Steamer Lane cranked today, the penultimate day of battle at the O’Neill Cold Water Classic Santa Cruz.
The big news is that Blake Thornton has claimed the CWC Series title, and will promptly be 50 large richer. Unfortunately he is no longer here, he’s in LA. Jarred Howse was in contention until he lost earlier in the afternoon (“He just kind of paddled too far out the back and lost” – Larry Haynes) in solid, tricky conditions at the Lane. Word was it was a bit too big for here, it was kinda washy and wide. In the afternoon the contest area was moved inside to Indicators. Tomorrow was expected to be slightly smaller, and better, but now they’re saying it’s gonna be a tad bigger. Mav’s rumbled this afternoon and is expected to be on demain, aussi. 

Happy as Larry.

Fighting it out in the Quarters will be:

QF1 De Souza v Muniz QF2 Lopez v Yeomans QF3 Farhenfort v Joske QF4 Horn v Munro

One of the reasons it pumped today was that we went out last night. First of all we went to Pat O’Neill’s amazing home on the East Side for dinner and drinks. I met Shaun Tomson there by an outside fireplace and told him I saw Bustin Down The Door on the plane over here and I liked it, but that I don’t like the way he says, ‘Pipeline’. “Paaaayyyyyyp Laaaiiiiin.” He was cool with that and just stoked I liked the movie. Total legend.

Then we went to a bar called Ideal. There was a lot of dancing but probably the best of the dancing was done by blond Hawaiian Sebastian “Seabass” Zeitz. Seabass was making all kinds of shapes. Seabass has three thumbs. He ripped his first heat today scoring a perfect ten but then lost this afternoon.

Some two thirds of the way through his routine, Seabass got down for some intricate floorwork.

(here’s Seabass’ dance off vs Tanner Gudauskas from the Pursuit)

THE PURSUIT SURF MOVIE- Dance off – Tanner vs Seabass

Aaron | MySpace Video

One of the DJ’s was local pro surfer Omar Etcheverry. Here he’s doing the Baby Spice nose scrunch, whilst actually going in and out of the mix, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Come to think of it, Seabass was actually the second best dancer.

Maybe even third.

This guy was pretty funny. He said, “I know, I know. I look like a kook.” Women like guys with a sense of humour, or so they say.

This guy wasn’t out last night but he was at the conny today getting signatures for his Legalize and Tax Pot petition. He asked me what county I voted in and I said “Royal Berkshire.”  He said I could take a photo of him as long as I got his hat in. It’s his team, they are called The Ravens, apparently. There you go, fruitloop, I said it. 

Steamer Lane may be in Santa Cruz but Santa Cruz is also in America. God and uneconomical, impractical cars are never far away. They look cool though.

Spanish photog Sergio Villalba was getting right into the hippy vibes today at the Lane. I spotted him taking tree-hugging to second base, the deviant.