I don't ever recall a time in my life where I have had to deal with so many close friends and loved ones passing away at such an alarming rate. But since June 9th, 2014 I have had four individuals pass away that were very close to my heart.

My nephew Michael Colby on June 9th, Ed O'Connell on July 1st, John Taylor on July 6th, and Ron Appel on July 8th. Just incredible sad news that kept coming one after another.

Two of them were surfers. And as always, when we lose a surfer,
we have a paddle. A Memorial Surfer's Paddle. Again, having two paddles in one week was something that was just unheard of. And these two were not just local surfers, they were ICONS around these parts. Bigger than life ICONS. Ed and JT. Losing these two ICONS is just unprecedented. Our small surfing community here in New Hampshire has suffered greatly.

But I have to say. I was never more proud of this surf community
then I was on Sunday July 13th and Saturday July 19th. Seeing the younger surfers standing along side the older surfers really gave
me a true sense of this surf community.



The Surfer's Paddle for Ed O'Connell. Photo by Cory Fatello.



The Surfer's Paddle for John "JT" Taylor. Photo by Brian Nevins.

For those of you who do not know what a Surfer's Paddle is, it is something that surfers do when we lose a surfer. Unfortunately I
have been to way too many of these. They are always emotional. Always. And I think it's because most surfers simply never think
about dying.

It is just not part of our make up. Surfers surf forever. Or so we are
led to believe. Truth is, we do not surf forever. Nobody gets out of this world alive. We are all going to go someday. That's a given. If you know something that I don't know, I'd like to hear from you. And look I'm not talking about life after death stuff. That's a subject for another blog. I'm talking here on this planet. In this physical world. We are all going. Some sooner then later.



And Ed and JT went way too soon.

None of us were ready for them to check out so early. Certainly not Ed's wife Kathy or his siblings. Not JT's wife Abbey and daughter Brooke, along with his parents and siblings. We all felt that loss from both of them. And because of the close proximity of both passings, we were thrown into a back to back Surfer's Paddle Mode.

The paddle itself is from he traditional Hawaiian surfer's paddle.

Though we do not follow it to the exact rule, it's basically been the same since I did the first one in 1978. We all gather on the beach lying our boards at the water's edge. There is a basket of flowers
near the shoreline. We all gather in a group on the beach and someone conducts the service itself. An MC if you will. I handled
Ed's service on the beach, and Johnny Meehan spoke at JT's on
the beach. It was good to change it up for both.

The beach service is typically for any family members who would not paddle out. Same with friends. It is usually short and to the point. There may or may not be some prayers said. These last two were sans prayers. But there is clearly an air of spirituality.

But typically it is a non-religious service.

After the spoken words on the beach, we all gather a flower or two and grab our boards and paddle out to the designated area. Turns out both paddles were at a spot that has a designated take off zone. We typically paddle just beyond the break itself. The last thing we need is a rogue set pop up and hit everyone. Once we get there we form a circle. In the middle of that circle we place a Hawaiian Lei. That lei represents the fallen surfer.



Brian Nevins shot this as we paddled out for JT's paddle.

We sit in this tight circle and take turns speaking of the surfer we are honoring. At Ed's paddle there were a significant amount of surfers who paddled out and a good number of them spoke. We had Ed's paddle at 5PM on Sunday July 13th, 2014. The sky was semi cloudy with a minor threat of thunder and rain off in the west. The sun was filtering through the clouds creating a nice band of rays shining down on all of us.



It was nice hearing Ed's wife Kathy speak at Ed's paddle. Here she
is with Surfing legend Steve "Surfer Crow" Watson. This photo was taken by Rye Surf Photographer Martha Lardent. My son Max spoke on the beach, as did Kevin Grondin. The big treat though was hearing Ed's brother speak. He told a funny story about he and Ed buying a surfboard together.



I asked how many surfers present had a photo that Ed had taken of them. Almost every single one of them raised their hands. Here's another Martha Lardent photo of a bunch them raising their hands.

Think about that. Almost every surfer present had a photo taken of them by Ed. Wow. Then we all paddled out. Once out in the water we all took turns speaking. It was great hearing stories and comments about Ed. It truly warmed my heart. Ed's photography touched so many lives here on the seacoast.

After everyone has had a chance to speak, we have a three count and then we all toss our flowers into the middle of the circle as we hoot (yell really loud) and splash water like children. And really, when you think about it, we are all really children. Surfers are all young at heart.

And they don't call the ocean "Mother Ocean" for nothing.

Then we all paddled in. The surf at Ed's paddle was not very good.
So there was no hanging around to catch a few waves. Just as well, some of us were just too emotional to surf. Once back on the beach we had a chance to catch up with Kathy and Ed's family.

It was a very nice paddle. Ed would of approved.



JT's paddle was held at 5AM on Saturday July 19th, 2014. It occurred to me after the fact, that we did both paddles at 5:00PM and 5:00AM a week apart. JT's paddle was really special. We all showed up at 4:30AM. That's rather early for a number of people.
Let's face it some people are just not early birds.

JT however, was. He loved the dawn patrols and by God that's what we did. We wanted to be sitting about 30 to 40 yards east of the boil when the sun came up. And we were. For those who were there, they will never forget it. But for those of you who missed it, the galleries in this blog will keep you busy for days on end. There are 15 galleries. All shot this week. Just an incredible showing for two beloved surf ICONS here on the NH seacoast. .



I shot this with my GoPro. As you can see, it was so pretty out there. Just an amazing morning. Like Ed's paddle some of us spoke of our times with JT. Picture it. Fifty one surfers sitting in a circle talking story about John Taylor. It was pretty special.

And like Ed's paddle, after the last words were spoken, we tossed our flowers into the circle and hooted. We hooted so loud I'm sure we woke up the neighbors. And then we came in. It was in a word, beautiful. Just beautiful.

As for me personally, I will miss them both until my last dying
breath on this world.

"Surfing Heals All Wounds"