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Check out the link below. Its NRDC’s site and it let’s you scroll to your favorite beach to see how much poo is floating around. Sorry Robert, your favorite surf spot, Doheny, is one of the most polluted. Maybe you should switch to a skim board and hang out in Laguna instead. http://www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/ttw/ttwmap.asp There is a new donkey in the crew. Sydney James Rest was born last night at 11:10pm. She weighed 7.2 pounds. The first Puerto Rican donkey. Jesse “the surf stalker” Somberg has taken to the streets of O.C. again in pursuit of some of today’s most prominent surf stars. Last year, he and his flat hat camped out in the marsh at trestles waiting for the likes of Slater, Reyes, and Garcia… Now with a cash infusion to the US Open Purse, offering $100,000 to the winner, Hurley has some how made the US Open interesting again. The big players are back in HB: Slater, Both Irons Brothers, Knox, Machado, The Hobgoods, Lopez, Ward, Garcia, Fanning, Pistachio, Not to mention the swell forecast looks good for the first time in ten years. I wish I were there. It is going to be an awesome shit show with everyone from 56th st to the 909 showing up for the party. Will there be another riot? It will be worth watching this year. Not to worry, The Surf Stalker (TSS) will be in attendance and will be providing almost live coverage of the event. TSS could be taking pictures with scantily clad barely legal girls, but if he did that he would just be “The Stalker”… Instead he he sticks to his roots and scalps a few more pros for the mantle. Here is TSS with Andy Irons after one of the early rounds of the 2009 US Open Of Surfing presented by Hurley.  What is the point of taking pictures with hot girls? While I have made an effort to not post anything here that is non surf related, I can’t help myself this time as I have a good story to tell and hopefully you donkeys will appreciate it. As some of you may know, I have not surfed since leaving Puerto Rico in January and have been occupying my time with work, family and freediving/spearfishing. I am becoming a better waterman as a result of my environment and the lack of surf in my life forcing me to diversify my portfolio. I liken it to being a race horse with blinders on and for 25 some odd years my focus and obsession was with surfing. Now, outside Tampa with no surf and little desire to drive 3 hours to get marginal waves, I have shifted my obsessive nature to spearfishing and freediving. Last weekend, I participated in part 3 of the Florida Skin Divers Association West Coast Council series. The west coast council is comprised of 8 or so dive clubs who individually have 30-50 members. Most tournaments have between 80-170 participants and after the first and second events of the year I was ranked #13 out of this elite group. Much like surfing, you get to throw away your lowest score from the four part series and the sum of your best three tournaments determines who is crowned the State Champion. The first tournament of the year (my first ever), I had a fairly low score, so I just want to be able to drop that one at the end of the year. Being that this is a new sport to me and that it is my first year of competition I am thrilled to be where I am, and my goal for #3 was simply to outdo my previous performance. We set out from the dock at 7:30 and traveled at 40kts for roughly 2 hours some 80-90 miles out into the gulf of mexico. Due to the bathemetry of the gulf, 80-90 miles offshore in this case equaled a water depth of 85 feet. (This sort of explains why there is no surf in most of the gulf). My diving partner, Dean Young (my father in-law, current #1 diver in the FSDA, Multiple time state champion spearfisherman and freediver, and Author of the comic strip Blondie) and I descended on a wreck in light seas and marginal visibility. We dropped to about 75 feet, and were there looking for amberjack to fill our large fish category. Due to the warm temps in the gulf 82 degrees on the bottom at 85 feet, most of the larger AJ’s have moved out deeper to cooler waters, so the pickins were a little slim. Most of the amberjack were legal size but ideally for the tournament we needed a fish in excess of 20lbs to fill the points out in that category. Dean, as usual quickly found the biggest fish and rolled it over dead with a single “stone” shot. I meanwhile swam over near him as curious schooling fish like amberjack will often come near to check out what is going on with their now lifeless friend on the end of the spear. I lined up a shot and sank my shaft deep into the side of a slightly smaller one (not 20 lbs) and I did not stone the fish. He was on the end of my line going crazy and thrashing about trying to break free of the speartip’s grasp. The water that day was filled with sealife, 200lb+ Jewfish, Bull Sharks, Reef Sharks, and Barracuda. I reeled the amberjack in as close as I could while staying safely away from him as to not have him wrap me up in my line. He was about 5-8 feet below me and his thrashing was bringing in all the curious predators. I was wearing a Shark Shield so as the sharks investigated and entered the perimeter of the shark shield they quickly departed my view and did not return. The jewfish only followed up about 20 feet or so and then quickly returned to his comfort zone in the wreck. Sharks check, Jewfish check.. I am out of here scott free.. NOT SO MUCH. I have no guard against cuda except bringing the fish in close to me, and this was not an option since the AJ had a sharp tipped piece of steel through him and he was still thrashing about. The cuda closed in and started to devour my fish. There were about three on the perimeter, but only one, the biggest was attacking. He first ripped the tail off, to disable the fish, then he tore into the meat taking gaping holes (read: pounds/points) out of my fish. There was nothing I could do but watch. I ascended to the surface and was pissed: this barracuda was not going to take my fish and get away with it. I let out some line on my gun, dropping what was left of the amberjack 20 feet below the boat. I yelled to my buddy bill to take my gun and to tie the line off to the cleat, and for him to hand me another gun. He did, so I pulled back the bands and dropped back down to 20 feet. I leveled my body out completely with the ocean surface to give the cuda the smallest prospective of my size, so that I did not alert him as a predator of his. I stayed out about 15 feet laterally from the amberjack and waited. He came in and was clearly focused on the fish, I held my breath and took four quick kicks toward him and glided in effortlessly as i lined up the gun just rear of his grimacing smile. I wiped the smile from his face as quickly as he dismembered my amberjack, his body sputtering twice like a car out of gas, not a fume in the tank. This cuda is high and dry. Payback is a bitch. He weighed 28lbs gutted, so was well over 30lbs in his natural state. I finished 11th for the day, and am currently ranked #7 YTD in WCC, with 1 low score to drop. We’ll see how it shakes out in the end. Erwin out. Attention Marty, Jesse, John, Kozai and all others who have been missing in the lineup, there are some wavos on the horizon! The water is toasty so let’s see if you guys show up for some DP Fall Classic training sessions! Kozai, you were only a fraction away from taking the coveted Board of Excellence home with you! I want to see you laying down some hacks and getting some shacks! As you may recall, I’ve been watching a storm forming off the North Island of New Zealand, moving on a less than ideal trajectory to the east. Models continue to show this one gaining momentum once south of the Cook Islands to throw us some moderate southern hemi for the 22nd. The 180h+ models then show a reform of this storm, and with a nice northward movement, throwing a good deal of swell toward SoCal when the fetch is only about 3700 nautical miles to our south — a fairly close distance for a southern hemi swell of this size. This one is projected to gain 40-foot seas, and pack a punch with 18- to 20-second periods. This though, is all based on long range models, so it is too early to get excited just yet. Running the numbers on this, the calculations show that we could easily see some overhead surf from this around the 24th. Still, it’s just too early to call that one today.  Shackleford Banks
JEFFREYS BAY, South Africa (Monday, July 13, 2009) – The Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay will commence this morning at 7:30am in clean three-to-five (1.5 metre) surf at South Africa’s iconic pointbreak. Stop No. 5 of 10 on the 2009 ASP World Tour, the Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay has seen the ASP Top 45 survive through four consecutive lay days, but today’s improved conditions will have the world’s best surfers in the water. “We’ve got the ning of what could turn into a really good day of waves out there this morning and we’ll be getting underway at 7:30am,” Mike Parsons, Billabong Pro Contest Director, said. “Recent swell projections have prompted us to activate the new competition format so we can make the most of the conditions on offer, but we will not be running the dual-heat tem today.” The new ASP competition format will see man-on-man, elimination heats from the outset of competition this morning, resulting in a day of dramatic match-ups. First up this morning with be 2009 ASP Dream Tour rookie Tim Boal (FRA), 26, up against compatriot Michael Picon (FRA), 30. The Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay will be web LIVE via www.billabongpro.com For more information, log onto www.aspworldtour.com The Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay can also be followed via your mobile phone. Anyone with a 3G or GPRS enabled phone can log onto asptogo.com from their mobile browser. Content is updated real time as per the web – event status, results, live scores, news, photos and video highlights along with ASP World Tour ratings tables. For more information go to http://aspworldtour.com/2009/aspmobile.asp BILLABONG PRO JEFFREYS BAY ROUND 1 MATCH-UPS: BILLABONG PRO JEFFREYS BAY ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:
We will have two old schoolers join us as well! The Erwinator will be arriving with his freshly pressed jean shorts and Stefanie will be making an appearance from PR with his coconut bikini! It would be nice if we could get the Hawaiian Super Charger as well, but thats a work in progress. Kootman will be defending his title with a freshly minted DP Plaque so I want to see a huge turnout, hopefully, blowing away our last event! Save the date – Saturday, September 19th! More to follow!
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Well fools, it looks like we have a date for the DP Fall Classic! I know that some of you are still licking the wounds from being dominated just a few months ago in less than stellar conditions. However, this contest may include trunks and, hopefully, a macking South.
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