Im currently in California competing in the US Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach, the waves were surprisingly really good today probably the best huntington Ive ever surfed and i made it through my heat and now into the round of 24 so im a happy camper. A few weeks before i came over here I was a part of the World team to compete in the X-Games in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. This year was the first year theyve had girls in the games and they also changed it from the East Vs. West coasts of USA, to now, team USA versus the World. Pretty cocky i thought! haha. Our team consisted of Australia’s Chelsea Hedges(formerly Gerogeson), Peru’s Sofia Mulanovich, France’s Leeann Curren, New Zealand’s Paige Hareb and Myself, with the one and only 7 times world camp Layne Beachley as our coach. Now thats pretty much an unbeatable team right there, or so we thought. The way the Game is run, its kinda like a basketball or football match. One team heads out all together while the other team watches, four surfers are active and two are on the bench but still surf. The four active surfers get their single best wave counted to make a total score out of 40. There’s three 16minute periods for each team, and we get five, 3minute timeouts over the 3 periods. kinda confusing but really fun. To our surprise, team USA went out in the first period and went absolutely nuts in the sizey 6-8ft death pits. With Lisa Anderson their coach, Hawaiians Keala Kennelly and Rochelle Ballard set the pace each getting massive tubes and Melanie Bartels along with Courtney Conologue, Carissa Moore and Megan Abubo all stepped it up to blow us all away and leave us to play catch up the entire game. We ended up needing 3 points to get ahead in the last period and we couldnt get it, so team USA were the champs…..and just to top it off, it was July 4th, Independence day aswell. SpewiN!! It was a great experience though and i cant wait to get some revenge next year!!
After HB Im heading home and gearing up for the next ASP Womens world tour event in Itacare, Brazil. Im still tied for first in the ratings with Chelsea Hedges so hopefully that wont change too much after brazil.

Enjoy

Steph:)