Conditions: Ugly
Events Held: Mens Open, Boys Open Quarters, Open Womens Round Two, Explorer Juniors Round Three
Nature’s Call: Saw it all today – wacky to workable.
Prediction: There’s a few wildcards for sure. Open Mens’ Aaron Swanson…rips.
While the conditions remained bizarre the whole day, the surfing didn’t – that was going off. And so were the grom’s froth levels in the water and out. Early on, Granger Larson continued his shred campaign and won the first heat of the morning. The hype dwindled briefly and then resurfaced as two mini rippers, Oliver Kurtz and Luke Davis, went hack for hack and stirred the groggy morning crowd, and conditions, by mixing it up with what they had to work with. Kurtz, however, came out on top. The excitement must have startled the groms from their video games on shore, as they shifted their energy to shaking up everyone’s morning commute to the porta potties…literally.
Surfing’s photographer Billy Watts was the undeserving recipient of the mischief, but was forced to suffer through it, perhaps out of sheer bad luck or perhaps for the lack of cover shots he was producing in the morning hours. After occupying one of the many porta potties on hand he realized that the little devils had craftily zip-tied the door to his throne, trapping him in the tiny cubicle of filth. He persevered though! One mighty karate kick bested the weak zip-tie and he stumbled out to freedom to the not-so-innocent faces of nearly a dozen giggling pranksters.
Billy’s restroom scare left him stationed in front of the lens for the remainder of the day and it paid off. In the early hours of the afternoon, Aaron Swanson took to the water with a mission to destroy. On multiple occasions, Swanson demolished his fellow competitors with a combination of brute strength and some insane above the lip acrobatics. His efforts in the water showed in the Surfing Mag Photo Booth, not to mention Billy Watts now had a get-out-of-the-restroom-free ticket with the groms, who were distracted by the sick photos of Swanson boosts.
The day wore on and everybody grew weary, as the conditions never came to. The level of shred remained sick in the Open Womens round two heats. By the end of the day everybody was psyching for a free-surf after watching the girls rip and the round three Explorer Juniors shred-a-thon. Less than thirty seconds after the final heat of the day there were thirty heads scrapping and clawing for waves. Tomorrow the madness will only grow.