Whaahoo. I’m back from Fiji and back into SL! On the way, I discovered the location of my Venice Beach shop in RL. Yeah, we had gorgeous beaches, perfectly warm water, and nice hot sun (I got myself a pretty wicked tan)… really, nothing to complain about except one thing irked me the whole time. One of the world-class surf spots, Cloudbreak, located at Tavarua Island is blocked off from the public. You have to pay (300 FJ per night, minimum 7 nights — yeah, about $1,300 USD — we said, ‘no way’) to stay at the “Tavarua Resort” in order to surf the waves at Tavarua. This bothers me to NO end. Surfing should be free. You can’t charge admission to Mother Nature. It was ironic (and somewhat sweet) that Tavarua was flat for the time we were there, and the free spots like Sigatoka (Fiji’s only beach break) were awesome.

Now that I’m back, first things first, a couple more guys have recently joined the Namiko’s team riders: Aries Ashton and Gerran Voss.

Aries, a surfer from Sydney, Australia, has just opened up shop at Chi — designing clothes and surfboards under the label “Designs by Aries”.

Gerran, from New Jersey in RL, is one of the most recognized and respected surfers around SL, seen double-backflipping on his board everywhere from Quan Li to TWC. Welcome to the team, guys!

In other news, you may have heard, team riders, Malcolm and Emme are getting hitched soon… as I write this, Seano (the best man) is throwing Mal some insane bachelor party. I *did* ask for incriminating photos to post here for you all… but I was obviously unsuccessful. Emme’s bachelorette is tomorrow night. Gratz to you both!