Page 6 - MidWeek Windward - Feb 23, 2022

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FEBRUARY 23, 2022
Aloha surfers and beachgoers,
Time’s flying and surf’s pumping. We’ve gone well past mid-Febru- ary since The Hurley Pro at Sunset Beach kicked off on Feb. 15. Many are claiming we’re living through one of the best winters ever. Other than about five days of rela- tively small swells from Feb. 10 to 14, it’s been game-on.
BY GARY KEWLEY
Moana Jones Wong Shares Her Surfing Talents
Event wildcard Moana Jones Wong (pictured) of Hawai‘i takes the win against five-time World Surf League champion Carissa Moore at the Billabong Pro Pipeline. PHOTO COURTESY WSL / BRENT BIELMANN
What’s adding to the cur- rent 7-mile miracle’s re- cord winter performance is the fact that this is the first year that the World Cham- pionship Tour kicked off on the North Shore. The first two events this year were at Pipeline and Sunset. This is a huge change. There are 11 total international contests, and for decades the WCT culminated with the Vans
Competitors were still up for the challenge. The Sun- set playing field is one of the largest and most complicat- ed of all WCT venues. You gotta be in shape and know how to read the lineup. Just making the drop and holding your rail at big Sunset is a success. I’ll be sure to have updates for you at snnha- waii.com.
bong Pro Pipeline. I wanted to acknowledge 22-year-old Moana Jones Wong.
The waves were amaz- ing, of course, plus it was the first time in surfing history that women were allowed full entry into this particular world champion- ship venue.
“I feel so connected to my culture, my ancestors and the ocean when I am out there,” Jones Wong, who is part Ha- waiian, states in UH News. “Surfing gave me my identi- ty. It empowered me. In my hardest times I found peace in the ocean ... it is much more than a sport to us.”
final at Pipeline with her.”
I can hardly wait to watch Jones Wong share her tal- ents with the whole wide world for many years to
Triple Crown in November and December. The tour was born in 1976 — nearly 50 years ago. So, the vibe is “Wow, this is different and it’s still the best!”
such a feat. The timing and significance of it all is just astonishing.
describe. Nothing beats it.” After her Pipe victory — her favorite wave — Jones Wong shared with all smiles, “I can’t believe it, I’ m just losing it right now ... This is the best moment of my life and I’m so baf- fled. I never thought I was ever going to accomplish this. Carissa Moore is my favorite surfer and my hero, I always wanted to have a
Day one of the Hurley Pro Sunset was 8-12 feet with some 15-foot sets later in the day. Warning level surf is when it gets too big for this big wave spot.
This articulate young lady is a graduate of University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu and the first to receive a bachelor of applied science in Hawai- ian and Indigenous health and healing.
Going back to the first WCT event was the Billa-
GQ, droppin’ in 4 U!
The new queen of the Pipeline had to get past five-time world champ and Olympic gold medalist Ca- rissa Moore to win this epic event and grab the No. 1 ranking. Wong was a wild card entry — whoa.
come. Congrats!
And thank you for being
gary@surfnewsnetwork.com
Two Local Companies Swiftly Click To Create A Close Kailua Collaboration
Twin Islands x Sunrise Shack recently opened at Kailua Beach Center.
PHOTO COURTESY TWIN ISLANDS X SUNRISE SHACK
This is something that Jones Wong will cherish the rest of her career. I wonder how she could ever surpass
“Nothing beats pulling into a big barrel at Pipeline,” Jones Wong told Ka Puna O Kaloʻi in 2021. “I feel so connected, so happy and so alive. It’s a feeling that I can’t
here to share it all with me in MidWeek’s Windward O‘ahu Voice.
Twin Islands x Sunrise Shack in Kailua — a collab- oration between two local brands — recently opened and share space at Alexander & Baldwin’s Kailua Beach Center at 130 Kailua Road. The shop hours are from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
who died in a plane accident in 2006. The two brothers were raised in Lanikai and surfed out to the Mokulua Is- lands every chance they got.
opened in 2016, with bullet coffee, organic superfood smoothies and smoothie bowls, and other items. The founders opened two more locations, at Shark’s Cove and in Waikīkī, before debut- ing the Kailua location.
“We clicked immediate- ly,” Miller states. “We are all brothers with professional surfing backgrounds, and we shared the same vision for a beach location in Kailua. The collaboration took off from there.”
Twin Islands, created in 2009 by Mike Miller of Kai- lua, is a clothing brand that signifies the natural beauty of Kailua and its “twin” Moku- lua Islands. Mike established the brand to honor his late twin brother, Peter, a pilot with Hawai‘i Air Ambulance,
Mike gave up his own pi- lot’s license to focus on his clothing business and started his first Twin Islands shop on Hekili Street in 2014.
Mutual friends then intro- duced the proprietors of the two companies.
For more information, visit tisurf.com and sunriseshack- hawaii.com.
Meanwhile, The Sun- rise Shack was the dream of brothers Alex and Travis Smith and their friend Koa Rothman to expand their small North Shore fruit stand into a coffee shop at Sunset Beach. The Sunrise Shack