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Alder Creek Canoe and Kayak put together a brief, (four minute) intro to the surf zone video. Some great initial thoughts on surfing long boats or surfing sea kayaks. I was really glad to hear some discussion about safety and not running into one another, (as has been my complaint in the past about sea kayak surfing videos).

The video touches on, but doesn’t cover in detail the subject of positioning for take-off, body trim, paddle strokes. This is part one, so I hope they have many more videos like this. Great introduction and I hope they come out with a more detailed series in the future.

Surfing sea kayaks is a great way to get an introduction into the surf zone where you can surf what you’ve got and catch a lot of rides.

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Garret McNamara, world class tow-in surfer from Hawaii may have bagged the worlds biggest recorded ride. Whether or not you think tow-in surfing is a good thing, a bad thing, or not even surfing, that is one big swell he leaped in front of a falling building on a surf board. The wave is near a deep water canyon in Lazare Portugal which allows a very large swell to come in and then be amplified by the shape of the bottom.

If you haven’t read Susan Casey’s the Wave, Garret features prominently in the narrative, though not as prominently as Laird Hamilton with whom Susan apparently fell madly in love. (judging from the text anyway).

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I headed out to the lake last night for a surf session with onshore winds 20-30 knots. Waves were about 5-7 feet, but very confused. I tried using the surf kayak for most of the evening to catch rides, but there were heavy closeouts everywhere. It was kind of a mess. My early lessons in having some sort of bend in the wind from the North was reinforced. The waves reflected off the pier and I was essentially playing in seven foot clapotis in a surf boat. I would drop in to surf on a massive face that would quickly hit a wave reflecting off the pier, and I would get almost airborn each time, (fun on it’s own) but I was terrified of nose diving the bullet in the shallow water, so I always held back a bit. But I took a lot of zippered closeouts where I got tossed sideways nearly airborne.

It was good, and somewhat life-affirming to head out, and hit the surf after doing a lot of thinking about the 18 year old, Mitch Fajman, who lost his life on Lake Michigan on Saturday evening. I take a lot of risks as a 37 year old guy. I usually have a healthy pit of dread in my belly for big wind and waves. And on most days within reason I tell my belly to shut the hell up, so I can surf. But on that particular day, I listened to it, and stayed home. But having had some nasty swims out there, it is no joke. But, I can’t live my life in fear of what might happen. I love the thrill of catching big waves in a small boat. Nothing in life compares to it. I just pray that my judgement holds steady in the years to come.

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Kubrick was famous for being a perfectionist. He spent years making his films, made nervous wrecks of his actors and support staff. But, in the end the result was nothing less than pure genius. Watch this video of Stanley negotiating with his British film crew over tea breaks. I half imagine, Valley’s head man Peter Orton sitting in a director chair, beret slightly askew on his forehead, looking at a 24″ monitor of Valley Surf Kayak website in progress. He smokes a cigarette, and then with pure disdain says, “not good enough”, then exhales smoke noisily as he walks away in disgust.

Roll the clock forward two years (+/-) ~ and the New Valley Surf Kayak website is now live. Bask in its awesomeness. Revel in the glory that it is, and never forget what it took to make it.

And then watch this video. Seriously though Valley and Peter, great job on the website, and on the lineup of great surf kayaks, hope to see even more on the water!

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When summer ends, and the tourists go home. I get the beach back. The wind starts to blow, and we get waves. On very fortunate days we get 6-8 foot waves like I got last night. I love the energy in the parking lot as all the working stiffs show up unloading surfboards, suiting up in wetsuits, and running down to get in the water. The air temps are dropping, but the water is warm (70s). I suit up in neo shorts and paddle jacket, no pogies, and head down to break out in the Bullitt X S. I get to the outside where I see clean six foot faces rolling in that peel from north to south slowly because the wind is blocked by the pier. And I start hearing this song in my head!

It’s hard to care about pretty much any problem when you’re surfing. And even though daylight is fading fast, I keep seeing these beautiful burnished gold and bronze sunsets that seem to last forever. I kept thinking people should honestly be paying thousands of dollars a minute for this experience. So I personally said farewell to the pressure kids last night. Unfortunately, sunset didn’t last forever, I had to call it once I was surfing in the dark.

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Geoff Jennings, whom I interviewed earlier this year, is organizing the Davenport Paddle Surf Classic. This paddle surf competition is held annually Nov 12-13 at Davenport Landing. They had around fifty competitors last year, and it will probably grow this year.

Davenport is just North of Santa Cruz, at Davenport Landing. This is a great, local favorite for paddle surfing known for big waves and a fairly easy paddle out.

The competition has four primary classes:

• High Performance
• International Class
• Stand Up Paddle Board
• Waveski

A women’s specific final is held for kayak surfing and SUP Surfing.

The fifth competition is probably the coolest, King of the Wave. The challenge is an open craft surf-off! The best surfers regardless of craft, as long as it is paddle propelled face off for the King of the Wave comp. I would love to see this one!

If you love paddle surfing and love high-energy fun, you can’t beat Santa Cruz and Davenport for a great experience. Highly recommend heading out west for this comp. Register for the Davenport Paddle Surf Classic today.

Contact Geoff @ Geoff @ kayaking dot com with any questions about the competition, or about local accommodations.

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The World Surf Kayak Championships in the Outer Banks of North Carolina will be held at the end of the month. My passion for surfing is pretty obvious, and even though I wasn’t ready to compete, I was ready to participate.

Hurricane Irene has thrown some serious monkey wrenches in the planning for the competition. This notice from the World Surf Kayak Championships doesn’t paint a particularly rosy picture of the wreckage left of Cape Hattaras. The competition is bravely going forward. I hope the competitors are looking forward to it, based on my disappointment of not being able to attend.

The simple fact is, I have two conflicting, but equally important agendas. I’ve wanted to create a community of rough water paddlers on the Great Lakes for as long as I’ve been kayaking. I tried several times to get a training event that builds this community. I’ve been fortunate enough to find a ton of support and initial momentum for The Gales – Storm Gathering. Geneva Kayak Center, Downwind Sports, Kelly Blades, WMCKA, Tiderace, and my friends have all believed enough in the idea to support it.

My other agenda is to build my competency in Surf Kayaking enough to participate in a competition without looking like a total loser. Part of that goal was to watch most of the competition from the water to be able to understand the whole picture of how everything is run and scored first hand. I wanted to know which skills were weak, and what to really focus my effort on. So I am a bit disappointed about not being able to get down to North Carolina. I really wanted to meet a lot of folks I’ve had e-mail correspondence with over the last few years.

I wish the competitors the best and hope the competition goes really well, I’ll be watching Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook for updates along with everyone else.

But, we will also be tearing it up in Marquette for the Gales, so look out.

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Magic Seaweed posted some beautiful Hurricane Irene user submitted photos. The east coast ramped up some surf activity in the pre-Irene storm build up. It looks like some folks got a lot of nice waves. We aren’t the only ones waiting around for storm waves in the Great Lakes.

The Jersey Shore (above) got some spectacular looking waves.

For me, summer isn’t over until about the middle of November so I hope we get some storm build up in september and october that really let us tear it up.

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So I’ve had the chance to get out three times now in the Mega Bullitt XS in about a week and a half. We had a long drought of waves through june-july that has finally relented, the wind is blowing and we are getting some waves. I had to drive to New Buffalo twice to get them, but both days were very interesting in the Bullitt.

First day was at my home break in South Haven. We had a nice Northerly blow for a day or two, I headed out and saw the waves breaking way down the beach with no larger outside break by the lighthouse. This distressed me, but I suited up and headed out nonetheless. I found small 3-4 foot waves right near the edge of the swimming area. I immediately began to catch some nice left hand runs, super fast down the line, that I never had the speed for in the Valley Rush. However the tail was not coming around for snappy bottom turns the way the Rush does when you build up speed. It was also not releasing at the top for top turns or cutbacks. Full disclosure I was running a tri-fin setup with three inch fins. Overall kayak was crazy fast and able to get up and over some faster moving great lakes waves I would have missed for sure in the Rush.

Second day was in New Buffalo at the trailing edge of a very brief storm with some beautiful peely waves that were 4-5 feet. I was rushed for time and ran the same tri-fin setup I did the first time. I was able to catch everything, and the waves were peeling enough to make cutbacks and top turns, but the fin setup was still not allowing me to throw my weight around and get the tail to release. That said with some paddle effort I got the tail to move and sliced the tail out. I caught many long rides in the top third of the wave adjusting trim to slide down or up based on whether or not it was going to close out. Very very fun stuff.

Third day was also in New Buffalo. Wind was up around 25 knots, waves were 7-10 feet on the outside, though I was surfing the waves that made it around the breakwall, they were much smaller, 4-7 at most. I finally went with a single center fin, a 3″. The tail finally got really really loose. I was catching steep waves and cutting towards the wall, but if I picked up a lot of speed at the bottom where I needed traction, the three inch fin didn’t have enough bite. I ended up switching to my 4″ fin in the center, and finally it started to rock. I was dropping in on steep faces, cutting along the line, and then hitting cutbacks as I approached the breakwall and flying off the shoulder. The waves were so weird. I would essentially wait in deep water, paddle in, grab a wave, surf it in a bit, cut off and then paddle back to safety in the channel. It was so big and mushy you had to really pick your ride.

This kayak is very different than any surf kayak I’ve been in, other than Sean Morley’s Murky Waters Salsa. But it is still very different than that to me. The fins and smaller length seem to make it more nimble. The rails on this boat are very flush so hitting tight bottom turns has been dependent on how much speed I was carrying into the turn. Whereas the Rush was actually more forgiving and would allow me to lean way over on a lower speed turn. Not sure if this is entirely scientific, but I think the more flared rail allows for carving wild turns at lower speed. Whereas the Bullitt XS really wants you to keep the boat flat through a turn like that until you’ve carried enough speed through it.

The Bullitt XS is crazy fast and seems great for Lake Michigan Surfing. Tons of speed, ability to really carry it fast down the line. Can’t wait for a slightly bigger day in South Haven where I can predictably catch waves in the same spot to judge it’s performance better with that 4″ fin.

I’d be curious to hear what other folks who’ve surfed this kayak think.

Many thanks to Nigel and Kristen of Savannah Canoe and Kayak for carrying Mega Surf Kayaks and offering great advice and consultation/.