I awoke the next morning to cloudy skies, which was a disappointment compared to the previous days early morning sunshine.  But no matter.  The waves are what counts for this event.

I pulled up to the meeting spot on the hill at West St and a few bros were already checking it out.  After some deliberation about whether Aliso or West St was the call, we finally made a decision and headed down the West St stairs to some high tide primary siders.

Once on the beach I gave everyone the rundown on the rules of the contest and collected entry fees from the competitors.  Noogie was already in the water waiting for the contest to start and got some pretty nice connections even before the judges were situated.  Within 15 - 20 minutes the judges had their chairs and umbrellas set up and 6 of the worlds best skimboarders were in the water.

The waves were a little on the inconsistent side throughout the contest, so wave selection was very important.  Early on the standouts were Noogie, Jeff Gomez and of course, Bill Bryan.  But the long format of the event allowed plenty of time to choose your waves.  Paulo Prietto and Brandon Sears were waiting in the reserve box.

The level of skimming was pretty incredible right off the bat with people trying a lot of things they wouldn’t usually try, especially in a contest.  Bill was riding waves switch, spinning this way and that way at every opportunity.  While Noogie was going for Alley Oops in the critical section of overhead waves.  The connections weren’t always too friendly, but that didn’t stop anyone from rolling the dice on huge floaters.  Some were pulled, most were not.  Noogie did a double alley oop on a sider on the way out to a monstrous closeout resulting a bloody nose when the lip caught up with him.  Brandon Sears came out of an impossible barrel only to be caught by the whitewater at the very end.  Mez earned the energizer bunny award by riding almost every wave all the way to the rock.  I missed photos of him because I gave up on him a couple of times.  Meanwhile, Paulo Prietto  impressed everyone with the sheer speed of his riding, boosting some airs and floaters when he had the time.  And Bill hooked up with the biggest wave of the day and the biggest floater.  What can I say, he is tough to catch folks…

Surprisingly (to me anyway), most of the riders jumped in the water right away after they got down to the beach.  There were only a handful of riders who waited even a little while to start their session.  Although the waves were better during the beginning and middle of the contest period, at the end, the few people who waited got to skim by themselves while the people who jumped right in had to get out after two hours. Brandon Sears happened to have left his board somewhere in Solag, so he was a little late to enter the water, which was fortunate for him.  He hooked up with a sick wave during the last minute of his two hour session.  After connecting on the sider he did a pop shuvit on the lip of a head high wave.  He then air dropped down and pulled into the barrel.  That wave put him solidly in second place and only .05 pts behind the leader, Bill. 

After the contest everyone hung out for a while as the sun came out.  And I eventually got around to handing out three envelopes stuffed with $20 bills.  Brandon said it was the most cash he had ever had in his hand.  I thought that was pretty sick.  Noogie was just plain sickened (4^th place).

Final Results:

1. Bill Bryan
2. Brandon Sears
3. Paulo Prietto
4. Brendan Stevens
5. Jeff Gomez
6. Miles Grobman

For those of you that missed the announcement, check out the contest rules and format here.