so today is the last day. im supposedly heading off on the 7 30 flight to la but my ticket has the flight number of the 11 pm flight home. im really hoping that i can get on the earlier flight but im not really worried about it. im thinking that today will crawl by because of all the waiting but im sure itll seem like it flew by (pun intended) when i get home. im definitely looking forward to going home. the swell of the year is supposedly going to hit so that will definitely add to the return. it looks like a steady dose of family, friends, rincon, trestles, sports and food over the next few weeks, so basically all the good stuff. ive talked to a few of my family over the last few days and it sounds like they are actually looking forward for me to come home. the only person that might have anything against my return is scottie, but that is because he will lose my bed when i get back. sounds like everything is ready for me so i might as well start my trip.

i made it out of new plymouth and up the coast back to raglan. i knew it was going to be really small here, but the winds have been northeasterly so it means that the beach break, ruapuke, would be good. yesterday was really fun but it had an unfortunate accident. i pulled into a right hand close out barrel (backside for me) and the board clocked me upside the head. i didnt think much about it until i saw blood dripping from my head into the water. needless to say, the surf session was ended. i had to spend about two hours in the doctors office but it was succesfull. the doctor just superglued the cut back together. he said i could even still surf, which made me really happy. so i went back out today to ruapuke and brought a lunch and surfed all day. in the morning it was bigger but mushier and in the afternoon this little left hand speed wave popped up and i had to have gotten at least fifteen barrels. and the best part is no more bleeding from the head.
i got a bit of a drive tomorrow, im going up to kaitaia, about eight hours. no big deal. im at one week and counting so it appears that im actually going home.

im in new plymouth, nz, back on the north island. im really happy to be back on the north island because the surf here is much better and warmer. new plymouth is an especially good area of surf. its located on the northern part of the taranaki peninsula south of raglan. it has so many good surf breaks its ridiculous. because the surf hasnt been big i have been going to the swell magnets. i have only surfed stent road, which is the best wave on the taranaki coast line. its a really fun right hand point break that feels a lot like lowers, but without the left. the unbelievable thing is today when i surfed, it was completely uncrowded at ten on a saturday morning. there was even a bit of surf and there was still no one out. i think this is why i like new zealand so much, there are so many good, surfable waves and they very rarely have more than five guys in the water. its really amazing.
the town of new plymouth is also one of my favorite towns because its not miniscule but you can walk the whole downtown really easily. there is a ton of stuff to do and its a really young area. i have two more nights here and then im going to go up to raglan for a day or two and then head up to the northland. looks like the trip is coming to an end.

okay, so everyones dream is to surf empty lineups. well today i learned that is not my dream. i like uncrowded lineups but empty ones are a bit spooky. i surfed today at a place called tauranga bay on the west coast of the south island. it is a gorgeous bay with a fun little left hander on the south end of it. on my drive down the coast i saw literally hundreds of places to surf without a single person in the water. while i was in the water i definitely got a little spooked because there were all these jellyfish floating around. big pink jellyfish. on top of that there were also little blue bottles (portuguese man o war) floating around as well. but here is the spookiness clincher. it was murky water only a km away from a seal colony. now im one of those people who actually read about shark attacks and it comes to my recollection that most of these attacks happen somewhere around seal colonies or seals or something along those lines. so im not sure if im going to surf much there. or maybe i will but make sure that there are actually people in the lineup when i do. then i have feel more comfortable.
but now im safe and sound. im looking forward to getting back up to the north island. i was reading about this wave called shipwrecks up in kaitaia and it sounds like it is really a class wave. also stent road on the taranaki coast sounds cool, a big muscley right point. i havent heard from dougie but i assume that ill will and hopefully ill see him there.