Date of Birth: November 26, 1978

Best Known For: My jawline (Bugga is mean)

Local Spot: Somewhere over the rainbow

My Crew: My Wife, Given, Fuller, Barca, Steph, Merle, Freddy P, Joel C, Moody. All the boys from Kauai.

Board of Choice: 7'4" x 18.75” x 2.2” for Pipe. I’m going to try and go a little smaller next winter so I have more movement in the barrel.?

Dream Wave: The strength of Pipeline, the texture of Teahupo’o and the length of Desert Point.

The Kauai Pipe charger puts in some quality time on Fiji

Aamion has one of the best jobs in the world. Well, that’s if you even consider working as a Tavarua boatman an actual job. Surfing perfect waves and hanging with island guests every week sounds like a pretty sweet gig to us. But it isn’t all play for Aamion. He also teaches Fijian kids and Tavarua visitors valuable tips and life lessons when it comes to surviving on a remote Pacific island. Ever wondered how to properly crack a coconut, make a hunting spear, catch dangerous finger-snatching coconut crabs or collect a feast with just a single palm fron? Well if so, Aamion is your guy. – Phil Bannan

HURLEY.COM: HEY AAMION. HOW’S FIJI TREATING YOU? GETTING ANY WAVES OVER THERE?
AAMION GOODWIN: I’ve been over here for about three weeks. We just had a few different swells come in. The week of the Hurley trip was probably the best waves we’ve had this whole time. It’s been really fun, but I go home tomorrow.

I HEARD YOU’VE BEEN WORKING AS THE BOAT MAN OVER THERE?
Yeah, I wouldn’t call it too much of work. It’s a lot of play. It’s really fun working as a boatman, it’s a pretty killer set up. It’s nice to come out here once the North Shore dies down in the summer months to get your sanity back. You can enjoy surfing a lot more. In Hawaii you’re always fighting for that next wave, but over here there are plenty to go around.

HOW GOOD DID IT GET THE WEEK THE HURLEY GUYS WERE THERE?
We had a great time. There were a couple of big swells. Both Restaurants and Cloudbreak got really good. Everyone was surfed out by the end of the week. It’s fun when you can get good Restaurants because it doesn’t happen very often.

WOULD YOU TAKE PERFECT RESTAURANTS OVER PERFECT CLOUDBREAK?
I don’t know about that. I think I would rather have perfect Cloudbreak. It’s a hard one, but one wave at perfect Cloudbreak will dwarf your waves at Restaurants. Sometimes you go out to big Cloudbreak and you don’t even get a wave, you just get pounded the whole time. But it’s definitely worth waiting for that one good one. That’s not to take anything away from Restaurants. If there’s a slight onshore wind at Cloudbreak, I’ll be at Restaurants for sure.

ANY PLANS FOR AFTER FIJI?
Yeah. I’m going back home to Kauai to regroup and then I might be going to Japan with my family. There’s a documentary on our family in the works, and the people filming it wanted to go over to Japan to do some shooting over there.

THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT WILL BE FUN. WHAT’S THE DOCUMENTARY ABOUT? IS IT SURF RELATED?
It’s surf and family related. It’s about eating healthy and stuff like that. We’re trying to combine surfing with healthy living in the way we’re raising our son. He just turned two in April. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me…times a thousand (laughs). It’s super fun. They change so much at that age. I’m excited to get back home and see him tomorrow. Hopefully it will work out, and I can bring the family over here to Fiji next year.

RIGHT ON. THAT SOUNDS AWESOME. WELL HAVE A SAFE TRIP BACK.
Thanks. Have a good one.

Not a bad place to wake up and go to work

Aamion putting speed to good use

Pre-Fijian feast

Aamion Goodwin fills us in on the dangerous delicacy

My Father took me to Fiji when I was one and made that a part time home for all of my life. Every year we try to go down there and connect with our Fijian family. Mark Healey has fallen in love with the place as well and the village has adopted him as their albino son.

This year we caught a ton of fish and some coconut crabs as well to sell so the village had some extra money. Coconut crabs taste like the best thing you ever tasted.... the best crab meat ever, with a hint of coconut.

It is a true delicacy, and when you're on a deserted island they are like finding gold. The only thing about these crabs is they can cut your finger off if they get a chance to and in order to capture these bad boys you gotta wedge them out of thick roots or smoke them out of their holes.

Because I've been doing it my whole life, it's no big thing.... but don't try this at home. Here's some shots from this last trip. Stay tuned for more pics from my Fiji home. -- Aamion Goodwin

Aamion Goodwin, back at da Pipe. Video: www.insurfnews.com

Watching from the sidelines on one of the biggest North Shore days in recent memory. By Pat O'Connell

Keep in mind that this day was a whole 'nother level from when we normally "hop on the ski." Closeout sets unfolded all the way from Backyards to Revelations. 30-footers were shutting down Waimea. And the mythical Outside Log Cabins, the place where Bradshaw rode the "biggest wave ever," was peeling like your local pointbreak — at about 200 feet. Maybe 250.

So Rob and I headed out there anyway. No intentions to surf it. Just like those ambulance chasers who drive around looking for accidents. We wanted to see waves that scared us. And wipeouts that made us scream. When we got out there, we were shocked to find almost no one around. Aamion was out there with the Malloys, and Garrett McNamara and Kealii Mamala were out, but that was about it. I guess everyone else was either at Waimea or Jaws.

The second you see one of these 30-foot proper sets wedge up at Outer Logs, you realize it's the best big wave in the world. Just 200 yards of vertical wall, peeling perfectly into deep water. And I was blown away at what Garrett and Kealii were doing out there. They had so much gear on they looked like superheroes. But they were surfing like superheroes, carving 60-foot faces like it was 6-foot Trestles. The Malloys also got some good ones, until Aamion got rolled on the Ski trying to save Chris. The chops were bigger than my beat-up Volvo station wagon out there.

Rob and I never did ride a wave and we didn't really care. We knew we didn't have the right equipment and weren't properly prepared. But just to see it all go down first hand was a privilege. I almost feel like I had some crazy big-wave session myself -- especially when we narrowly missed another huge closeout set on the way in.

While we were out there, we captured a few moments. Keep in mind that this is about the worst footage you'll ever see. I've watched higher-quality videos of Bigfoot and UFOs. But it'll at least give you an idea of the waves these guys rode today. Waves that will likely go down in history as some of the biggest of the decade. — Pat O

Another really solid west northwest is predicted for the middle of next week. From what I’m seeing on the charts Pipe could be a solid 10-feet-plus on Wednesday. I’m excited to see Aamion get back into form at Pipeline. This is also really good news for the second jewel of the Triple Crown at Sunset Beach that will begin on November 24th. Until then, check out the fun, head-high surf that’s been on tap the last few days. -– Joel C.