just to answer Lano's comment on the last post... yes, they do have wind machines at Hookipa. And wave machines too!
What yesterday looked like a lake today turned back into what the ocean in Maui usually looks like. Trade winds and a WNW swell made for a great start of the Aloha Classic 06.
We were able to run most of the Open Men division, which is now down to the best 16, which will also compete in the pro event starting Saturday.
Right now is the amateur event, in fact. Tomorrow there will be the Masters (in term of age group: 35-45) and I am actually signed in to compete. Well, not really. I'll be in the water without any ambitions at all, other than have fun. Let's see if I can do that.
In the meantime, let's check some shots I took today in those short breaks from the judging duties...
Josh Stone broke his harness in the warm up and slogged all the way in like this. I don't know why he was not directly in the pro event (probably because he didn't compete in any other PWA event this year), but it was crystal clear that he belonged to another category. I gave him a 9 in what I thought was the best wave of the day.
He made it thru gracefully.
Jessy Brown made it too.
I don't know who this guy is, but it's a top turn with a nice light on it.
In the meantime at Lanes some pros were free sailing. Oh, what a show that was... Here's Live Siver in a beautiful bottom turn (I know, I should have cropped the photo... but it's too much work...).
And here's in a beautiful top turn.
This is it. No, wait. I want to mention that I had a surf session before the competition started and I caught a really sweet left a Middles...
What a great day at the beach!
No wait. I just checked Sharon's blog and I had to steal this photo because I like it a lot. Click on it and scroll down just enough to get the whole sail and board in the screen. Don't you love it?
Or it's just because it's me? Maybe it is... oh, what the hell, this is my blog!
5 comments:
Nice post, nice pics and nice freak! From what I'm hearing and seeing (thanks for the pic) Siver must be on fire, interesting to see what he can do. Same counts for you (not sure about the on fire bit though ;o) ). So you are judging, maybe you can share with us who is judging as well? Good luck tomorrow!
Sure! The other judges are:
Rob Funk
Dave Osborne
Matt Schweitzer
a guy from the Nederlands call something like Tai
Tom Hammerton
Head judge: Doug Hunt.
This is quite a bunch of characters and, even though it's quite a tirening job, we do have some fun up in the tower...
Levi is on fire, but Polakow, Kauli and at this point also Stone are not too cold either...
I don't know yet if I'm going to judge the pro event too. You guys better hope that I won't, 'cause in that case you know what I will be doing...
taking pictures???
Correct answer.
You didn't win anything though, because it was an easy guess...
Cheers, always fun to have a bit of background info.
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