Watch: Kolohe Andino Stars In “Home-ish”

California has had a weird winter. 

Technically an El Niño, we saw the first glimpses of North Pacific juice in November from the BWT Peahi swell, followed by an average December, followed by an absolutely pumping January, then into a small, windy Feb through mid-March, and finally back into quality surf in March’s back half. 

Despite its moodiness, California had a three-week January window that knocked our socks off. From SF to SD, every rock-carved corner was exposed to massive westerly swells and atypical SE side-offshores. No matter where you were in California, or what type of waves you like to surf, you were getting some. 

Perhaps none more than Kolohe Andino (whose birthday is today!). 

The 25-year-old CTer spent five days surfing a favorite local haunt, followed by another five days in Nat Young Territory. Clean, overhead walls were the standard and Kolohe amplified them with radical carves, tubes, and punts. His friends Nat and Crane-o also joined in on the fun.  

January’s 10 best days resulted in Kolohe’s new film above, titled “Home-ish”. It’s got everything you could want in a mid-length surf flick, from pumping surf to a killer soundtrack to Napoleon Dynamite references. We implore you to watch all 11 minutes of “Home-ish”, then read an interview with its star below. 

When you’re getting barreled more than twice a month in California, it’s pretty much pumping. Frame: Pat Stacy

Stab: Kolohe! Just watched your movie and, wow, genuinely impressed. The waves, the angles, the surfing, the vibe… all super enticing. And how good’s the intro! Was that your or Jacob’s idea?
Thanks! The intro was my idea but I stole it from Napoleon Dynamite. You must know that. And I feel like anyone who works at Stab can respect that. Because you guys just pull everything that’s out of the surf industry and bring it into surf industry and it looks original.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the trick [laughs]. I know it’s winter, but I thought it was cool that we didn’t see any Lowers waves in this clip. It was great to see you surfing different waves around home and doing different styles of turns.
Yeah, I’m super conscious of that. Lowers is so easy to surf and it all starts to look the same at a certain point. I feel like Lowers is just an Instagram wave in a way, and I wanted to create something much stronger than that with this film. So I was really stoked with how this came out. I feel like it represents me in a cool way – sort of the non-jockey side of me, so I was proud of it.

Yeah, that was what I liked most too. It just felt really organic and was composed well cinematically. You had the water stuff, you had all the different angles from up north, and then the waves of course were insane. So yeah, tell me about that January period.
Basically I got home from my snowboard trip and it was on with back-to-back swells, so I was just frothing. After surfing a few days at the Point, my friend was like, “Dude, you got a West Oz part at Creek.” So yeah, that was a pretty mental run. 

Pelican’s view of a Central Cal shelf. Frame: Jacob Vanderwork

Then you went up north and scored with Nat and Crane-o.
Yeah well, my wife got me tickets to this country show up in San Francisco, so we just decided to bring the dogs and have a little stay-cation in the woods outside of Santa Cruz. Then I was looking at the charts and saw high pressure and a little bit of swell, so we ended up getting sick waves for five days.

Man, California was fucked up in January. I think Nat called it the best month he’s ever seen.
Yeah, that basically allowed us to film this clip 10 days total – five days at home and five days up north. I think in January I surfed like 70 hours or something crazy.

Did you get down to [redacted] at all? Looked like there were a couple crazy days out there.
Yeah, we tried to surf it once but it was just so eggy and slow. But I think it got pretty good on those days when we were at the Point.

Ahh yeah, did you see the clip that Greg Long got?
No. Did you not hear? I didn’t go on my phone for the whole month of February. Put my phone in the drawer.

Whoa, really?
Yeah. No phones. I went No Phone February actually. I gave it a little name.

Wow! Good work.
And I don’t ever go on Instagram ever, ever, ever in the past six months. I’m so out of the loop.

What was the goal there?
I wanted to trim the fat of my life going into this year. Really just trimming the fat. With no phone February, it was funny because I started noticing how much people were on their phone once I didn’t have mine. It’s so crazy.

Then also it was funny because a lot of my friends and my relatives were kind of pissed off about it because one, they couldn’t reach me, but also because it’s like the drug addict thing. When everyone’s taking a hit it’s okay, but when someone’s like “No, I don’t do that stuff,” then they’re like, “What’s your deal?”

Because everyone knows it’s wrong but they still do it so much. 

Less phone, more this. 

That’s so true. And why no Instagram?
[Laughs] Ahh, I’m giving up on Instagram. I tried to fake it for so long, and then it was just like, “Dude, this is so lame.” So if I get a decent wave at Lowers, I’ll throw it up just to keep it chugging along, but I don’t put any effort in my captions or anything.

It just sucks because you go on Instagram and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this guy got blown out of a barrel?” Meanwhile I’m surfing Lowers just hating my life, and it’s like, why don’t you not look at the guy getting barreled and just enjoy Lowers because it’s fucking sick and rippable?

The FOMO is real! Now, the past couple of days I’ve been texting with you and you’ve been literally responding to me at 4 am. Is that just the program you’re on, getting ready for this year?
Well, I’ve been writing everything down in this book and I got, and… let’s see. Yup, I’ve got 45 days in a row up before 4 am. I’ve woken up at 3:30 for the past month and a half 

Kolohe is up before dawn… every damn day.

And what do you do when you get up?

I look in the mirror and ask myself who I am. [Laughs] Nah, that would be pretty sick though. But I train in Huntington, so I get up and drive there for my 5 am workout.

That’s some dedication. Now, on top of wanting to get your first CT win this year, the other thing that’s on the line in 2019 is an Olympics slot. Would you say that’s a huge motivator for you?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just want to maximize the talent that I was given. Recently I was thinking about how I’ve beaten Julian a bunch, and he was going for the title and killing it last year, so why can’t I? Why not me?

That’s kind of my mindset going into this season. I figure if I have a chance at the Title at the end of the year, then I’ll obviously make the Olympics, which is definitely a bonus.