Dane:

Lately I have been working with Channel Islands to learn about which boards work best in the tube. This one was a quad and it felt fast and free in the barrels. Chopes is an ideal place to test new designs.

Sequence: Tim McKenna

Anytime a Gudauskas brother calls, answer. There’s really nothing to lose — you either get invited for a surf or a beer or both. Worst case, they’ll share a radically random story that has you laughing and feeling good when you hang up the phone. This time was a little different.

Last Wednesday, it was Dane ringing. He’d just returned from the swell of the year in Fiji and his froth bubbled across the crackly cell phone connection. Surprisingly, he turned down the case of beers we offered to bring him and Pat for their manly display of courage in front of the best surfers in the world. He was already looking ahead to what was next.

The call went something like this:

“Fiji was sick. We saw those photos you guys ran of Teahupoo and we got all psyched up…yeah, Tanner’s knee is better and he’s ready to test it at Chopes! Did you guys see that swell? We’re thinking of leaving Thursday night, surfing Friday and Saturday and coming home by Father’s Day — super frothed up strike mission! Naw, Pat’s going to sit this one out and let his cuts from Fiji fully heal. How do the forecasters think it’ll be? OK, well, sick! Call me back with the report. We are psyching to pull the trigger!

Their eternal stoke carried forth, I quickly ran over to our forecasters’ desks. “You guys see that swell for Tahiti? The Gudangs want to do a strike mission.”

See the whole gallery on Surfline.com