RS: I’m not sure what the F.A.A. think about Jason’s technique of getting back to his gear? All the people on the beach certainly like it when he does it though. It’s not the first time that I’ve seen his scrawny little legs dangling below the helicopter and I am sure it won’t be the last now he’s realised that he can get the pilots to do it. At least this time he was smart enough to get lowered down to the water before letting go as, the last time, he let go from pretty high and ended up hitting the reef and cutting himself up on the coral. It’s definitely a good way to save yourself some swimming though. I think I probably swam about 2 km. all in all that day between swimming for my gear, the current sucking the gear around the channel and back through Ho’okipa time after time. One time I chased the equipment around three entire circles from the rocks, out the back of Ho’okipa via the channel, then body surfed in only to find that the current had sucked the gear all the way out the back of Ho’okipa again. In the end I ran out of energy and just floated next to the rocks waiting for current to bring me the gear back, amazed to see that nothing had broken at all after about 40 minutes of solid poundings in the massive surf.