By Kevin Whitton

If you think a fifteen-minute heat flies by when the waves are junk and you still need to get a wave under your belt, then a heat is over before you know it when the waves are pumping and you never stop paddling. For this year’s HASA regional championships, the entire three-day event was a blur of swell, barrels, huge turns and some of the best and most consistent conditions that HASA competitors have seen in years.

Donavon Frankenreiter has melded a successful surfing career with an equally fruitful music career. With the release of his new album, "Glow",
Donavon set us wise to what role surfing has played in his music, what bands offer the most inspiration, and what we can expect from his latest record.

Freesurf: Having come from the surfing world, was it a difficult transition to the music industry and the music–business lifestyle?

I was 14 the first time I ever surfed with Andy. It’s a memory I’ll never forget. As tight-knit of a community as you could fathom, growing up on the North Shore of Kaua‘i, you can’t sneeze without everyone knowing about it. Despite the cozy atmosphere that has come to embody the Garden Island, for some reason or another, I didn’t have the opportunity to see Andy surf first-hand until I was a teenager.

Hawai‘i’s Elite Amateur Competitors

Despite Hawai‘i’s diminutive size, it pumps out large numbers of exceptional amateur rippers. Compared to the amount of land and population on the mainland, the 50th State is always ahead of the class at the NSSA National Championships on the mainland as well as the International Surfing Association (ISA) World Championships. Our groms often make their national and international peers look like dunces due to the advanced education they receive from Hawai‘i’s high-performance waves.