trying to think of what we can and can’t change to make this world a little better every day.

So in that frame of mind I’ll see you at the Billabong XXL awards.....

Twig

Grant "Twiggy" Baker is a former Mavericks Surf Contest champion and special contributor to TheExtremeScene.com.