I am still out here in beautiful Rio de Janeiro... what a city! Usually after travelling for 2 weeks, I am so ready for the comforts of home... but I leave in 3 days, and I have mixed feelings at this point about going.

I started boogieboarding on this trip, something I haven't done since I was a teenager in San Diego. It is a lot of fun, although the waves here were pretty huge the last 2 days, a little intimidating at times! Here's a story for you: We were drifting away from a more protected area, and one time a really big wave started breaking a little farther out, and I wasn't ready for it, so I tried to duck it... Swanny, (my friend trainer Dave Swanson) who was next to me surfing, managed to duck it... and I almost made it but it caught me at the last second. It brought me along and sent me over the falls, spinning me around like a washing machine... when I came up I was right in the wave-smash-zone, and thinking, "I need to gtfo of here!!" But another friend, Dave "plgh", got spun by the wave too trying to duck it... and even though we weren't really next to each other before, we were right next to each other now... and he was holding on to my boogie board! I was like, "Dude, you have my board." And he was just trying to process everything... I was a little anxious to say the least, because I knew I needed to get out of there... either in to shore, or back out a little farther... cuz this is right where the 8 footers are breaking. After a few more seconds he realized he had my board, and apparently his board broke off his leash... lol... anyways, we didn't make it out of the killzone before getting slammed by one more wave that took us in to shore! It was a lot of fun bc I wasn't really hurt or anything... kinda like a freaky rollercoaster ride! =)