WQS, spanish round

Dan Ross, on his way to victory last year at El Confital.

Tomorow starts in Zarautz the first event of the spanish round in the WQS (World Qualifying Series) on the first of four events in spanish waters:

WQS 5* Sept. 1-6 San Miguel Pro Zarautz Presented By Euskaltel Zarautz
WQS 5* Sept. 8-13 Ferrolterra Movistar Pantin Classic 2009 Pantin
WQS 2* October 19-25 Ocean & Earth Pro Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
WQS 6*Prime November 1-7 Islas Canarias Santa Pro Mobile San Juan, Lanzarote

For more information:
http://www.aspeurope.com/

Music

Bea, one of the regulars windsurfing in Pozo Izquierdo, has a new video with her band Al Baño María from their song Libre, single which precedes their new album that will be out at the beginning of 2010.
Libre

Para más información sobre el grupo:
www.musicamp3.com/albaniomaria
www.myspace.com/albaniomaria

Black and White

Windsurfing girls

The number of girls windsurfing in Pozo Izquierdo, is growing every year, a few of them were sailing here this afternoon, but we missed plenty of them who windsurf here regularly, maybe next time we can have them all together.
To see more photos of the session "only girls" we had this afternoon, click
HERE.

Thursday afternoon

The magic of windsurfing

Daida sends us these photos from last August 16th, the World Windsurfing Day, a day you are supposed to share the magic of our sport, and by the smile of Paula (the child in the photo), I think we can say that Daida more than achieved.

Shox XTR

Looks like, I'm one of the few in Pozo Izquierdo who haven't been sailing already with the new North Sails base, with shock absorber, let's see if I try it tomorrow to give you my own impression.

PWA Pozo Wave 2009

www.umipictures.com

Azores Islands Pro 09

The Azores Islands Pro 09, is ON.
To watch the live webcast, click HERE.

From Monday till Sunday

www.frommondaytillsunday.com

Festival playa de Vargas

Alessio Stillrich wins the waves in the Festival playa de Vargas (Vargas beach festival), also in the final were: 2nd Josep Pons, 3rd Jose Antonio Romero and 4th Omar Sánchez.
In the long distance the winner was Nino Navarro, one of the classics in spanish windsurfing.

Wave riding with Daida

Daida herself, explains us in four steps the keys of front side wave riding in onshore conditions.

Photo 1: We face the wave with speed. In Pozo, as the wind is onshore, we should try to pick up speed back side, before starting the front side bottom turn. We look at the point of the wave to where we want to go. We open the sail to keep all the wind power and speed. We put the weight in the back foot to turn the board in the bottom turn.

Photo 2: We anticipate the movement with the head (gently) looking where we want to go, in this case we look ahead the mast, over the white water. The right arm shrinks, getting closer to the body, and the left hand moves forward getting closer to the right one, we start to rotate the hips and moving the body weight to the front leg. We come up with speed.

Photo 3: All the body weight goes to the front leg, this way, we allow the fin to flow easily over the foam. We help the turn with the legs (weight forward) and the sail (we open the sail again, always looking for the wind).

Photo 4: We go down the face of the wave opening the left hand (the back one), recovering more or less the starting position on the boom, this way we have more power again and recover our position on the board easily and keep on surfing the wave. The arm movement on the boom is important when you are surfing, we open in the bottom, close at the top, and reopen at the end of the turn.

Remember: At the top of the wave (figure 2 and 3), body weight forward to help with the legs to turn more easily, this way the tail gets looser and then we can push again with the back foot to put power in the turn and make a big spray.

PS: Do not forget to innovate and keep trying new moves...

Friday session

Strong tides cause damage

One of the ramps to access the beach in Pozo Izquierdo, has been broken due to the action of strong tides and some swell.
The other ramp is still ok, but a little bit dangerous during high tide due to some of the highest tides of the year.
No problem on using any of the other access to the beach.

Fun session

Today we had really fun conditions in Pozo Izquierdo, with strong winds and nice waves with some good sets. The forecast looks really good for all the weekend, we will keep updating.

Wind Atlas of Spain

The IDAE (Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy), has on its website, the Wind Atlas of Spain, which can be downloaded for free in PDF format, document really interesting for us (windsurfers), just a small detail, I was surprised that gives equality in the summer wind in various parts of the Canary Islands which do not really have that equality, but if you look closer, the measurements are up to 10m/s which are about 19.44 knots, so everything indicates that at some points in the geography of the islands, the average wind in summer exceeds that figure.
In any case, the IDAE gives us a really interesting document, so if you want to go directly to downloading maps, click HERE.

Second hand

Right now at the second hand section, we have more than 30 boards available, all kind of shapes, sizes and prices, so if you want to take a look click HERE.

New base

North Sails has developed the first base with shock absorber. Next week will be in Pozo Izquierdo Alexander Hasch (North Sails marketing director) with the engineer who developed the base, so we will give you all the details as soon as possible.
For more info, click on the picture.

After work

  

Days are still long enough for a late session after work, in the picture above we can see Jonas, at 20:30, after closing the shop (Cutre), going for a late session to test one of the new Goya sails and relaxing a little bit after work.

Good waves

Surf Total Ripcur Padang Padang Cup Teaser, Bali Surf Report from Black Market Productions on Vimeo.

Last Saturday, finished at Padang Padang (Indonesia) the Rip Curl Invitational, a competition with no points for the world tour but with a full month of waiting period, to ensure really good waves, and that's what they got, as you can see in the video.
The winner was Jamie O'Brian, from Pipeline, Hawaii, so a specialist in powerful left hand barrels.

Far away from Indonesia, in Puerto Escondido (México) have finished today the Quiksilver Pro Puerto Escondido, where Clay Marzo dominated the final with his amazing surfing, and winning his first WQS competition and coming back home 7.000 $ richer than when he came to this small town in the Pacific coast of Mexico.

New online windsurf magazine

New windsurfing magazine, although you won’t find it in paper, but you can read it HERE.
Some interesting articles in this first issue; an interview with Kai Katchadorian with some really good pictures and an interesting story about Sarah Hebert, of how not only went through her cardiac problem but ended sponsored by the medical centre she went.
If you decide to take a look at this first issue of Windsurfer International and specially if you want to read the stories, I recommend downloading the PDF (there is an icon at the top left to do it) your eyes will thank you if you do so, even though you can read from the web you will see everything a lot better from the PDF.

Uf!

Teahupoo, Tahiti, I never get tired of watching this wave.

Summer 2009

I just uploaded some photos from the beginning of this summer, I've been taking a lot of photos this summer so I didn't have time to edit everything, so now that we had a couple of flat days I've been editing a little bit, if you want to see the photos click here.