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Episode three for the Tourists of the Sea, featuring Kevin Pritchard and Graham Ezzy is here!
Windsurfing, discovery, fun, photos, stopping the car in the middle of the road to take pictures, that is the joy of being a tourist. The boys find a sweet little sailing spot near Pismo Beach. Check it out.
The latest episode of Tourists of the Sea featuring Kevin Pritchard and Graham Ezzy is here! This time they hit up Punta San Carlos for a perfect setup!
I had just booked my ticket to go to Park City to visit my girlfriend when I happened to check the forecast for Tahiti and saw an 18 second interval pop into the forecast window. With the south swells you can get a pretty good idea at least a week in advance, so I saw this massive swell coming. I talked with “Mr. Baja” Brian Caserio and said looks like there is another swell hitting, you want to go. We both grimaced at the thought of organizing, preparing and rearranging our schedules. The desire to get one of the big south swells, made us excited and craving to man up for the adventure. I called up Graham Ezzy and he started looking into it as well.
We kept tossing the idea around over the Santa Cruz AWT event, going back and forth, if we can do it, what is our time frame, how is the swell going to hit and so on. I had just won the single elimination and was pretty happy with that so I was like lets do it. It was a mission. My ticket to Park City was non refundable. So I might as well go see my girlfriend for one day. Hoped on the plane, said hi on Tuesday, then back on the plane on Wednesday, Brian picked me up at LAX, drove to San Diego, slept and hit the road at 5am. Some lack of sleep, some anxiety, and some hints of south swell along the drive, made the drive seem to fly by. Graham had to hook up with another way down as we were full in Brian’s Tundra. We didn’t see them on the road or when we arrived so, they had to be behind us. We arrived to Punta San Carlos to mast high waves and 4.2 wind. It was blasting. One problem, I didn’t bring my 4.2. Shoot. Well lucky for me, the guys at SoloSports carry the new Ezzy Elite sails, and bam I was out on the water. Fully overpowered, mast high, insane conditions. This is just what the doctor ordered. Wave after wave, it was insane.
Growing up in Southern California, Baja is where my brother and I learned to windsurf in the waves. It is the best spot in the world in my opinion to learn to wave sail. This was it, this is what we had dreamed of all our lives, wind, waves, and the biggest south swell of the summer hitting Baja. I had waited 20 years, I know that dates me, but I really had waited 20 years to get this place like with the waves like we had. It sounds cliche but it was a dream come true. I mean for the last 15 years of my professional career, to be able to take time to jet down for a swell when you are competing on the PWA world tour, is pretty tough to pull off. The worlds aligned, it came together and for the next three days, we had all we could handle. Wave after wave, set after set, it was just awesome. I am still glowing from the trip and can’t wait for the next surgical strike.
~ Kevin Pritchard
A Maui Nerd Production
mauinerds.com
Camera: Kevin Pritchard // Brian Caserio // Graham Ezzy
Graphics & Editing: Johannes Neumann
Supported by: Ezzy Sails // Dakine // solosports.net “You just don’t know, until you go!”
3 Minutes of Ho’okipa action with Graham Ezzy.
Going through hard drives on this Sunday afternoon, I found 2-year-old footage from the Don’t Let Go Maui filming (shot by Manu Grafenauer). The clips are of a more traditional, Hookipa flavor than the adventure filming I’ve been doing in Mexico, California, and Madagascar (coming soon!). I couldn’t help throwing the footage together into a 3-minute action edit. It’s 2 years old but still very relevant. -Graham
Stay tuned for more videos from Graham Ezzy.
Check out the Ezzy Sails Team at this years 2013 Aloha Classic. Graham Ezzy, Kevin Pritchard, Jessie Brown, Ruben Lemmons and Yoshi Hasumi rip it up at Hookipa Beach Park.
Check out episode 1 from ‘Tourists of the Sea’ series by Maui Nerd Productions featuring Graham Ezzy and Kevin Pritchard in Baja and California.
Its always a risk leaving the warm waters of Maui. For our trip to Arroyo Laguna we had been wanting to do something on the west coast for quite some time. We watched and waited, and pulled the trigger 2 days before leaving, saw a good forecast and left home to set out on our tourist adventure.
I had never traveled with Graham before. We had talked about it, but we just could never nail down some dates that worked for us both. So our adventures were fresh, the hopes were high and we set out to sail the seas of the California coast. For me it was fun to go back, Arroyo was one of our favorite spots as a family growing up. I knew it was going to be fun.
We showed up at the beach like total windsurf pro tourists. Boards stacked on the roof, sails, masts, everything piling out of the car. The locals shook their heads as we got out, immediately started getting our boards off and shit flying everywhere. Just like a typical tourist.
Sailing with Graham is always fun. He is inspires me to try something new with his no fear, go for it style. Pushing his limits as well as mine.
For the trip our idea was that he would film some and I would film some as well, taking turns sailing and filming. The only thing we learned is that he was a much better filmer than I am. He has the patience to get the shot. I don’t. I hate sitting on the beach, I hate watching and watching. Maybe it is something new in my mind, maybe it is something new with my filming, maybe it is something new in my sailing, but whatever it is, it sure brings me to realize that windsurfing is my favorite sport in the world. I
Arroyo is not an untouched land, it just needs to be remembered. The side off shore winds and rippable waves make it what I think is the most high performance wave spots on the California Coast. For some reason, our road trips always take us to California. Being a tourist in familiar land helps us where we know the sea. Being tourists of the Sea …
We love this video, amazing action from two extremely talented riders, in some of the best wavesailing conditions!
Camera: Kevin Pritchard // Brian Caserio // Graham Ezzy
Graphics & Editing: Johannes Neumann
Supported by: Ezzy Sails // Dakine
Here’s a Teaser for an upcoming series featuring Kevin Pritchard and Graham Ezzy. Both have both done some amazing videos in the past, so this clip will be one not to miss!
Kevin Pritchard and Graham Ezzy step out of their truck into this swell in Punta San Carlos. A quick clip of them ripping on the first day while staying with Solosports Camp in Baja.
Kevin Pritchards latest production featuring Graham Ezzy.
No matter where I am, there are 2 constants. Writing and the sea. I feel uncomfortable inland and away from the coast. Or when I’m not writing.
A month before I turned 18, I left Maui and pro windsurfing for 4 years and never really came back. While I studied Literature at Princeton, my heart anchored in New York.
Before, when I left Maui, often for months at a time to compete on the world tour, I had the feeling that I was away and would return home to Hawaii. I’m not sure where home is now.
I’m homeless.Since graduating from Princeton in 2011, I’m based on Maui, but I’m also back to Manhattan constantly. So many of my classmates have wound up in the city that I run into friends walking down the street or in random cafes getting a morning coffee. That happens on Maui too. But you expect it on an island in the middle of the ocean.
I write and i windsurf because i feel a need to. Sometimes both are miserable. But i still need to do them. Like breathing. Sometimes your nose is stuffed and you’re sick and you wish you just didn’t have to breath so that you could sleep but you have to breath. That’s what writing and windsurfing are for me.
I guess writing and the sea have become a sort of home for me. I’ve spent over 1 year– over 8765 hours– of my life at sea. Virgins to the sea can’t read the wind in the whitecaps. I suppose it’s like that more and more. So the sailor’s who’ve circumnavigated the globe see things in the sea that are invisible even to me.The sea is an ever changing chaos. Riding waves, especially massive waves, is a meditation on reacting unconsciously. If you think, you’re too slow and will get beat down. Writing, surprisingly is the same. The blank page stares back at the pen. Challenging it. Think about it too much: writers block.
The wave and the page offer infinite possibility and potential.
These two massive chaotic sources of unknowns have become a sort of home where I can be myself, whoever that is.
I don’t know if writing and windsurfing have any grand meaning or add an value to the world. But they are my home for now, the only home I’ve got. It’s what I do.
The first part of our Photo Friday series today, there are a bunch of shots coming from the recent PWA Worldcup in Podersdorf shortly. This weeks cover shot is this awesom pick of the World Champion Philip Koster by Global Shots. Also don’t miss Robby Naish’s perfect table top! An epic shot of Grham Ezzy who keeps producing awesome shots, plus much more!
Graham Ezzy hits a big Hookipa lip, and crashes hard, losing the gear in the process and having to swim for it.
But falls are not fails– at least, not always. Falls, crashes, and wipeouts make learning possible and therefore are the opposite of a fail. Knowledge comes from the Falls.
Graham has some views about The Importance of Crashes, Falls and Wipeouts, you can read onhis blog.
Graham Ezzy is back blogging again. Graham is a very well written windsurfer, with exceptional talent. Check out his story on riding Jaws, and jumping off lighthouse.
On Febuary 1st, 2013 the forecast called for waves big enough for Jaws to be good.
Mud, Rocks, and Jaws (part 1)
Use the above link to head over to Surf-Matic, Graham’s blog and read the whole story.
From the cutting room floor: Graham Ezzy pulls a wave 360 at Hookipa on the Ezzy Elite. Filmed by Florian Jung.
Kevin Pritchard’s latest sport short features Graham Ezzy windsurfing on Maui, Hawaii.
Here’s Graham’s take on working with Kevin:
“Kevin Pritchard has 8 windsurfing world titles and also makes films about windsurfing. Being the subject of his latest sport short, “Take 1”, makes me one of the happiest pro windsurfers on and off the water.
When Kevin showed me the first edit, I got goosebumps (or as they say in Hawaii: chicken-skin). It was surreal to see one of windsurfing’s heroes making a short about me. Some of my earliest memories of watching windsurfing events involve seeing Kevin boost 50 feet in the air before rotating into a delayed forward rotation. Or, when I was 16 and competing as the youngest pro on my second year of the professional windsurfing tour, KP added yet another world title to his collection.
Being filmed by a legend has benefits beyond the cool factor. Windsurfing is one of the hardest sports to film, according to every filmmaker I have ever worked with. The first take is the only take. Each wave breaks differently than every other wave. Framing can’t be planned but must be improvised. The strong winds vibrate the camera and the long lens required to keep a tight frame on the windsurfer half a mile out to sea.
There is only one take for every shot. If that take is blown, the whole shot is gone.
When nothing is planned, having an 8x world champion behind the lens makes a difference. He can read me as I read the waves, anticipating my maneuvers. It’s like a dance to an unfamiliar song with a familiar partner.
KP doesn’t have to imagine what its like to jump 50 feet into the air or drop into a 50 foot wave at jaws. He has done all that and more. When I take a foot off my board during a back rotation, I know that he was the first one to do it, winning a world title off that jump in 2002.
And even with Kevin’s skill, shots still get missed. By some version of murphy’s law it seems that the best moves escape capture and must live forever as a memory. Making a short like this, even just 4 minutes in length, takes a few months of filming.
My favorite part of Kevin’s edit is that it feels really honest: the feeling it gives reminds me of what it is like to be on the water.”
March is here, February is going out with a bang, and lets hope March is as good! Check out this weeks photo Friday where we highlight the best windsurfing shots from Around the World.
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Maui is the epicenter of windsurfing, with Ho’okipa and Jaws going off we’ve got quite a few shots this week from Ho’okipa, including Graham Ezzy going hands free. But there’s also a good handful from around the World, enjoy!
All the pics are after the jump.
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