Chapter 10 (July 16) Party Time

I get up not-so-early and load my dry gear into the car for the drive up to Moffat’s.  It is a joy to be heading to the beach after sunrise!  There are some showers about, resulting in some spectacular rainbows on the way.  We get there, and they announce that we will be starting at 8.  And today they will run…Grand Masters!  Today is the day.

Moffat’s is a rocky point—we launch from a beach and paddle out to the break.  It’s sort of peaky—big A frames offer steep drops and these can connect all the way to the inside.

There will be 2 heats of three, and I’m in the second heat.

My teammates convince me that, since I’m boating so well in IC, I should use an IC boat again for my heats.  As the heat approaches, Jimmy helps me outfit his boat so it fits really tightly.  The horn sounds, and I’m off the beach and paddling out.  Kate and Devon paddle out to cheer me on from the water.

I have a blast.  I catch wave after wave, getting long rides to the inside.  I look up and see Ted, from Canada, and Marcus, from Brazil, getting good rides.  Honestly, I don’t know how well I’m scoring, but I feel pretty good.  My last ride of the heat brings me in close to the rocks, and only a few yards away, I catch an edge and flip.  Upside down, the paddle catches on a rock—it’s really shallow.  Ocean rocks, unlike river rocks, are covered with sharp barnacles, which means that running up onto them when upside down is going to result in torn gear or skin.  So I stay calm, manage to work the paddle free, and calmly roll back up.  The final horn sounds and I’m done.  I paddle back to the beach, and as I’m getting out of my boat, they announce the scores.  I’m second in my heat, meaning I’m through to the finals!! Totally awesome!  Better yet, I’ve got the third highest score in Grand Masters, and I’m only 0.84 points behind the second-place score.

Woo Hoo!

Tuesday is also Devon’s birthday, and the whole team, as well as the judges, come over to the house in Coolum for a party.  We grill kebabs and make a big pot of rice, I make a big salad, and Devon bakes a cake for dessert.  Saba entertains us with her eye-crossing skills, Buey falls asleep, and we all have a wonderful time.  Everyone rolls home at a reasonable hour—we need to be back at the beach at 7:00.  It only takes 15 minutes or so for me to do some final cleanup—everyone pitched in before leaving so things are pretty much in order already, and then it is off to bed for me.

What a great day!

Party Animals

Kebabs!  On the barbie!

Saba crosses her eyes!

Chapter 9 (July 15) Day Off!

We have a much-appreciated rest today.  Surf conditions aren’t good, and it’s still raining.  Boris forgot to give me the keys to the laundry, but today I have time to call around to the real estate office that manages rental of the house and collect the laundry keys.  I’m able to wash some clothes (some of my polypro is starting to smell somewhat rank), and more importantly, get things dry.

I go grocery shopping, and drop by the library to check into the internet.  I collect email, I do a bunch of work stuff, and finally get some blog posts up. 

A big dinner at home, and I’m in bed an ready for tomorrow, when we are moving to Moffat Beach, a bit further south, with a 7:30 call.

Chapter 8 Wicked Vans

A bunch of my teammates and other competitors have rented camper vans from a company called Wicked.  (Thus the Wicked Westies.)  All the vans are painted in outlandish paint schemes.  Devon, Kate and Mat have one that has Flight of the Conchords  on the side, with “Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor” painted across the back.  Meanwhile, the Grossmans have the Sin and Chaos van, with “Free Love Is Expensive” across the back, and somebody else has one that says “A Man in the House Is Worth Two in the Street”.

They are supposed to be fairly inexpensive, and they definitely have entertainment value.  I can’t see these ever being acceptable in the US, though.

Rear view of the Flight of the Conchords van.

The Grossman's vehicle.

Chapter 7 (July 14) Team Competition Day 2: USA! USA! USA!

Dawn at Alex Head

It is raining yet again this morning, but it clears up again as we get to the beach.  Team trials, round 2.

With Noah out of the picture, Jim is subbing in Saba. 

Jim, Mat and I are starting in Men’s IC, and we’ve no paddler in the 4^th heat.

Devon and Kate are next in Women’s IC

Then Devon is up again in Master’s IC

Next, Saba is going to paddle Junior’s IC, then Buey is going in Junior’s HP

Jim is then up for Master’s HP, followed by Rachael and Kate in Women’s HP, and then No Paddler, Buey, Mat and I to finish off Men’s HP.

The weather turns nice, and it’s time to go. 

Jim scores a first in his heat, and then Mat scores a fourth against super-tough competition.  Time for me.

I’m not making the same mistakes as yesterday—I’m going to catch everything I can.  I feel like I’m doing well, and sure enough, I’m third!  So I feel like I’m doing enough to  keep us in it.

The scoring is tight all day, with teams moving back and forth within only a few points of each other.

The Junior IC heat is a hoot.  Both we and the Aussie’s have very young and very novice paddlers in the heat, to avoid the points, and the dads of the two paddlers plus at least one other person are hovering nearby to try and flip the paddlers upright when they capsize.  On the outside, the Basque paddler (England has nobody for the heat) is tearing it up while being generally ignored by the crowd, who are cheering wildly for the kids, and for the dads too.  Saba comes in third, which is great.

Getting Saba launched…

…while Mom looks on.

After lunch, I re-do my foot braces with foam, removing the Happy Feet that I’ve been using.  I’m just not getting enough support with the Happy Feet.  I get it all set, and I’m ready to go for the last heat.

Conditions have gotten rather small.  As I paddle out, I can tell that the foam braces are a huge improvement.  I immediately start catching waves after wave, and in the midst of this I’m really happy about all the prep time I put into this competition, because I’m feeling great.  The horn sounds and I paddle in to find…I’m again third!  Awesome.

But Team USA still scores 4^th highest for the day.  We are out of the finals..

Still, I feel like I’m improving every day.  I can’t wait for the Grand Masters rounds. 

Tomorrow we get a much-needed day off.  Thank goodness.  Maybe I can dry my stuff out. 

Mat showing how it's done in IC

Me

Chapter 6 (July 13) Team Competition Day 1. Oops….

We arrive at Alex Head early again.  I’m up in the second heat.  First the bad news:  Noah doesn’t show, which means we start out with 12 points already.  I come in last in my men’s HP heat. 

When we come around to my IC heat, there is supposed to be a 20 minute break beforehand.  I paddle out in Jim’s IC boat, and find first off it is super-fast.  I catch a wave to see how it handles, and wowie zowie it surfs really nicely! 

The rest of the guys in my heat are sitting around feeling totally confused:  the green flag is up, signaling that the heat has begun, but there we are supposed to be on break.  I just hang out, assuming that they’ve screwed up the flags, and don’t even try to catch another wave.  As the 5-minute horn sounds, nobody is paddling out, which pretty much convinces me that I’m right and everybody else is wrong.  And then the horn sounds ending the heat, and somebody who has paddled out tells me that, no they did run the heat, and they are taking a break now.  Oh joy.

So we all go in to complain, because we certainly weren’t giving it our best, but everybody except me agrees to let the heat stand.  Then I get to see my score, and find that I’ve scored the third highest wave. So on the one hand, I’m really disappointed because had I simply caught a few more waves, I would likely have not been last in my heat.  I'm really bummed with myself.  But on the other hand, I really like the IC boat—as Rachael says, “Carlisle, you look really comfortable in that boat.”   

The day ends with us in 4^th place, good enough for us to advance to the second round.  We collect for beers in the Alex Surf Club, and then re-convene at Jimmy and Pirie’s condo at Twin Waters for a dinner of fresh grilled fish.  Yum!

Unfortunately, we are the Green Team.

Red:  England

White:  Jersey

Pink:  Australia

Black:  Basque

Chapter 5 (July 12) The Wicked West

Yikes, I’ve forgotten to introduce my team!  We are the US West Surf Kayak Team (though there is no US East team this year), the Wicked Westies. 

Here they are:

First up is Kate Duncan, team manager.  She’s actually an Aussie transplant to California, and she’s an EMT for a municipal fire department near Sacramento, California.  She is, of course, really nice, and, important for a team manager, nicely organized.

Next is Mat Hoff, a kayak instructor from Monterrey, California. Another really nice guy.  He sort of reminds me of one of my brothers.

Then there are the folks from the Portugal Worlds.

Devon Barker-Hicks, professional kayaker.  She got married since Portugal.  A former world champ, she lives in Idaho. 

Rachel Krugman.  She came in second, if I remember correctly, at the 2011 World’s in North Carolina.  She is now an OT, and was married last May to James Ward (their relationship had just started when we were in Portugal), and lives in San Jose, California. 

Jim Grossman.  He is yet another former world champ, is an incredible athlete, and also lives in Idaho.

Finally, there are the juniors, our under-18 team members.  They are Buey and Saba Grossman, Jim’s kids, aged 11 and 9 respectively.  More on them later.

A meeting was held this evening that set the draw for the team competition.  There are 5 teams:  Us, the Basques, Jersey (the island, not the state), England and Australia.  (For an explanation of how the team event works, see here.)  We will have one round with 5 teams, and then the lowest team will be dropped.  The second round will then have 4 teams, with the lowest team dropped again.  The finals will have the top 5 teams.

On the first day, the lineup will be as follows:

4 heats of Men’s High Performance, with Mat, Buey and myself competing in three of them and no paddler in the fourth.

2 heats of Women’s HP (Rachael and Kate)

1 heat of Master’s HP (Jim)

1 heat of Junior’s HP (Buey)

1 heat of Junior International Class (Noah Bader, an American who lives locally that Jim says will be able to show up.  Spoiler alert:  he doesn’t show.)

1 heat of Master’s IC (Devon)

2 heats of Women’s IC (Devon and Kate)

4 heats of Men’s IC (Me, Noah, Mat and Jim)

There is an interesting catch here:  except for a few minutes in Devon’s boat earlier this evening, I’ve never paddled IC.  Could be interesting.  Teams start bright and early again tomorrow, again at Alex Head.

Kate

 Mat


Devon


Rachael


Jim


Buey (left) and Saba