3.11 Charity Cup

Nori-san and the whole crew in Irago had a charity surf contest last Sunday on anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake.

After a late night Nabe party we were up before the sunrise to get started.








The weather is still chilly but the waves at Sekihi were fun all morning.







After finishing up all the heats and doing a beach clean, everyone gathered on the beach at 2:46 and joined the rest of Japan to observe a few minutes of silence and prayer in honor of the victims of the quake and tsunami. It was a pretty emotional few minutes as everyone faced northeast and you could hear the sirens wailing to mark the anniversary.






By the end of the day everyone was in good spirits and we rocked out with a campfire and guitars beach blanket bingo style. Here MC BO and Yosuke get into the groove.

PK Shorebreak

I've had my camera waterhousing sitting in my closet collecting dust for way to long, I finally had the chance to jump in and take some shots at PK during a recent evening. I suited up and jumped in the water, unfortunately a couple fishermen had their lines in the shorebreak right where the light was the best. As I flopped around on the inside dodging fish hooks and dirty looks, throwing my camera into some pits, I ended up getting some good shots.

Goto

Some photos from a recent day at Goto. For about a month the sand piled up against the side of this concrete wall creating a good righthander. I risked soaking my camera and walked out to take a few shots.



There is usually a crew of fishermen on the wall, catching fish and dodging set waves that wash over the end.


Makoto dropping in






Later on in the afternoon the light improved and the winds cleaned up.




Jack and friends came out to attack some lips.








Once the sun set I tried using my flash with limited success...





And finally wound up with some nice long exposures using the wall as my tripod

日本海

We went on a mission out to the NihonKai(Sea of Japan) the other day. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical of scoring waves in any 'sea'. But, around this time every year storms begin to spin on the Korean Peninsula and throw a huge fetch towards the west coast of Japan. In winter you have to hike over snow covered beaches to get to the surf but late Oct is still nice and warm. At 2am the crew assembled for an overnight drive out west, after 4 hours we arrived with the sunrise.





The first spot we checked out was a bit junk with the onshore winds but the boys were still in good spirits...

Finally we took some good advice and headed to a more protected zone and found some offshore beachbreak loveliness.

For about 4 hours it was on, great waves and friendly crowd. This setup was sort of a warmer central california sandbar setup, minus the angry locals and sharks.

All Photos Below by Unagiya-san
Me


Taga-san, master driver and tube hunter


Naito-san, in my opinion the most powerful surfer in the 053





Everyone had some good waves, good turns, but also took a few late drops and beatings



Mori-san here, shaper and fan of california point breaks. Thanks for lending me a wetsuit.