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Subtropical Storm Andrea Standup Session
Subtropical Storm Andrea Paul Menta made a snap decision Tuesday at about 1 am just getting off from his restaurant, The Grand in Key West. Let's do a road trip to to Cocoa Beach to grab some rides courtesy of soon to be subtropical storm Andrea. So, he and Pedro mounted up within the hour and blasted all the way up the Keys and into the Cocoa area. It was BIG, double head high or better. Good news was, they were the only guys doing standup, more water and waves, right? They survived that day, sort of a Vietnam of Standup and tooled south to Boca Raton. We were going to meet for dinner but I got this call close to sunset. They drove down to the beach and the head high swells looked so good and clean that they threw in another session. Paul had been hitting it for about 36 hours at this point but still going strong. I came along to shoot some images which appear below: Sunset is moving on, looking real good Paul was out of the van and heading for the surf almost before Pedro had it shut down. Paul grabs a glassy one Pedro slides into one while a surfer ducks under the wave You can learn a lot of technique just watching the guys and hearing them swap tips. Pedro gets into gets a great wave Guess we'll call that one better than head high Getting about time to pack it in and grab dinner Paul showing off his riding ware And Pedro with his kit This was just a short late day session. The guys hit it along with Jessie fresh in town from Cabarete early the next day. More to come on that. To tie you over, here's a video clip of Paul and Jessie Paddling into the same wave this morning:
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by ricki; 05-11-2007 at 09:33 AM. |
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Hey Paul,
I missed out on the Cocoa session. What were conditions like anyway? Pretty intense I imagine. How did the Boca conditions compare? |
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Rick, all i can say was it was a serious sick session......i got destroyed getting out, but once i found the grove was nutz......double over head in fla???
i learned a lot and got humbled alot...which was good....i cant explain in words what a feeling it was having pedro and my best friend jesse show up nd enjoy the spirit of the riding......we caught so many waves it wsnt even fair. You are a great host and having pictures lets the day live on, i hope we inspired others to take it up, stand up is great big or real small, point being out on the water. All the people we saw were great! Can wait to see the other videos of some of the huge drops on the big sets....... Much respect to the local riders in Boca and CoCo...... a big aloha Paul |
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The night before we saw the guys paddle into some waves around sunset. Well a new day is on and the waves are still running. Let's see what the guys from Key West got into. Click on the photo for a full sized image. Paul throws in some Maori Kapa Haka into his standup. It helps your balance, seriously! Note the bend in the paddle, don't try this with plastic! Easing the paddle back to rudder into the falls. Paul tells me that when you drop into a really big one, the board lets out a pretty loud boom. Paul slides into a wave. I would ask that you bear with me on the video clips. I have been lazy in shooting a ton of video stock but have only recently started to look into editing. So, apologies for some of the clips that are drowned in breaking waves and tumbling cameras. Hopefully, that part will be yanked out soon enough. Jessie strokes by. Jessie was on Pedro's board from yesterday. At about 9 ft. long and 28 inches wide it is a sporty standup board with some good turning in waves. At about 190 lbs. it was just a little too sporty for me, being green in standup, particularly in waves. I decided to grab some images and line up something a bit bigger for next time. Aside from having excellent surfing board skills already, Jessie at 145 lbs. found quite a bit of flotation and stability in this same board. At points he was turning 360's on the board and doing a headstand, amazing! Moral, size counts, weight too in board selection and skill! Jessie grabs one and rides it in Speaking of Pedro, here he is paddling in on a nice one with a regular surfboard. Heading out. The standup guys would generally paddle back out through the inner surf zone kneeling on their boards using the paddle. Once they were outside the initial breaker zone they would standup and continue to work their way out to where the bigger waves form. A clip of this appears below. Dropping into a wave. When the wave starts to break the offshore wind rips the spray up and over the back. My apologies for the water spots on the images. I've very little time in the water shooting riders, at least above the water. Need to get some Rainex and a lens chammie I think. Some of these waves were good sized as illustrated in this shot Pedro takes off on a wave, the photographer gets dunked, Jessie paddles into another one and the photographer, camera and viewers all get thrown into the spin cycle. This one definitely needs editing with the spinning UW sequence getting yanked out. Just checkout the first half of the clip if you like. So long for this session. When the waves are on, I suspect Paul and crew will be back. Until then, there is also kiting to be done on the Flats of Key West and no end of standup runs to be had. .
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by admin; 05-11-2007 at 04:30 AM. |
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Some other folks must have gotten out to do some standup in all those hundred miles of glassy waves off the east coast. So, how about it, what was it like?
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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Nice pics and video! Mahalo
Got to love Cocoa's sets that roll in after some good winds? Looking at the pics were u riding down by Patricks Air Force base? I spent may summer night sleeping on the Pier pipes after a midnight choice to head to Cocoa waiting for the first sets in da morning.. To many tigers in da water to play around in the da moon light.. Love the pics and videos.
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Quote:
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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I haven’t seen surf down here in South Florida like this since the Halloween Swell of 1991. It was absolutely EPIC!
Solid 12-15+ with Offshore’s all day These pictures were taken at Boynton Inlet @ around 2:30pm May 8th 2007 Last edited by HIGHFLYN; 05-17-2007 at 12:05 PM. |
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Great shots Mike, thanks for posting them! So these swells came through on Wednesday afternoon? I think Boca turned off or way down Wednesday morning. That is real interesting. I'll have to look more widely along the coast next time.
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by ricki; 05-17-2007 at 11:19 AM. |
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No I goofed it Rick, It was Tuesday May 8th that I took these shots @ Boynton Inlet.
I did kite Monday May 7th @ Boynton Public, North side. N-NW 18-24+kts SOLID 6-8ft North swell The by far most increditable session I've had in side-side off shore winds ever! I wanted to surf if, But couldn't pass up the chance to kite those conditions |
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