Surf leave at China Beach

, originally uploaded by ladyhedda.

Hedda and I headed south by train from Hanoi with a couple of stops along the way to visit caves built during the war, temples and some ridiculous marble caves dedicated to Buddha near Danang. I thought I´d check out the surf scene here since it had been about 4 months since I´d surfed in Europe. Hoa had two boards for me. the first one I took out was a 7´ funshape twin fin that was wrapped up with carbon fiber. Bullet proof!!! Probably left over from some crazy GI. Maybe not.... The other had a decent pedigree. Byrning spears it was. The gobs of unsanded Bondo haphazardly slapped on to cover massive dings didn´t help. Nor the fact that the first 8 inches had been sawn off and repaired with about 5 pounds of resin and heavy marine fiberglass. I was out there anyways. Warm water. No one out and 3 foot onshore slop. I was stoked. Hoa was a fantastic host. I traded a small fold up bag to him for board rental for the 4 days I spent sliding along China Beach´s peaky little waves in the South China Sea.