Just got back from the first day of the event over here in Lanzarote! Registration started at 10:00 and it was interesting to see some of the nanes on the original entry list had not turned up. Mainly Philip Koster as everyone knows how sick he is in the waves it would of been interesting to see his freestyle ability. I think a few of the guys would of been pretty nervous up against him if the conditions were anything like last year ( 3.7 with 3metre swell ) !! Maybe he saw the forecast was going to be lighter and changed his mind!
Once I'd got my stickers on it was pretty consistent 5.4 weather and the first possible start wasnt another 3 hours at 2:00. It was low tide and the conditions were pretty difficult and I was struggling a lot at first but once the tide started to come in flatened of nicely. I have the German Adrian Beholz in the first round and if I advance that the I have Gollito!!!!!
Already yesterday we had seen Gollito practising what looked to be a new move and today an hour into the session he must must of done about 4 in a row! Its going to be pretty hard to describe!! He ducks the sail regular stance as if he was going to do a "bob" but then catches it back to sail and jumps holding it like that until its fully back winded then finishes it 540! Just after he did it we were already speculating what stupid name he was going to call it whilst saying soon he'll be doing a spock into that position and doing the new move from there and would you believe it 5 minutes later he did it!!! Hopefully get a clip of it up sometime this week!!
Around 1:00 the wind started to drop and by the time 2:00 came round it was really light. After eating my paella so quick I thought I might throw up I rigged my 5.7 incase they decided to start. I went out sailing with my watch ready to go waiting for the red flag but it never came, it was only really possible to do moves on the way in using the swell to get planning and with the wind getting lighter we stayed on standby! It was amazing what some of the top guys are doing in no wind! It doesnt even make sense that they can get that much height and whip when they are hardly moving! Has given me a better focus on what I need to be training for and for sure everyone looked pretty suprised. Apart from Gollito it was mainly the Bonnaire guys who rip in these sort of conditions, for me Bjorn Saragoza sailed the best today after never seeing him before I was pretty suprised and concerned!!
They did try and start an expression session later on but quickly sacked it off as the wind died completely! The rest of the afternoon was spent baking ourselves and our sails, now I can see why everyone at the hotel is so burnt. Some discussion went into what Gollito was going to call his new move and he came up with " Sapo " yet another ridiculous name for a move! It also turned out he had landed some double air flaka and wanted to call it "del toro" or something like that. Some guys tried to convince him otherwise and call it something everyone can understand like "corkscrew". I dont think theres any point coming up with these ridiculous names and what needs to happen is to take some snowboard/ skateboard names that more people are familiar with and use them for the new moves. We had a massive heated debate in Austria when Kiri named his new move a " Kabbikuchi " which me and Bubble have dubbed the " Scratchmygoochie " dont think they are even going to get the point though!
Right off out for Bubbles birthday dinner tonight in town! Tapas so should be good!
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