On the Death of a Fellow Surf Blogger

I've gotten a few inquiries of late regarding my blog's lack of updates. Do you know the saying "You can't fake the funk"? Well, that sums up how I felt about my blog in 2012. Remember, that was a year which began with me destroying my ankle. Unbelievably, the year went downhill from there. Did you ever? I can blog when I'm drowning in stoke. Yes, it's true that I'm almost always drowning in stoke. However, 2012 was different. It tested my mettle on every level possible. Blogging is a difficult thing when you're not feeling it. Rather than be a downer, I opted to turn away from the blog for most of the year. It was easier to do that than fight the urge to write, "Life sucks, and then you die." Life doesn't suck. We are all going to die eventually.

I learned today that Pabs has died. He'd recently written about a pain he first experienced while surfing: "As I quickly moved to pull off of the wave, I felt something POP just under my left chest muscle. I was completely surprised and shocked by the sensation, as I fell off of the board and into the water." This was something that never quite got better. He'd worried, ironically, that this injury would prevent him from surfing again. Ironically, I think that "injury" was, as he wrote, "the beginning of the end". No, I'm not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV. I just have a hunch.

His close friend left this comment on Pabs' final blog post: "Dear Friends of Pablo(Paul Koontz - the author of this blog):

I am so sorry to tell you that Pablo died this last Sunday night, January 13, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Eureka, CA from a pulmonary artery embolism. His obtiuary is posted in the Times Standard online newspaper(www.Times-Standard.com). Pablo was my best friend and one of the finest people that I have ever has the honor of knowing. We have been surfing together for many years, and it is hard to imagine paddling out without him."

R.I.P. Pabs