It was a blast and the surfing on Friday was overhead. The competion was top notch. Some incredible rides were scored. The banquet that the New Jersey District put on was top notch and the buffet had enough food for seconds.

The Great Lakes team gave it their best shot. We did not advance into the finals this year. Nevertheless we can hold our heads high for our dignity and stoke that we demonstrated.

We sadly missed Sebastian Duque and Brendan Smith being there with us. Next year will be their year as it will be for others from the Great Lakes District.

Next year we are going to field a shortboard tag team from the Great Lakes.

It was three long days of work for Lester Priday, Jim Hoop, the ESA Directors from Rhode Island to New Jersey and myself. The day starts around five and ends around past midnight. We had a big concert going in the motel parking lot under the full moon on Saturday night in Belmar. The Great Lakers got the party going with the beer. Lee Anderson from Massachusetts strumed the guitar, Lester was on harp and guitar and the rest of us sang and we were lucky if we could rmember the words or hold key.

Bob Castleman deserves a huge thank you for the donated art for the ESA banquet. Bob keep drawing! We like your
work.


Our Jess got her first experience at the Regionals and we have to get her ready for this years district competions. The Schaus family is incredible proud of our daughter for taking a bump on the head and not being a sore loser. Her conselation prize was she won a longboard FCS board bag at the banquet raffle.

We came back with lots of good swag for the Great Lakes end of the year competiors raffle. We have two shortboard leashes, hats, two dvd's, t-shirts, a sun cure board repair kit, a nose guard, and more. We might get a BIC longboard to raffle off. We have a beater board that was given to us by Ryan White of New Jersey and we intend to fix it and raffle it off. Thanks again Ryan.

Other thoughts:

Lester Priday and myself spent the first day talking to East Coast Legend Cecil Lear outside the Eastern Lines Surf Shop in Belmar about the early days of east coast surfing. The shop has pics up and down the stairs of Cecil and other named locals. One of three wooden Cactus Boards hangs on their shops walls and will be surfed by the owner this summer. There was a Micky Dora "Da Cat" model, and many other vintage boards hanging upstairs in the shop for viewing.

Lester and myself discussed with the ESA New York District about having a possible inter district surf competition at Gilgo Beach on Long Island, New York on Oct. 31. 2006. More needs to be talked about that at the Easterns in the Fall.

We also discovered that the ESA Executive Director Debbie Hodges got into surfing as a young bodyboarder around Lorain, Ohio. She considers herself to be a Great Lakes surfer.

Brian Broom the Competition Director is from around Peterberough, Ontario. We broght him some beloved butter tarts from Tim Hortons down to the Regional.

I hope everyone had a safe trip home. See you at the beach when there are waves.

CONTRATS GUYS!!! hey for those of you guys who was their first no worries becasue that was just a lil warm up im pretty sure next year we are going to clean table and the big thing is going to be ours, in order for us to obtain that we need to train hard, im polaning on making couple of trips thru the year so next year ill go and show them up that great lake surfer DO KNOW what surf is all about.. cheers guys and once again thank you guys

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My comments: On Friday the waves were big but I like bigger. Once and a while you would get caught inside and take a classic thumping in the shorebreak but that's no big whoop. Peter likes riding smaller point break surf. That's his thing. He gets some amazing rides and throws in the cock roach every year.

Erie Anderson tore it up in the competition in all his heats and the finals he just dominated and got some beautiful and exceptional rides.

It was so good to see Lee "in the van" Anderson do so well in the competition. He is one of my competitors in my division but more than that he's a great surfer with good character. It's always a pleasure to surf or drink a beer with my brother in waves and flames.

Kitty Pechet the Grand Legend is another class act.