team B action

As I said, I had an afternoon shift yesterday and I could take photos only till 1.30.

That means that most pros were not in the water a the beginning, waiting for the wind to fill in better. Plenty other "normal" sailors took advantage of the relatively uncrowded waves, hence the title.

Well, not too bad as a team B, if there's guys like Glenn in it. Here's a mini sequence of him.
Let's start off with a backloop on the first wave out.


Then he did this on the first wave one he caught.


Then he didn't find the right ramp to jump, so he threw a beautiful jibe on the wave to head back in again.


And then he threw a sweet table top. Not a bad start of a session.


Here's the other photos in chronological order.
Ian from Switzerland.


Elena leads the "first one in, last one out" ranking.


Here she shows us her lovely zebra bikini. Grazie.


Junko attacks a lip.


Ian.


There we go: first pro out Boujmaa (testing an Angulo custom) immediately steals the scene.


Boujmaa.


Glenn keeps ripping.


Boujmaa aussi.


Kai K. did pretty good testing a production 85 quad.


Boujmaa. Looks like as soon as he reaches one meter in height, he automatically jibes the sail...


Vogt (I think).


Didn't really like to leave the beach when all the pros where about the get in the water, so I decided to keep my morning shift today (sorry Russ), so that I could be at the beach in the afternoon. Waves are on the way down though, but there's still something left.
New moderate NW swell on the rise on Monday and Tuesday at around 5 feet, which usually translates into some logo high sets at Hookipa. Pretty westerly, expect smaller waves at Kanaha.
Exactly at the same time, a comparable size S swell will peak, I may decide to go take some surfing photos instead.

Double air taka off the lip anyone?

Yet another grand day at Hookipa.

Despite the amount of great shots you'll see below, the shot of the day goes to this not so remarkable one (and this time I mean the photo itself, not the action in it), because it's a goiter of Browsinho, who yesterday did an amazing double air taka off the lip (landed on the back of the wave). It may not be the first time he did that, but sure enough it was the first time I saw something like that...


The amazing thing about the level in the water these days is that it's not only Kauli or Mark or Levi or Polakow (which is already four people, btw), but it's a whole bunch of guys that are capable of doing all kind of sick glorious shit.
And the local riders get the motivation to push it too.
Fantastic. What I'm witnessing these days at Hookipa is just fantastic.
Once again, if I was fine, I'd be sailing somewhere else down the coast and miss all this. God bless injuries in photoshoot time.

Here's the other photos in chronological order.

I've been told that I only take photos of ladies on the beach, not in action.
That's not exactly true. The reality is that there's not many girls that rips as hard as the guys. Junko is for sure one of the few.


Volwater at Pipeline?


Victor.


Patrick chased by a meaty one.


Kauli.


Legged guardrail.


Kauli.


Nat Gill, ripping as usual.


Swift.


Kauli.


Swift.


Morgan.


Kauli.


4.2? 4.5? 4.0?


Ricardo.


Kauli mid landed goiter.


Sometimes they struggle too, but still less then us.
This is Kauli in a situation in which most common mortals would just give up and get ready for a long swim.


Instead he managed to water start (no wind on the inside) and chicken tack ..


...eventually he got engulfed by the white water, but at that point it wasn't as bad.


Silhouette.


Ricardo.


Volwater.


Where's my bloody board?!


Ricardo.


You think if I had a camera like that you would see better photos on this blog?
Wrong. You wouldn't see any photo at all...
Too many grams, too many bits.


Talking about bits, unfortunately I had my camera set on VGA resolution and all the photos in this post are 640x480 with an average size of 60K. Did you even notice the difference?

Here's the blog stats of the last seven days: 2,198 unique visitors only yesterday!
Thanks everyone for tuning in, please spread the word by telling your friends and linking this blog on your website, forum, etc.
I have an afternoon shift today, but I'll take pics till 1.30, so that you can get your daily dose of action.


Ps. Talking of linking blogs, I'm a horrible blogs reader (I just have more fun writing than reading), but I like this guy's style a lot.

clew first 360, anyone?

Wednesday April 21st 2010 was a day to remember for Mark Angulo.

He must have read on my last post that the other guys are now trying his mutant and immediately stepped up by increasing the level of difficulty: he's now doing them clew first.
Actually, most likely he just felt it coming in one of his clew first rides and went for it. A few tries was all it took him to stick one. Not sure it's this one, but it's impressive enough... what do you think?


Here's the other photos in chronological order.

Polakow had to leave the day after and even though the waves weren't as big as yesterday and the weather was pretty squally he called a JP photoshoot with his cell phone:"ok, we're on at 2 o'clock", I imagine him saying to the guys waiting at the heliport.
Didn't take Kauli much to do something worthy.


Soon to be followed by Swifty.


Mark, when he was still doing the regular ones.


Campello (I bet Francky got a good shot).


Swift.


Kauli.


Kauli.


Swift.


JP.


JP.


Campello.


Campello.


Considering where he is on the wave, this might well be the clew first one that Mark stuck. Plenty people filming on the beach, expect that to be online soon.


This is a mini sequence that shows another attempt. When I first saw this photo, I though:"what? that's quite a lame bottom turn all sheeted out like that...".
Then I figured that it was clew first and the left hand on the back of the boom is actually the front hand, so he's sheeting in the mast side of the sail with his right hand. My brain gets confused only at seeing such a thing, imagine at doing it...


I mean, how rad is that?


Victor doing something rad too, but I don't know what.


Duck tape, Boujmaa?


Swell on the rise today. I start working again today (at least I'll try), but I'll be at Hookipa in the late afternoon, so stay tuned.
The NW buoy went up to 8 feet, 15 seconds out of 323 at 6am, while the Waimea buoy is still at 4 feet, 16 sec.
Considering the travel times, expect some big sets in the late afternoon.
Here's an article that describes the travel times (for Ben... and not only). Hope you guys can read it without a Surfline account, please let me know.

Also, big thanks to Marc Serra, who in the last post suggested some photoshop adjustments for my photos. Marc, I did adjust the levels and contrast manually (the automatic one does bad results on most photos) on the very top one of Angulo, but I didn't have the time to do that for the others. Merci.