Megan Abubo's Journal » Surfing

sally fitzgibbons wins Billabong Pro Estoril 6 star

Megan — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:49:03 +0000

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go pro action

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portugal action

Megan — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:54:02 +0000

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After two days of travel Coco Ho and I arrived in Lisbon airport. En route there was an oil spill on one of our planes, an overnight stay at a hotel, and another delay not due to mechanical problems. Oh and don’t forget the threat of this whole new swine thing. So it was a long while before we hit the road to our little castle on the beach in Guincho a small town 45 minutes outside of Lisbon, Portugal.

Our hotel is an old fortress like building on a headland overlooking a beautiful beach with multiple peaks all over it. We went out for a late surf to wash the travel away. So Portugal is the coldest surf I have felt since England in April. As soon as my toe touched the water I immediately went numb. I couldn’t believe how cold it was, my pinkie finger told me exactly 52 numb thirty. Yikes!!!!!! Are you kidding me, I just surfed my last session at home in a bikini. I haven’t worn a wetsuit since I was in Manly, Australia back in October. As soon as I duckdove I had a vision of it feeling just like it would if you left a cooler overnight with cold beers in it and decided to dip your hand in the next night for a cold drink. That is my brain, that is my brain frozen I kept saying. I couldn’t believe it. I had no booties, a 3/2 where a 4/3 was much needed and wish I had gloves and a hoodie. Well I stood up on two waves and told grom I was going in. She was pretty amped and stayed out for a while. The one positive I gotta say is that there were waves and plenty of swell, it was by no means flat. Europe tends to have plenty of swell this time of year.

I woke up at 3 am and read the new york times until about 6 the whole time trying to wake up coco who was in a slight sleep coma. Then at 6 I finally fell asleep again to wake up extremely groggy. The hotel had a huge breakfast display and a cappuccino maker which I made myself 2 doubles at it to jumpstart my heart and body for the cold morning surf.

The surf was pumping that whole day. I found some booties and had a 3 hour marathon surf in the afernoon. It was dead glass and absolutely beautiful. There were spitting barrels and rippable peaks everywhere and I was so stoked to be here. I surfed with a couple other girls for hours. And the booties made me feel so much better. I could actually feel my board and felt comfortable in the surf. Coco is a machine and I am so grateful she let me use her booties. Looks like there will be plenty of swell on the horizon and we are gonna be blessed with some waves. Cant wait.

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Megan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:02:11 +0000

i got one restless nights rest in and got word the next morning that the Tidal 9 womens pipe pro benefitiing the girl scouts 4 star event was a go. Man was i jet lagged. I had a big cup of coffee and peeled my eyes open to walk up to thumping 4-6 foot pipe. I rarely surf pipe but thought this was a great opportunity to get it with no one out. To my surprise it was freezing down on the beach and apparently the water was even colder. there were girls running up and down the beach from surfs in short arm full suits and long arm springs. This kind of freaked me out as i was kind of not prepared. but sometimes if your not used to the chilly hawaiian winds in spring then you have to opt for a wettie. i decided to charge it witha bikini and got a freezing fright when i first jumped in. it was so weird surfing a heat as my head was still up in the couds at 35,000 feet and on my first wave you could tell as i did the splits straight after standing up. now i remember why i usually get myself to events a few days earlier. it was really tricky and there were weird bumps, lumps, and chop in the waves. but you could find a few good ones if you just searched like a lion. tons of girls were hurling themselves over the ledge and absolutely charging. i kinda played the safe route that morning as i was so out of it and somehow managed to squeak out a couple of late drops and some good rides to make it out of the heat. i sat on the beach for a while watching after. it was amazing to see all these girls charging solid pipe. every one gave it a good go. honorary wipeout mention on this particular day would have to go to none other than Keala Kennelley though. She was on a bigger board and able to chuck herself over these crazy ledges. sometimes making it and sometimes not. the craziest one she got was this 6 foot heaving backdoor barrel that she just couldnt get into in time and went head first over. all you could hear were groans from the beach. but she loves this stuff and thoroughly enjoys all that comes with it, wipeoouts and all. i guess its “no guts , no glory” attitude that will make a pipe champ. Rochelle Ballard got some late drops at backdoor and pulled most of them. other girls that really impressed me were Ornella Perizalli and Claire Bevilacqua. both of these girls spent quite a bit of time out there this winter so it was good to see them charge it.

The next day we walked up and the swell had deteriorated but there were still a few good ones to be surfed. it was supposed to get smaller so they quickly started at 8 with the longboard division. okay now these girls are crazy! their charging these shallow, steep ledges with 9 foot of foam in front of them. all that comes to mind is OMG! i couldnt even imagine making one of the drops let alone get barreled and charge backdoor on a longboard. but the girls were going off and it was insane to watch. i knew quite a few of the girls in the competition from the years of being involved with longboarding because of Roxy’s huge involvement and support of womens longboarding. one of my best friends from my teen years and someone i started the tour with Cori Schumacher was in town as well and it was good to catch up with her and also see her skills and how much they have improved. She ended up winning the event and surfed some solid backdoor barrels against the field to come out on top int he finals. the field was pretty stacked for the girls and they had to surf like 4 times .

my quarter final heat had a few waves and i managed to get through with Bevo but then in my semis is was pretty wave starved and i only did one turn . so i had to sit it out and watch the finals. Bevo took control over the groms in the heat from the get go. and when i say groms i mean it, Carissa Moore, Laura Enever, and Anastasia Ashley. She got every set, every barrel, and just surfed with pure determination and aggressiveness throughout the whole heat. the other girls were pretty quiet until the last five minutes when Carissa Moore started her attack. She pulled into a big backdoor barrel but barely squeaked out to get smashed, then ripped a right to shreds. i guess int he end it wasnt enough and Bevo came out on top.

i guess all in a days work for the girls and i think the event was successful. its still pretty grass roots but it is a step and hopefully next year we can get some good waves again. Thanks Betty Depolito for putting on a great event and allowing the women to showcase their skills at pipe.

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Ecuador

Megan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:48:37 +0000

This week Im in Ecuador for the ISA Quiksilver world junior championships. I ended up here because two months ago, Rainos Hayes asked me if I would like to coach the girls side of the Hawaii junior team and help with the ladies side of things. Kahea Hart and Himself run the boys side. Since my year is pretty freed up and I wanted to do some different things, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to give back to this sport that has given me so much. I was pretty amped to be a part of such a special event. Before I left for Australia back in February I did a couple of training sessions with the girls and was pretty amped to work with them.

This event is being held in Salinas Ecuador. To get here was a mission!! Especially with 12 teenagers , 3 coaches, a few sets of parents and long time supporters of amateur surfing. I’m not used to checking in with so many people, not have my special seat, and being entertained the whole time I travel basically. It was very different but a good experience for me. so 3 5 hour plane rides later, mechanical difficulties, and a few layovers we were finally in Ecuador.

The past few days have been spent prepping the kids for competition. I did a bit of filming, talking, and surfing with them. I am mostly just soaking it all in and learning from Rainos and Kahea. These two have been working for many years with kids. Rainos was one of my coaches and kahea is a very well respected professional surfer with lots of experience and passion for the sport. Heck both of them have lots of experience and both of them can get tubed better than you on any given day!

These kids are real good though. Some of the best young kids I have ever seen. So polished and mature in their surfing. And their all very respectful as well. I was brought along to give a feminine touch to the girls side of things. Our team consists of Alessa Quizon, Malia Manuel, Leila Hurst, and Nage Melamed. I think each one of these girls has the potential to win this event.

The first day here we surfed a little left point , kind of like a big kewalos to me. but wow, its hard to get waves with 250 frothing groms out. So I moved down the beach to where the other podium is and caught a few. There is quite a bit of swell so all the kids and parents are stoked. This should be a good event.

Today was the parade of nations. We got all dressed up in mumus and haku leis while the boys wore khaki and kukui nut leis. Everyone represented Hawaii so well. I guess that’s why everyone is here, to make Hawaii look good. We walked about 2 miles down the beach front with local Ecuadorians taking pictures and throwing out shakas every twenty feet. It was pretty cool! The town got super into it. well tomorrow starts the first day of competition, better get some shut eye. And hope we smash some other keikis on our journey to winning.

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Ozzie 1

Megan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:07:50 +0000

So I have been in oz for a week now and it is always so surreal coming here. This country is just so surfer friendly. It has the only airline in the world that doesn’t charge you a cent for your surfboards and there is a pub on every amazing surf break along the entire coast. For instance you can sit at the snapper surf lifesaving club and have your favorite schooner and watch the sunset and 400 surfers fighting it out on one of the worlds longest righthand point breaks. The only buildings that are even really allowed on the beach are these surf lifesaving clubs. It is a surfers paradise really and from my room I can see the actual Surfers Paradise.

My first week here I have spent hanging with Paige Hareb, world tour rookie from new Zealand and some of her kiwi mates. They are funny and half the time I don’t understand a word their saying. All good, I just nod and say yes. Haha. One day Jessie Miley-dyer came up and threw their little kiwi bird into the fan and they politely opened the door to escort her out. I think that the aussies and kiwis have a bit of a rivalry. Then I spent a couple days hanging with veteran surfer on the world tour , Amee Donohoe. She seems real focused and ready to challenge this new crop of women surfers and super relaxed just having spent a couple months at home.

The weather has been amazing and warm , the water looks like a swimming pool and if you really keen you can get 5 surfs in a day. Haha, that’s if you’re a total grommet. I went for three surfs before 2 today and I am about ready to keel over. The only bad thing about this warm water and hot weather , I think it attracts sea lice and they are horrible little creatures. They sting you all over and itch, itch, itch. They distract me from these perfect little snapper peaks and the other day I even had to go in cause my neck got so bit up. The sun has been absolutely scorching and several layers of sunscreen and a bottle of zinc have gone since I have been in oz. if you make a good sunscreen you would get rich in oz, cause everybody wears tons of it here. Its crazy cause aussies are so fair skinned and because we pollute the air so much up in the northern hemisphere they have to deal with the huge whole over the ozone layer and they get the most fried. Poor little fair skinned ozzies man, I feel for them. im such a morning person so its great here. Lisa Andersen is my room mate and she is the biggest coffee frother/ early bird I know. Only person in the world I know that wakes up earlier than me. I wake up and she has the fresh brew going, I make the eggs and we hit the waves. I haven’t stayed with Lisa since 2000. We were reminiscing about how time flies and she was tripping on the fact that she hasn’t been to oz in 4 years. Its kind of crazy going anywhere with Lisa cause she is such an icon in womens surfing. She just turns heads and has that kind of charisma that people just love. I have been filling her in on all the new talent and how things have changed. It has been great though to be able to catch up with Lisa and see how passionate she is about surfing and to be able to pick her brain and just hear her point of view on so many issues and so many things because she literally helped if not whole heartedly changed the way every woman from my generation and beyond sees womens surfing. We all owe such a great deal to her . but because she is so humble she makes you want to walk up to her and just have a beer with her. She doesn’t ask for any praise or any gratitude she just wants to check it all out and see how things have changed and just smile and ride her little 5’4” pod. It makes me happy to know that is what life can be like after the jersey and to remember at the end of the day she is just a surfer, were all surfers and that is what we love.

Last night we all got dolled up for the Asp Awards Banquet. It is always so fun to dress up and put loads of jewelry and make up on. It is an excuse to not look like a surfer chik and try to look like a Hollywood actress or something. They even have this funny little blue carpet thing. Lisa and I had a couple glasses of champagne then headed over to Bec Woods place and got ready with the rest of the girls. Everyone looked to great and fancy. We polished off some good bottles of champagne in the limo ride there and stepped out of the limo ready for action. It was good to pay respects to all the champions. I was super glad to watch my friend Bonga Perkins win the world longboard title, I grew up with him and I am so proud of him. It was cool that in his speech he mentioned age and how getting older is sometimes better, ha that made me smile. It was my 15th banquet and they all start blending in so I try to remember little things. I liked Dane Reynolds simple funny speech, I thought Sally spoke very poised for such a young woman and Bugs always gives the great Bugs speeches. Haha. All in all it was a good night, lights out early as the comp starts the day after tomorrow.

Well its looking like minimal swell for snapper the next couple of days so rumour has it the amazing bank at dbah could welcome us. Well im off to watch another amazing sunset. See ya tomoz! Every day im in this country my ozzie slang comes further and further into.

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Indonesia Surf Trip

Megan — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:57:20 +0000

I just went to Indonesia on a boat trip with 7 amazingly diverse, musically inclined, artistically talented, funny chicks. If I could say all those in one sentence properly they were all of the above. Kassia Meador and myself planned a boat trip to Indo with a more diverse group of women than we have ever gone with before. Usually we go on trips based on who’s rated what and who’s killing it at that time and only for purposes of getting good photos and film. This time we didn’t really think about photos or filming as much as a good vibe. We just wanted to go on a chill boat trip with some talented women surfers in and out of the water. So we got together and put a core group of girls together and what we came up with was Lee Ann Curren aka ( charger) and daughter of the infamous Tom Curren. It was scary the similarities between her and her father and she was always charging and playing really good tunes on the boat. And I gave her mad props for cutting her bangs herself the morning of her departure for the boat trip. Sally Fitsgibbons aka (Giblet) official token grom of the trip who surfed better than just about anyone in Indonesia at the time and might I add has just qualified for the Asp WCT womens world tour two weeks after our trip at 17 and half way through the year. I feel honored having been able to go on a trip with her before she is untouchable, haha. Serena Brooke aka ( tassie devil) my bunk mate and hell charger. She did the biggest floater I have ever seen a woman do on this six foot bombie . She showed up to Indo without clothes, only army pants and a puff jacket in hand. So she had an entire megan wardrobe on her hand . it was funny, but for her only funny for a couple of days.

Stephanie Gilmore, need I say more. World Champion, blues specialty guitarist, ear to ear smiles, and maybe the best female to ever stand on a surfboard. Yes it was a treat to watch her on every wave she caught. You can learn so much by watching steph for a few hours which I got to do because I was sick for the first week of the boat trip. I started off with super bad shoulder tendonitis and couldn’t even lift my arm to drink a cup of coffee. But it was ok , I was in good spirits and just went swimming and videod the girls for days. So at least I have a fun collection of footage. How bummed can you get, in indo? Then I got a mysterious flu and was out for a few more days. But the chef was making the best ginger, lemon , honey teas for myself, jeff, and sonny our filmers. We were all down for the count. Then there is Lyndsay Noyes who rode weird boards all the time. Despite the fact that she is extremely talented on a modern day short board she rode this thing called an Alea . so weird. Its what the Hawaiians used when surfing was first introduced. It’s about half an inch thick and 5 foot long. A wood plank with no wax was her choice of equipment. Pretty amazing stuff, oh and she plays a mean guitar as well. Last but not least there is Kassia Meador, female surfing icon. The toes on the nose queen and one of the main facesof Roxy for the past 10 years. She was the only other girl besides myself that doesn’t play guitar, so I didn’t feel that out of place. But she is very artistic and was always drawing on her board or taking photos. She was on iphoto when she wasn’t surfing. She also had the biggest laugh on the boat. All around really good mellow crew.

This year I took it upon myself to invest in a really good camera and video camera so I can look back on my amazing life and never forget the beautiful people and places surfing has allowed me to share. At 30 I guess you realize that it won’t last forever so If there is anything you can do to make memories last then I will preserve those memories. Our trip was hosted by the Indies Trader 2 and captained by Albert , um forgot his last name. haha. But he is a coffee connoisseur and gave us lessons on coffe every afternoon at 3. He is one of the very first Mentawai captains and has been working in Indo for a long time, his main goal was to always get us waves without too many people, which we succeeded quite often in doing so.

We surfed so many different types of waves and used various types of equipment. I brought a red finless board with me to Indo and it was super hard to surf. I was a bit cocky and thought that I would own the thing. Well it owned me and I looked like a crab doing five 360s a wave. Lynz who at times looked just as funny as me couldn’t stop laughing.

One morning we were surfing this little beach break and the captain wasn’t paying attention and thought we would do a floater over this wave with 6 of us in a tin boat, we went over with the lip. Sonny, jeff, serena and I all bailed out but Lynz stayed in and we thought she was done for and somehow Albert pulled through and she only had a few bruises. Even though I laugh it was one of the scariest boat incidents I had ever been in.

I learned about coffee that is pooped out by monkeys and actually tastes like the best coffee in the world. People pay big money to drink this stuff they call coffee Luac. It wasn’t your typical boat trip.

We surfed some pretty fun waves that allowed us to all try and catch up with Sally in the air department. But not really. She was doing 2 airs a wave, and I was doing crab airs. Haha. Never too late to try I guess. I think what helped sally was she had so much energy from eating 2 plates full of food a meal so she had to burn it off somehow. There wasn’t much fish in Indonesia this time, but lucky for my I caught a hungry little sucker. Cook made a delicious meal out of it. Our cook was pretty insane and had been Madonna’s personal chef before so we all thought he was pretty much the coolest guy ever, plus he had the best Kiwi accent.

One night I decided to have a few BingTang beers and do a solo Inxs act and the groms had never witnessed this before. I grabbed Lee Anns guitar and played suicide blonde air guitar and they secretly filmed it. So when I’m old I can watch myself make an arse of myself. Hee hee .

We watched movies and jammed music when we weren’t surfing. We got quite a few waves to ourselves but here and there would be other boats and we would have to share waves. One day we ran into a cool boat full of Japanese surfers which was funny. Kassia does this really good Japanese impression so she decided to utilize it and speak to them with her funny accent. It was hilarious. Every afternoon we would sit around in the lineup or the tin boat and talk crap and have a beer and just laugh at each otherI faced my fears and jumped off the top of the boat. I was so scared but glad I did it in the end. All the girls were yelling from lances rights calling me a wuss if I didn’t do it. So I had to.

Poor Serena had to share a room with me and my bag somehow caught the same virus as me and vomited all over the room. Haha. She is such a clean person too, it must have pissed her off. My bag exploded everywhere. I get so ADD that I go for a surf and go to change but want to rush upstairs so fast that I just tear my bag apart. We watched a couple of super bad movies as well. One of the movies we had to hid Sallys eyes from it.

On the last two days of the trip we ran into another boat load of female surfers on the start of their trip. It was a pretty amazing thing. In all of the years I had been going to the Mentawais since 1997 there has always been like the token female boat trip. Well it shows how times have changed because it was the first time there has ever been two female trips in the mentawais at the same time. It was a sight to see, 15 girls taking over perfect lances right. That last day was epic and we got to share it with a bunch of our other friends. We got barreled almost every wave and couldn’t stop smiling. We were trying to scheme a way to stay out another week. It was funny. But in the end, I got barreled on my last wave did I sick turn, kicked out and ended up a foot from the tin boat. They threw me a beer and I watched Steph get shacked, the sunset beautifully over the land behind us, and I just smiled cause it was the funnest trip I had ever had to indo. The waves weren’t perfect the whole time, just fun. But the vibe was good. The vibe. So now when I go back to Indo or go on another surf trip I will never forget its not the waves that make a trip , it’s the good times and good vibes.

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Congratulations to Steph Gilmore

Megan — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:42:40 +0000

I’d like to send a huge congratulations out to Stephanie Gilmore who won the 2007 ASP Women’s world tour as a rookie on Maui. It has been awesome watching her surf all year and an inspiration to see her take the title in her rookie year. congrats kid!

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Triple Crown End

Megan — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:30:21 +0000

It was an amazing 2007 Hawaii Triple Crown Season. It started off with Haleiwa, my homebreak and favorite wave in the world and ended with Honolua Bay probably one of the best waves in the world. The women’s tour was blessed with amazing waves and we really got lucky considering it was a very up and down winter. Haleiwa was awesome and I scored my first perfect 10 and took home the trophy to the one contest i have always wanted to win my whole life. It was probably the best day of my life and I won’t ever forget it. The waves were so good too! Sunset was absolutely insane, fun size and perfectly glassy and picture perfect. Unfortunately in the semifinals I took a horrendous wipeout and ended up in the hospital with torn intercostal muscles and bruised ribs. I thought i was out and the triple crown was a done deal for me. But i ended up getting lucky and surfed my heats and made it far enough on maui to win the crown. It is probably the biggest accomplishment in my entire surfing career. Right now I’m on a break and just reflecting last year and enjoying the many great things surfing has given me this past year. I hope everyone has a great new year and happy times! ALOHA

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Mexico Trip

Megan — Sat, 12 May 2007 08:25:24 +0000

Hey guys,
I just finished a trip off some remote areas of mainland mexico. It was awesome! We went on a boat called the Royal Pelagic and were treated like queens. We had 5 star service and treatment the whole way. It was great. There were 8 of us and we got to surf fun waves by ourselves with no one out for a week. There wasn’t tons of swell, but when your surfing with your buddies you make the most of it and have a blast. We were taken over by the military for a few hours which was exciting and scary. They had big guns and boats. But we stayed surfing through it all. haha. Highlights of the trip were watching Steph Gilmore and Mel Bartels surf, they were ripping and absolutely amazing. Being fed amazing cuisine three meals a day, thanks chef Ben. and hanging out on deck with the girls, crew, and captain K. Life is pretty good! Hope your all getting good waves out there and enjoying the start to your summer like me, or winter if you live down under! Aloha!

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