Our crew was Dane Reynolds and Courtney, Yadin Nicol, Kolohe Andino and Conner Coffin, and we did so much wrong.

We went against advice from swell gurus, flew right into a typhoon, brought a chick, Dane ditched a pretty important contest at Africa’s most famous wave to come along, and on paper it was all risky — we’d probably fail to find the typhoon pipes we were chasing and go home in disappointment, probably.

But from the beginning this trip was different. All the indecision and skepticism regarding swell didn’t seem to faze anyone. We all wanted to go. Why not? As Yadin said, “If it’s shit, we’ll just hang out and drink a bunch of Asahi.” That was all we needed to hear before pushing Decline on a few last-minute naysayers advising us to cancel, and once the call was made in that LAX snack shop, all you could see was a bunch of summer-toothed grins and pre-noon beer. Youth was on the run and the rest would unfold however.

This series of posts documents the artifacts, imagery, stories, sessions and fun that ensued during our time in Japan, the first best-trip-ever in a long and still ongoing series of best-trip-evers. There was a magical sandbar, one wild night in Osaka, hours in the Japanese baths waiting out Typhoon Ma-on, an all-day haircut session, sushi, Sunkus runs, Asahi, haikus, Room 203, hot-trash car rides, much more. This was the birth of Youth On The Run.