This is how things went from my perspective...

Friday August 18th, 2000 - I arrive in town at around five in the afternoon.  I check into my overpriced motel room and walk down to the beach to check out the waves.  Its terrible, but its low tide.  There is a 1 - 2 foot swell running and there is no wind, but it is sprinkling lightly.

I walk down to Dewey Beach Surf and Sport where I hang with Jason Wilson and Corey Mahoney for a while.  They fill me in on who has arrived and what people have been up to the last couple of days as well as tell me how the waves have been.  There is some hope for some swell arriving over the weekend, but nothing definite.  Nothing much seems to be going on so I head back to my room to take a nap.

I wake up around 9:30, shower and head down to Starboards where everyone (over 21) is getting together for a pre contest party.  Dewey is a little beach town where people from 9 surrounding states come to party during the summer.  Needless to say, it was packed.  I grab a drink and start looking for familiar faces.  It doesn't take long for me to find a separate room on one side of the bar where a band is playing and free beers are being handed out to competitors.  Guess where everyone was?  The band is going off and everyone is having a good time.  Garth Wycoff (Worm) is taking turns dishing out some reggae groove with the regular singer and Erik Christensen who was busting some hilarious freestyle lyrics.  I am introduced to a bunch of the Dewey locals who are all super cool.  Alcohol consumption starts to reach the flash point as group shots are being bought left and right.  Erik C is 86ed a couple of times for the rowdy behavior he is famous for.  Around 1 AM I decide to avoid the next round of shots and go get some pizza, which was the end of the night for me.

Saturday - I wake up late grab my stuff and head to the beach which is packed with people.  Seriously, I have never seen so many people at the beach in my life.  It is towel space only for miles.  The wind is blowing sideshore out of the north at about 20 mph which is helping to form some little 2 foot liners.  Not good conditions by any means, but rideable.  I walkup as the first pro heat is starting which is perfect cause I am heat four.  My board proves to be too light to throw in the steady wind so I borrow a friends which is a little heavier.  Everyone doing their best in the conditions.  George Bryan was the only guy who seemed to have it absolutely dialed in the preliminary heats.  I wander around talking to people from all over the place about all sorts of stuff.  Apparently Jesse Westguard, Kai Bond and Shawn Walzer slept in the car the previous night because all the rooms in town were booked.  I tell them they can stay in my room since I have an extra bed and I am there by myself.  They pitch in to help out with the bill.

The results from the preliminaries are tallied and they run the quarterfinals in slightly better conditions.  Every heat in the quarterfinals is packed with excellent riders and the heats are very good.  Later in the afternoon it is time to party so Bill, George, Jesse and myself head to liquor store to stock up on beer.  Bill and George rented out a sweet condo above Dewey Beach Surf and Sport where we hang out as people start coming over.  After a while there are about 20 people there and everyone is on the balcony trying to get girls to take their tops off.  Dewey Beach has one main avenue which gets packed on summer weekends and the balcony overlooks it.  Everyone has a good time making fun of tourists and girls who are unfortunate enough to walk by.  Everyone is pretty mellow this evening and their are no big plans so I head out for Sushi in Rehoboth with a few others.  We order too much Sake and have a good time at the fancy restaurant.  Afterwards it is midnight and my stomach is rocked from cheap beer and expensive fish.  I call it a night.

Sunday - Kai and Jesse wake up first cause they are still in the competition and don't want to miss their heats.  I can't sleep so I head to the beach right after them.  As I walk over the dune onto the beach I can't help but laugh as I see some of the worst looking skim conditions I have seen in a long time.  The wind is blowing at about 30mph and the whitecaps are the waves.  I try to walk down the beach but the wind keeps grabbing my board (which is annoying as hell) so I head back and walk down the main avenue which is more sheltered.  I start taking pictures cause I didn't get a chance to do it the day before due to the fact that I was skimming during the pro heats and it wasn't good enough to free skim.  They announce that after the pro semi finals they will run a heat with me Keith Peery and Keith Fanning for seventh eighth and ninth place.  I am feeling pretty sick by this point though and rather than skim and then stand in the wind for an hour taking pictures of the finals I opt not to skim and let the two Keiths battle it out for 7th and 8th.  Bill Bryan is ripping in the somewhat meager conditions.  In Dewey only the top 3 waves count and Bill sits there and waits for little 1-2 foot liners that he rides for 25-40 feet, spinning and jibbing all the way.  He is truly in a league of his own.  

The man on man finals take forever as each competitor must be defeated twice to be eliminated.  I am not complaining though because I get to take more pictures.  There are some incredible waves had by each of the competitors in the sloppy conditions.  After the finals I am not feeling that well so I head back to my room and take a nap.  When I awake the sun is out and the wind has died down.  I head down to the beach to see the last couple heats and the awards ceremony.  Almost all the results are announced before hand so it is a low suspense type deal.  Everyone is having a good time in the relaxed atmosphere and it is especially cool to see all the stoked kids get their trophies.  Bill Bryan wins a whopping $2100 bucks and Erik Christensen takes home just over $1300 for second.  Not bad.

Afterwards we all gather at Bill and Georges again where we drink some beer and watch one of the best golf tournaments in history.  Garth Wycoff gets everyone into the match with all sorts of predictions and tidbits of information he has learned over years of playing the sport.  After the tournament is over everyone disperses to get ready for a night of heavy consumption.  I am still not feeling too well so I offer to be DD and drive to the airport in the morning.  Everyone meets up again at the North Beach restaurant where the Zap East Coast Tour winners are announced.  Bill Bryan is the winner and bags the two grand.  After drinking a couple of beers and hanging for 4 hours or so I head back to get some sleep as Monday is going to be a long day.  Of course I get no sleep because shortly after I pack my stuff up Shawn comes back and is totally wasted.  I laugh most of the night as he is pitifully drunk, falling all over the place and puking in the sink.  The night is short because we leave at 4:30 AM for Baltimore Airport.  We arrive on time and Jesse, Kai and Shawn all make their flight.  I spend most of the day sleeping in the airport because my flight isn't until the late afternoon.  I am pretty sick by the time I get home so I am glad I didn't skim that last heat.  Thank god for antibiotics, or at least thank Alexander Fleming.