DSURF Life: March 2009

AB3-Fish Fry 2009 Award Results

Destination Surf was co-sponsor of this fine event,

Ice-9 Foam donated a bunch of blanks to be handed out to boardbuilders with stand out boards at the AB3/Fish Fry. This was an informal and friendly competition. A secret panel of three handsome and intelligent judges quietly walked the beach and scoped out all the boards. The judges had a tough job because of the hundreds of extremely high quality boards.

The categories and winners (see photos of winners):

Best in Show-Dennis Murphy for a special lightweight wood board made out of a recycled water tower. Dennis also wins a berth into the Sacred Craft Shape-Off at the next Del Mar event in Fall '09.

Best Homebuild/Garage board-This guy Hans Hans Enyedi from Leucadia that nobody has ever heard of before. He made a resin swirl mini-Simmons that was a clean shape, had a tight cutlap and good resin pinline and polish. This was a tough category for shure.

Best Art-Cher Pendarvis for her groovy blue Sunfish art on one of her husband's Pendo-Flex boards. Another tough category to judge.

Best Glassjob-The judges did not know who glassed this board until after is was chosen. It was an Ian Zamora shape with a stunning multi-colored cross out of resin. Overall it was a tight board and a crowd favorite. Turns out if was glassed by Jimmy Robertson (JJR on this forum) at the Lokbox shop in Oceanside. (*note-Michael Miller from San Diego was a close runner up).

Most Original-Eli Mirandon for his trippy "Porpoise" twin fin. He also paddled out on this board and did an air on it.

Biggest Roach-This category was for the ugliest/funkiest looking board and Eli Mirandon also got this one for the same above board, hee hee.

Best Fin(s)-Daniel Partch for his beautiful marine-ply tri-fin set (oops, "anything but 3"???) with art engravings. On a Michael Miller Frye Eagle inspired board.

Furthest Traveled-Greg Griffin from Hawaii who unfortunately was sick and wasn't around much during the day. Griffin was in the running for best fins for his tight handfoiled G10 fins.

*To everyone who didn't win, you still shred and thanks for spending your Sunday at the beach with us.

Discuss this topic on the Surfer Magazine Design Forum.

Special Thanks to:

Ice-9 Foam
Shawn Ambrose from Real Surf
Destination Surf
The Fish Joint
Musician Joe Wood
Big shout out to "Boston Tony" for helping organize and print the t-shirts.

Misirlous

Insane 1951 lounge version by the mysterious Korla Pandit:

The famous Dick Dale version from 1963, it still rocks even if Pulp Fiction made you sick of it:

Content stolen from this thread on the Surfer mag discussion forum.

Afghan Landmine Victim Learns to Surf

The OC Register has an amazing story about Mohammad Malek who lost both his legs from a landmine in Afghanistan and has learned to surf.
Read Amputee wants one last surf before he goes
Malek has spent the last year in California receiving treatment in a special program by Loma Linda University. Malek's amazing journey to California begins with his fear of a Muslim traveling to a Christian country to learning to surf, learning English and even getting a girlfriend. He is slated to return home but wants to come back to the US to attend medical school. Comon' guys, let him stay now!

Some Good Internet Drama

Currently the hottest surf blog on the world wide internets is Post Surf which is run by the sarcastic and controversial Lewis Samuels. A freelance surf writer, Samuels recently attempted the 'ol surf industry mock the hand that feeds trick by simultaneously writing for the mainstream website Surfline and then sniping at Surfline's content on his own snarky blog. Many have tried and failed at this sort of thing.

Read the infamous post Corporate Rage

Samuels observed that maybe Surfline and Billabong shouldn't have hyped a recent high end surf trip to Tavarua in this current economic climate. It was an interesting PR move by Billabong, I wonder if they expected any kind of backlash. I actually like Billabong CEO Paul Naude, he surfs good and has a sincere love for surfboards. I'm sure that Naude works hard and earned himself a nice surf trip, but in a climate when your customers are worried about their jobs, stressed about losing their health insurance and struggling to make their mortgage and surf shop owners are watching their retail sales plummet, do you really want to broadcast your luxury surf trip to the world?

Billabong USA CEO Paul Naude not feeling our burning jealously on a nice one. Photo by Scott Soens (hey I know him! Cool guy).

Or, are we entering another era of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous kind of voyeurism?

hmmm, this group photo doesn't exactly inspire rage or anger. They look like nice normal people having a nice time. There is even like three babies with them, awwwww.

Either way, Lewis Samuels is no longer with Surfline. There is a fairly passionate discussion about Samuels firing on the Surfer mag discussion board, read Lewis Samuels FIRED from Surfline. And, Samuels has sent out a press release also spotted on the Surfer magazine website, click here to read. He plans to continue publishing his Power Rankings of the pro surf tour. (His first installment really freaked people out by ranking Kelly Slater at #17. Fans of Slater were furious and distraught but did not consider that Slater's Round 3 loss in the first contest of the year meant he finished equal 17th in the contest).

By the way, here is a photo of D-Surf owner Aaron Smith at Tavarua a few years back,

Will NIMBYs Prevent new Surfing Heritage Museum?

Global Surf News reports,

The City of Dana Point has been holding town hall meetings regarding the proposed Sea Terrace Park location for the future home of the Surfing Heritage Foundation.

After two years of meetings with local residents and city staff to help form an acceptable plan and several city council meetings later, the city formed a Surfing Heritage Museum Task Force to examine the matter and clear up public misconceptions regarding the proposed site.

The Task Force, which held several workshop meetings, is concluding its work by holding Town Hall meetings to present their findings, and was hoping to hear additional comments from a broader spectrum of city residents and the public.

The last Town Hall meeting was held on March 11, at the Ocean Institute and it was attended by approximately 50 people, all demonstrating or speaking against the proposed Sea Terrace Park museum location. Interestingly, all were residents living next door to the proposed park, most from Niguel Shores. We had worked hard to incorporate their previous concerns and did modify the proposed plans in hope of gaining their approval.

Surfing Heritage Foundation.org