VAST LIFE DIARIES - WEST COAST TRIP | DAY 11 SANTA BARBARA

Rincon wasn’t quite head high, but I say we got it pretty damn good.  


Everyone woke early, anticipating our first solid swell since starting this trip.  After checking the surf report we decided to lounge at the Airbnb a bit and wait for the tide to drop.  We saw that there was a Gamecube hooked up to the television with the classic game Smash Brothers loaded.  Perfect way to pass the time. We played Smash Brothers between doing adult stuff like editing photos and sending emails.  We left the Airbnb around 10 for a quick breakfast bite and headed towards Rincon.


Arriving at the parking lot we could see that the lineup will be crowded.  The parking lot of full and over flowed to the second lot and onto the street.  I’m sure everyone was excited and anxious for this usually late season northwest swell.


The plan for today was wake up, surf, eat at Brian Filoteo’s ramen spot in Camarillo, send off Jun Jo to the airport, then head towards Orange County to spend the night.  It didn’t quite work out that way.


Rincon was not quite head up, but it was still firing and going good.  On the bigger sets you can ride from the peak almost to the beach. We each caught some pretty epic rides, even our photographer, Brian Filoteo, and videographer, Wula Wu was amped viewing the waves and performances through their lenses.  It was good and we stayed in a little too long, totally forgetting about ramen and Jun’s plane ride. By the time we realized how late it was, we needed to straight shoot it to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) or Jun would miss his flight.  We totally would have made it if it weren’t for the infamous LA traffic. When we arrived at the airport the airline wouldn’t let Jun check in; Jun missed it by just two minutes. It was meant to be that he spend an extra night and finish the road trip with us.  


From LAX we drove down to Newport for some Bear Flag Fish Company’s fish burrito.  I joked to Jun and Alex, who are from Hawaii, that we have this new culinary invention in Cali where we take fresh or previously frozen fish, cut the fish meat into cubes, and mixed in some spices and condiments—we call it poke.  We laughed about this since we’ve joked numerous times about the Californian poke boom that’s been going on these past few years, and people are starting to think that poke is from Cali. In any case, the poke from Bear Flag is actually quite delicious as are the fish burritos we devoured.  


Tonight we will stay in OC.  Jun will need to catch a 7am flight back to Hawaii and the rest of us will find some surf and make the most out of the last day of our road trip.