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.

Typhoon waves

There has been some good surf recently from the typhoons, here are a bunch of random pics from over the past month.

This the coastal road driving towards Shizuoka. There is almost a surfable wave here underneath this bridge with Mt. Fuji in the background.

When it is too big for the beaches in front of Fukude and the winds are out of the east, this protected left point down in Irago turns on.





Around the corner from the left point is the more exposed coastline, a little too big to surf this day.



Same spot here in Omaezaki as the photos in the previous post.

Most of the waves that break on typhooon swells are difficult to find, localized, or both. Gun-san is a local everywhere in Shizuoka and he hooked me up by taking me out to a lesser known rivermouth setup. He and his group of friends have been surfing this area for years and they have it dialed.



The rivermouth we went to had a fun setup, lefts on one side and rights on the other in front of the driftwood locals shack.





Another rivermouth setup, this one was a bit muddier. There was a crew all over it in the morning here but by noon here it was empty.



And back to PK, once the swell backed down a bit. The sand setup has been good here, just mind the tetrapod shorebreak.





Two shots from Unagiya-san at PK.

Cojo Cup

This late breaking news is a few weeks old, but I participated in a surf contest a few weeks ago at a fun beachbreak down the road, the "Cojo Cup." Kind of like the infamous Burning Bowls, but with Bento lunchboxes and Asahi instead of Hotdogs and Budweiser. Nori-san of Cojo surfboards gets all of his team riders together for the contest every year, this year I was thrown into the "riders cup" division.


This is Nori-san, he shapes Cojo (yes named after the ranch) boards, recently he has been letting me try all kinds of test shapes, from shortboards to EPS/Styrofoam 4-fin rocket fish boards.



Akihito preps for his first round heat...



I ended up winning my division and taking home the coveted trophy and a cool 10 grand (yen). The prize money went straight to celebratory beer and sushi.



If you can read Japanese, you can check out Nori-san's website with all of the results HERE, (scroll down further on the site for exclusive photos of "Bert Templeman").

And some more photos of the action HERE

Road Trip! Part 2

Woke up and made the drive along the coast in the morning, here are some more images from around the Irago Cape. Very steep cliffs and dramatic scenery around here, reminded me of a warmer Big Sur.

WAVES!!! Stumbled upon this spot during a surf check. From what I have seen so far, Japan has the most developed beaches I have ever seen with all kinds of jetties, breakwalls and bizarre cement seawalls covering most areas. At this spot, the swell would squeeze through these breakwalls and create super fun wedges all up and down the beach that broke hard in about 1 foot of water.

Further down the coast we came to this spot in Tahara. It is the site of a few surf contests each year including an ASP longboard contest that finished the day before we showed up. The waves were decent but a bit slow, fun on a fish or longboard. The sand in the foreground is about 200 degrees, I had to do a mad sprint from the car to the water.

Tahara "Long Beach"

The Ride. Nissan Aero Express, complete with rear spoiler so we don't lift off.



Not even sure what the name of this beach was, but it had a pretty decent left coming in.



We made our way down to Omaezaki in the Shizuoka Prefecture. It turned out to be perfect timing since they were having their Hanabi show on the night we arrived. Vendors were lined up and down the road selling every kind of food you could imagine and then some.




More Hanabi!

Road Trip! Part 1

Headed out to the east coast for a few days. The main highway that connects Toyama to the east coast runs straight through some serious mountains and some very very long tunnels.

Made it out to the Irago cape, Aichi Prefecture, just before sunset. It was 1 foot offshore shorebreak, perfect for a swim to rinse off the road.

Just like the Wedge but 1 foot instead of 20.

We stayed in a traditional Minshuku. Very simple as you can see. They measure the room size by the number of tatami mats that are laid on the floor. We were living large in this size "10" room.