Santa TowInBig p3

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[Santa TowInBig p4]

Zebenzui Perez, Canary Islands

Monday 15th, December 2008: At 11:30 I met with Fernando to get one of the three jet skies at Punta del Hidalgo. When we had loaded the ski we drove directly to El Muelle del Puerto de la Cruz, where we planned to launch the ski.

When we arrived at El Muelle we saw a police car at the entrance and tried to think that they would not  hinder us to start the skis. Fernando talked to the harbour police but in the end they wouldn´t let us launch the skis because they had order to hinder any vessel from launching during the massive swell.

We hurried trying to find a solution. First we went to Punta Brava to see if we could launch the skis here, but it didn´t convince us. Time was running out and we feared that we would not get any water time at this day (which was the biggest one). Realizing that it was impossible here we went to Playa de Martiánez to see if we could get out there. Once at the beach we hurried to check and analyze the area still looking for a solution. We finally decided that it would be o.k. to launch here but it was already too late, with very little light left. Our last chance would be the very early morning of the following day.

Tuesday, December 16th: We met at Fernando´s house and went to Playa de Martiánez where we prepared to get out. The nerves started to tense, there was less power that yesterday but there was still a lot of power out there. We were six guys and three jet skies. One ski was taken by Vilayta and Guirre, the other one by Duncan Scott and Paul O´Kane and the last one used Fernando and me. Once the skies were launched we directly drove to El Bravo. There was a little bit of wind, the tide was low, it was foggy, almost raining, but when we had passed half the way to the break we saw that the waves were breaking all along the coast of Puerto de la Cruz. When we arrived at the peak of El Bravo we took a few minutes to watch the wave. In the distance we already saw some people at shore waiting for us to get going.

Guirre and Vialyta were the first ones. They took a few waves and Fernando an me were next. I started to catch waves and realized that the wave was pretty choppy because of the sideshore winds. Therefore I had to be very careful with my drops. I catched about 8 waves. The feeling was intense. Especially when I dropped into a wave and saw bowls building in the sea. This showed that the wave would have plenty of power when breaking.

It was a great experience because everything went good. Nothing bad happened to the six of us and the skies worked very good.

The organization was perfect. Congrats to LA Santa Surf for what they invested to celebrate this event. It pleased the photographers, the media and many people loving this sport. Thanks a lot to paul and Duncan for sharing their experiences and comments. I hope that some day we will repeat this event and that we won´t havy any more problems with launching the skies at El Muelle when the conditions are good for tow in at the north shore.

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photos: panorama at top of the page by Sergio Vilalba

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