Wow, yesterday was perfect! After organizing and planning this event for quite some time, everything seemed to fall into place as the sun rose on Sunday morning for the first annual Deus '9ft & Single' longboard festival.
As I arrived at the waters edge as dawn broke, people were already there, hustling and bustling to get everything ready...competitors were perched on the hill looking at what looked to be damn near perfect conditions. The wind stayed down for most of the day, and the expected swell rise did not show up, which made for good logging waves.
A crowd gathered throughout the day, eating, drinking and watching session after session of great surfing. The one and only Monty was on the mic, and was our soundtrack for the day, keeping everything light heated, letting everybody know what was going down and bigging up our great sponsors...
RAEN, The Yak, Journey and
The Critical Slide Society. Heat after heat passed until we whittled down the competition to just a select few riders. The Italian expat and Tugu local, Roberto, showed true sportsmanship when he rode the nose to the inside and hit the reef, promptly dislocating his shoulder. After a quick paddle to the beach, he popped it back in with some help from a friend and went strait back out...and even made it to the final!...Trooper! Definite stand outs of the day were Tommy Bexon and Ellis Ericson, who rode smooth all day but didn't manage to make it through to the final of 4. The finals saw close competition, with Jai Lee and Tyler Warren both surfing with style and ease, the final could have gone either way right until the end. Tyler Warren took a well deserved first place in the finals, with Jai Lee in second, Roberto in third and James Llewyn picking up 4th. After the day was done and the wind started to rise, everybody headed to the Temple for an awards ceremony, raffle, and live music.
It was pretty much a perfect day. Sun, surf, beers, friendly rivalry and just a smidgin of illegal betting! A big thank you to everybody who made it be and to those who came down for a day on the beach.
