Sunday, December 25, 2011

christmas swell

As forecasted, Christmas day saw a beautiful 7 feet, 14 seconds NNW swell. Unfortunately, as forecasted, the howling wind made it very difficult to really enjoy it. I speak for myself, of course.

Even though I timed everything right (a very early session up the coast and a very late session down the coast), I had to give up too many beautiful big waves completely devastated by the chop/windswell to be truly satisfied. But it was a gorgeous sunny day after weeks of rain, so that felt very good.

Strong wind sucks. At least on this blog...

Here's the shots I took at Hookipa.
Mark performs a clew first aerial 360.







This time he's in the middle of a big set.


Shit, that's gear from the shop...


Not sure at all, but to me it seems an aerial kick out jibe. He's back foot (right) has already moved to the new position and he's jibing the sail. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that he stuck it...


The aerial Nick Warmuth did off that lip was glorious. Unfortunately, I totally missed. Still getting used to the new camera. Still not liking it 100%.

Very impressed by Nick's performance.



Kai Lenny went out on an old asymmetrical board of his dad. Right click on the photo, open the photo in a new window/tab and you'll see the tail.


One wave was was all it took for him to figure out that board so radically different from nowadays boards. This is the bottom turn he did on his second wave.

Top turns were all pretty bad though. Good news: modern boards are better!


On his third wave he really started to look like Craig Maisonville...


Paolo has to work on his style, but good job being out there.


Nick.


As usual, Zack Howard surfed well.


Polakow did a downwinder. He thought about catching a wave at Hookipa on his 14 footer, but he's too smart to do something so risky. I wonder if he regretted not going sailing. I think he would have liked it.


Nick going late again. Me shooting early again.


Lovely shoulders.


Patrick backloop at Lanes.


Quite impressed by Morgan too.


Lastly, here's a clip that shows how Jack miraculously escaped the rocks.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woke up to this great x-mas present (did not think it would be here so early in the am) we could have scored it from 9-12 as it looked perfect with light wind... had to wait 'til 11 and then it only lasted about 2hrs before it started roaring, maybe next weekend swell will have around 5.0ish conditions.

Alex

Anonymous said...

...nice Condition, nice Pics...wish I could be there, love this Blog.
Merry Christmas from Germany!
Torsten

WW said...

Upon further investigation, and studying the blowup versions of your pics, I'd have to say that your newer camera is definately as good as your old one.
Whether or not you've yet to find the love for it, that it may require, is another thing, to which I cannot comment on.

All I can say is, keep shooting with aloha,,,,, it shows.

cammar said...

Thanks WW for the feedback.
It's a tough choice.
For the still shots (specially in low light) I was happier with my old camera, which I can buy for less than $200 on ebay (telelens included).

But it seems absurd to spen $200 on old camera gear. I guess physical dimension of a telelens can't really be replaced yet by today's technology.

I have till jan 9 to return the new camera. Still don't know what to do...

Any further feedback appreciated.