Beautiful day for the contest with solid waist to stomach, maybe a rare chest high wave this morning. My Longboard Mens heat is at 12:24pm. Big turnout today, with finals scheduled to wrap up around 5pm or so. Offshore conditions. May film or shoot before my heat, so maybe I will have some footage later. Opted out of shortboard today, picking up a great set of golfclubs instead on the way down there. Gotta stick to a budget nowadays.
Ryan

Best two waves and no more than ten. May those bigger waves come your way.

Ryan White went up againt over thirty ESA Central New Jersey longboarders and took first place today. One of the largest ESA Districts is ESA Central New Jersey. The place is the center of northern east coast surfing. To the south there is Florida and to the North smack dab in the middle is Central New Jersey. One of the founding members of east coast surfering and the ESA is Cecil Lear from this district.

This is an achievement for any surfer to win top position against such an experienced grouping of surfers. Ryan congratulations on your win today. Fresh five to you.

What a long day! At the contest at 7am to sign up. Heats posted a little before 8am. Longboard didn't begin to 1:00pm, later pushed back to 2pm. Contest didn't end till about 6pm. Big turnout today. Great waves, great weather, great atmosphere. Had my family on the pier for the finals (brother flew in from Colorado for my sister's wedding shower) including my 5 month old daughter, who got to see her 1st contest from the pier above. I won the longboard division for her. Longboard was open today due to the high turnout. I competed against guys and girls who were older and younger, all of whom were competitive.

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Video to come tomorrow. I took these around noon up above on the Ocean Grove Pier overlooking the break to the south about 2 hours before my heat. To top this day off.....tonight I made $26 for playing one song coming out of a retirement dinner for our principal. A group of partiers from the next banquet hall over were smoking outside and asked if I could play a song as I was heading out from our party after doing a song for him with fellow staff/teachers. I played some Neil Young, and the next thing I know is they start throwing some money in my case. I offered to give it back, but they insisted. Helps to cover the cost to the contest fee..........

Ryan

I now think I got 3rd in this contest. I think somebody contested the results after I had left, and the scoring was flawed or tallied incorrectly, according to Jerry Matthews who got 4th in finals LB. Oh well.
Ryan

Some times errors like this occur on the District level because of lack of staffing that is based on volunteers. To run a surf contest without a glitch takes more than most people realize. The process itself stood the test and it was right that the competitor with the highest wave score won fair and square.

As ESA Directors we want everything to be made right and always to be by the rules that we all operate under by mutual agreement within the ESA. That is why a surfer can bring up to us an error and we can fix it justly. The only thing is that it bothers us as much to see somebodies bubble get burst when we make a mistake. Many of the ESA have their families involved and that is why we strive to make it the best contest we can within our ability.


Keep getting those competition points like you did yesterday and continue climbing towards the next rung. Keep your eye on the prize and don't let these things slow your over all momentum. We sometimes see how in the pro levels that a surfer might now not do the best in one contest, but has an over all total, with a higher amount of competition points at the end of the competition cycle run which determines the top placement. In the ESA of coarse in the Eastern Finals the scores that win are the scores that determine final division placement at the finals. Where as at the district level the overall competition scores at the end of the year determines one's ranking in the district and their elegibility to advance to the ESA Regional level based on their scores and the slots alloted to each district that are based on each district's total membership. That's a mouthful of words.

Adversity builds character. A surfer of character is one that realizes that despite set backs they will eventually be able to do anything if they persevere. I know that I'm talking to the choir here but these thoughts I share with more than you on this amateur, surfing, competition, forum


Here is a story. Last Friday my wife and I were showered by construction debris that came out of a seventh floor building window in Buffalo. We were shaken up slightly and only suffered some scratches to the roof of the wife's car. I was on the sidewalk and she was in the car. If the debris that hit her car's roof window had been a few feet closer I don't think that I would be writing this. The good luck is that we all have another chance to make it right or better in some way.

To see the Glimmerglass and some hollowness in those images that you and your family took yesterday is something that inspires the surfer in all of us. To read over on origin about that grom hitting a 360 air in the contest gives one a thrill to hear the level of surfing that took place yesterday.

Go Ryan! Whooo Hoo!

My wife took these during the finals

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Hey Ryan...

Nice video! and hello Magilla. Its been quite a while. I just recently moved to Kelowna BC. Its beautiful out here. There's a nice lake but no lake surfing here. Never enough wind in the valley. I might try to make it out to Tofino during one of the long weekends though. Hope all is well.

Take care guys and gals,

Brian

Hey have you been to Portugal since last year?

I will be attempting to go to Tofino on one of the long weekends this summer. I haven't been back to Portugal quite yet. Although I'm very tempted to do so The time I spent there in Dec/Jan was amazing and the surf was spectacular. Just wish I would've had more time to catch more waves. How's your recovery going? Have you broken any rules and jumped back into the water?

Well I have got Ryans photographs to keep this ole dog from howling them blues.

Brian no surf or water for either of us now in Buffalo. We are still both on the mend.

The Great Lakes is now ice free but we are going into the usual low surfing pattern for Spring so that gives us some comfort.


Have you seen the new SBC surf magazine? It's very impressive. There are some scrumptious B.C. pics in there.

Hope everything goes well so that you can take that weekend soon.

Good fortune amigo.

Excellent pics to keep healing on.